Category Archives: B. SKI

As a learning support specialist teacher, I teach students with varying abilities and learning designations. Using Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) will be highly beneficial as it offers students a different style and approach to learning.  I often incorporate visuals and videos when teaching my students and also ensure I provide a break down and step by step instructions. Using WISE will allow for this while working at their own pace. My students would appreciate the breakdown of questions and prompts as it allows them to focus on the specific task. Slotta & Lonn (2009) describe WISE has having many types of activities which “promotes autonomous learning.”

Looking at the Photosynthesis Project (ID: 9932), there seemed to be lack of autonomous learning to enhance student learning. Some changes I made were I added in videos to the introductory activities and added in additional images to activities that were mainly text based. Thinking about my students who are visual learners and require visuals to make connections to text, this was an important change because the content was mainly all text. Further, for my English Language Learners (ELL) they rely heavily on visuals to learn concepts and to make connections.

I made changes to the Quiz by removing the “only three chances to complete this quiz” component, as this will cause stress for some students and would not enhance learning. I did like how with some questions, there was immediate feedback for the learner and if the student made an incorrect error, they were redirected to the section that needed to be reviewed as it wouldn’t let the student move forward. This is essential as with some programs, students just click through and going through the motions without gaining knowledge. This way, students go back to review concepts they don’t understand and can spend more time in those areas.

Further, I added some collaboration components for some of the activities as this was lacking in this unit. Overall I believe the WISE can have place within the classroom as supplementary support to enhance learning, but it will be important that the WISE activities are tailored to the students’ needs.

Linn, M. C., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. D. (2003). WISE design for knowledge integration. