Category Archives: B. LfU

The most precious and limited commodity in a school is time. Time rules every aspect of our school day from when we enter the building, to when we eat, when we learn, when we socialize. The careful calculation of legislated minutes allocated to specific subjects provides a regimented outline of the siloed subject taught in a sequence outcomes. You need to know this, and this is the amount of time you have to learn it. Now go. There is only enough time (and barely at that) to cover the specific learner outcomes. Traditional science classrooms account for this stop watch method of teaching by covering content through specific lectures and readings that are then applied in a structured laboratory experiment as evidence of understanding (Edelson, 2001). This memorization of inert knowledge is not taking hold in our students. Scientific discovery is meant to mesmerize…not memorize. We have taken the desire out of the learning and used the limited amount of time to effectively develop these rich learning experiences as our rationale (Bodzin, Anastasio, Kulo, 2014).

Scripted lessons teachers use are not motivating students. Inquiry and creativity in science allows us to veer away from the scripted lesson and ask questions that promote critical and creative thinking and might just be the key to changing students attitudes and enhancing achievement (Drapeau, 2014). Curriculum requirements can feel limiting and challenging. These challenges often are what forces inquiry lessons to be pushed to the side as an “enrichment activity”. We are hyperfocused on test scores as a sign of achievement. Yet we are reminded that scores do not tell us about what students imagine, believe, dream, or see…in other words their creativity (Loveless & Griffith, 2014). “We live in an era where test scores are mistaken for learning” and those test scores are too often considered the only indication of preparedness for future success (Spencer & Juliani, 2017, p.19). The fact of the matter is that the jobs of the future do not need “scientists who have memorized the periodic table”, they need creative and independent problem solvers (Libow Martinez & Stager, 2013).

We need to consider our students as thinkers not memorizers. Individuals capable of thinking about the world as well as impacting the world despite their young age (Banet-Weiser, 2007). They need a contextual experience to do this, and we have an opportunity to elicit this type of desire to know (Edelson, 2001). We have the opportunity to allow for true creativity, exploration, and making meaning through scientific discovery if we embrace the diverse perspectives in our schools and authentically use digital tools to play with ideas and not simply use technology for simple investigation (Edelson, 2001; Loveless & Griffith, 2014). We have an opportunity as educators to make a case for creativity and make the time needed to create a learning environment that promotes true and deeper learning. (Robinson & Aronica, 2016).

Exploring the My World and ARcGIS I was reminded of technology like Google Earth that allows for us to have an environment emphasizes hands-on, real-world learning, which engages students using authentic tools for exploration (Perkins, Hazelton, Erickson, & Allan, 2010). Since the upgrade and re-release of the New Google Earth in 2017, students have access to the world at their fingertips anytime, anywhere, on any device.

The new interactive tool menu allows for students to to go beyond simply searching the world. The Voyager feature has built in educational adventures for teachers and students to explore, expanding their spatial literacy while they use the tool to manage, visualize, and interpret information, skills that are vital to advance science and technology and address the world’s complex problems (Perkins, Hazelton, Erickson, & Allan, 2010).

The “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature allows for students to roll the dice and be transported somewhere in the world to discover creating a true example of eliciting a desire to learn and explore.

Beyond the surface map exploration, students can also use the Street View person to go inside the map and look around in 360 degrees.

All of these features combined made me think of the LfU model where there are opportunities to Motivate, Construct, and Refine through a technology enhanced experience. Just recently I was working with a group of junior high students to explore natural disasters and extreme geographical phenomena such as extreme weather. Beyond a simple memorization of why volcanoes erupt, we decided to start a unit of inquiry called Build it Back Better. In this inquiry we needed to understand the inner workings of the earth science behind earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes and other disasters so that we could examine communities that were affected as a result. Our task was to help suggest improvements of design to these ravaged communities by helping them not just build back, but build back better. Our knowledge of earth science was needed to justify our recommendations and designs. I have broken down the lesson using the LfU framework below.

