LfU – it’s good for you.

Last year, as a culminating activity for the grade 9 electricity unit, I co-designed a project on energy sources.  Students chose a city (from a given list) somewhere in Canada and were tasked with creating a plan to supply it with electricity.  They needed to research the benefits and disadvantages of each type of power plant, decide which were most appropriate for their location, and do a cost analysis indicating how they could supply the energy under the one-time building and monthly costs budgets.  GoogleEarth was used to search each location for geographical features that could be used for power generation.  The final product was a constructed scale map on press board (we used GoogleEarth to help) showing the types and locations of the various plants they chose to power their city, using different coloured lights connected to switches using parallel and series circuits.  Their choices needed to be connected to a legend on the map, meet the power demand and budgets, and be justified with written explanations.

The use of ArcGIS would give further options to this project – students could do an analysis of what type, how many, and where Canada has power plants, and which types of power generation should be expanded further.  Population data can be analysed to see which plants could be used to meet the needs of the region.

I believe this project could fit the LfU model.  This model consists of a 3 step process including motivation, knowledge construction and knowledge refinement (Edelson, 2001).  Edelson sees motivation as being caused by a need for new knowledge – a limitation or gap of the learner’s prior knowledge.  This project helps students to recognize that they need more information – about the city, the energy sources, and the financial costs.  Motivation can be separated into demand and curiosity, (Edelson, 2001), where a need for more information drives the desire to find out more.

Through this project, knowledge is co-constructed as the students research information, and incrementally build their knowledge on power generation and their locations.  Edelson, 2001, divides this step into observations and communication.  Communication is seen when students discuss the pros and cons together and work to develop a consensus of ideas and priorities.  I think observation could be expanded by using ArcGIS to determine current plant usage and populations as discussed above.

The third step of LfU is knowledge refinement which Edelson breaks into reflection and application.  Reflection is seen when students go back over their learned information to assess what their priorities are, and if they meet the stated parameters.  Application is covered by the project being imbedded in a real-world context, where students need to determine the best approach for that region or city.  Radinsky et al emphasize this as well, stating students need to be immersed in the “context of the complex, messy world of actual data”, (2006).

I could also make this project more inquiry based by assessing prior knowledge – asking students to make predictions about which type of power plant is most common, cheapest, or most efficient – to rouse their curiosity.  Additionally, starting with cities with known parameters, will allow students to assess the effectiveness of the current energy plan and energy sources and make comparisons with other cities in the region using ArcGIS.  Collected data and research information could be stored using portfolio-type software such as Progress Portfolio, discussed by Edelson (2001).

Radinsky et al (2006) researched the effectiveness of different assessment strategies.  I did already have a unit test on the material as well as the submitted project, but I think it would be good to add presentation and interview components.  There is great value in using triangulation of assessment to gain a clearer picture of understandings: “Each assessment allowed a somewhat difference glimpse into what students understood and how they understood it and could apply it. The system of assessments provided a more nuanced view of students’ understanding than what would have been possible with only one or two of these”, (Radinsky et al, 2006).  A presentation component enables students to share their ideas and justify their solutions to an audience, while providing evidence of what the group had constructed as a whole, and also some of the understandings of individual group members.  Finally, I would add an individual interview component.  The interview would consist of a series of structured questions to prevent leading questions or a giving away of the answers, and to allow opportunity for spontaneous sharing of understandings.  According to Radinsky, (2006), interviews are the best way of eliciting partial understandings, and this process often yields rich information about what students know.  Using a variety of assessment methods would give a better picture of students’ overall understandings.

• Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,38(3), 355-385.
• Radinsky, J., Sacay, R., Singer, M., Oliva, S., Allende-Pellot, F., & Liceaga, I. (2006, April). Emerging conceptual understandings in GIS investigations. Paper about forms of assessment presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Francisco, CA. Available from Google Scholar.