Build it Back Better – a Google Earth Inquiry of Natural Disaster and the Impact on Communities

This project was hugely motivating and personal for the students. They had a desire to know. The students took very seriously improving and protecting these communities and as a result greatly improved their understanding of the “mandatory” science curriculum. This whole project was done by a group of special needs students who typically are dragged through memoization of print material. Taking the time to construct a learning task like this truly mesmerize the students and they learned more than simple memorization could have provided.

Trish

References:

Banet-Weiser, Sarah , (2007). “We, the people of Nickelodeon”: Theorizing empowerment and consumer citizenship. In Kids Rule! : Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship (pp. 1-37). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bodzin, A. M., Anastasio, D., & Kulo, V. (2014). Designing Google Earth activities for learning Earth and environmental science. In Teaching science and investigating environmental issues with geospatial technology (pp. 213-232). Springer Netherlands.

Drapeau, P. (2014). Sparking student creativity: Practical ways to promote innovative thinking and problem solving. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

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

Libow Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Torrance, California: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.

Loveless, D & Griffith, B. (2014). Critical Pedagogy for a Polymodal World. Sense Publishers.  Read Chapter 1, Pages 1- 22

Robinson, K., & Aronica, L. (2016). Creative schools: The grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. NY, NY: Penguin Books.

Spencer, J., & Juliani, A. (2016). Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student. San Diego, California: Dave Burgess Consulting.

I decided to do some search about frequent misconceptions and how LfU may address them:

Misconceptions regarding earth sciences are common and can not only be found in students, but also in textbooks. Stein (2008) presents a 47-item “Science Beliefs Test” that accesses student’s science understanding. When applying it to 305 students, they found that many students held misconceptions (correct response rates ranged from 33% to 94%) such as misconceptions about moon gravity. Stein (2008) argues that students “develop ideas about a variety of science topics before beginning formal science education and that these ideas tend to remain persistent despite efforts to teach scientifically accepted theories and concepts“ (p. 2). Which means: We can teach what we want, misconceptions stay quite fixed.

How can LfU help to address these misconceptions?

LfU motivates students to observe a situation, collect data, communicate the findings, and draw conclusions. This practical work may help to overcome pre-developed misconceptions by inquiry. Communication and group discussion are especially useful to overcome misconceptions (Shapiro, 1988). Also, the teacher can prepare activities or situations where the student understands that his concepts are not appropriate – this dissatisfaction may support faster accommodation of new concepts (Confrey 1990). There is not one approach to support accommodation that suits all students, and thus the teacher has to adopt different strategies for different students (Saeli, 2011). LfU may help here by allowing students to work in open-ended investigation and hands-on labs and by this addressing different needs and skills of the students.

Do you have other ideas on how LfU addresses misconceptions?

References

Confrey, J. (1990). A review of the research on student conceptions in mathematics, science, and programming. Review of research in education, 16, 3-56.

Saeli, M., Perrenet, J., Jochems W.M.G., & Zwaneveld, B. (2011): Teaching Programming in Secondary School: A Pedagogical Content Knowledge Perspective. Informatics in Education, 10(1), 73–88.

Shapiro, B. L. (1988). What children bring to light: Towards understanding what the primary school science learner is trying to do. Developments and dilemmas in science education, 96-120.

Stein, M.; Larrabee, T.G.; Barmann, C. (2008): A Study of Common Beliefs and Misconceptions in Physical Science. Journal of Elementary Science Education, v20 n2 p1-11

I was shocked that I had not encountered the LfU framework prior to this week. It seems to pull many of the concepts and theories that resonate with me into a nice package, and one that is meant to be easily applied to design activities. Brilliant!

Specifically, I enjoy how it leverages some of the most powerful aspects of constructivist, cognitivist and situated learning perspectives (Edelson, 2001, p. 357) and makes them concrete by providing specific criteria that each activity must meet — motivation, knowledge construction, and knowledge refinement, (I started calling it MCR). The paper even provides an amazing reference table that I promptly recreated, which I’ll append to my post.

If I was in the classroom this term I would want to jump on this framework immediately and try it out. Even so, I can think of a number of ways I might use it. I have been trying to pick apart Desmos from all angles this term, and so in searching for neat activities I stumbled upon Will it Hit The Hoop? (http://bit.ly/2clkfWj)

— For context I recommend you quickly try out the Student Preview, it’s pretty great —

Here are my thoughts about the activity, organized using the Table 1 from Edelson’s paper:

If I were delivering this lesson I would likely incorporate an over-arching reflection session at the end which forces students to process everything they had learned. I would then, depending on the skill level (and Grade level) of students, love to have them do their own experiment where they take their own videos of throwing a ball and confirm that even their own throws can be modeled using mathematics. This would encourage even further buy-in for the students than a video of someone else.

What does LfU afford students and teachers?

Well, it should be clear by its very name, learning-for-use. Well-designed activities would finally remove the need for students to ask “when will we ever use this?” because the activities are steeped in real-world contexts.They should, due to their constructivist/cognitivist nature, be designed to set students up for success because they are highly student-centred. Having to consider motivation, construction, and refinement of knowledge before even delivering the activity ensures the students will walk away having been afforded far more than a one-way lecture ever could have. For teachers, LfU provides clear direction both in the design and facilitation of each activity, and allows ample opportunity for teachers to guide and facilitate. It’s a win-win.

But what if students still ask, as they often do, something like “when will we ever use this in real life? I mean, it’s not like calculating trajectories and creating parabolas will help us on a basketball court”. Which is true, they probably won’t. But, the concepts they learn, the understanding and knowledge of the processes they will have internalized, could help them to extend what they learn and apply them to future projects. The teacher could discuss with them the power of these equations – how they are one way to truly predict the future. I bet they couldn’t do that before. The main point is that once they understand that all objects launched adhere to these rules (barring air friction) then the world is their oyster; they could use the concepts to create their own catapult even, or use the equations to program their own computer games. Actual, honest-to-goodness real-life skills. Neat!

References

Bodzin, A. M., Anastasio, D., & Kulo, V. (2014). Designing Google Earth activities for learning Earth and environmental science. In Teaching science and investigating environmental issues with geospatial technology (pp. 213-232). Springer Netherlands.

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.

My World GIS videos, ETEC533 Module B.

Appendix – Table 1 from Edelson (2001)

The Learning-for-Use (LFU) model was designed by Edelson (2001) and consists of three stages: motivation, knowledge construction, and knowledge refinement. Edelson (2001) pointed out that many teachers found covering both the process of scientific inquiry and content daunting. The model was designed to show how content and scientific inquiry could be taught in a complementary fashion together, rather separately. The idea being that the inquiry model itself could be used to foster knowledge acquisition.

I decided to use the grade 6 science BC curriculum to design a lesson using the LfU model. Motivation, Knowledge Construction, and Knowledge Refinement were all taken into account.

Motivation

To facilitate motivation I would use a web quest, which can be very useful in introducing a topic and garnering interest. For my lesson I would likely develop my own but I came across one highly relevant to my subject matter that could be used: https://sites.google.com/site/mihmgruhlke/Home. Prior to students beginning they would record questions that would arise from there previous, in keeping with LfU model. The questions like, “how much do I weigh on the moon” would be posted on our LMS. This activity would happen before the lesson (perhaps on a Friday) so that I could ensure the answers to these questions could be found.

Knowledge Construction

After reviewing what they do know and determining what they what they do not by posing questions the students would engage in the web quest activity. The activities themselves would largely be determined by the questions they want to know. GoogleSky may be incorporated, for example, if students want to know how far we are from Jupiter. The students would explore and discover answers to the questions the pose.

Knowledge Refinement

In the last stage students would “apply their knowledge in meaningful ways” (Edelson, 2001) by reflecting on what they have learned. This would include a reflection on the web quest and the ways that they found knowledge. I would have the students complete online journal posts assessing whether they answered their questions, what they continue to wonder, and how they would assess themselves using a provided rubric. This would all students to “reorganize and reined their knowledge (Edelson, 2001).”

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. http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1002/1098-2736(200103)38:33.0.CO;2-M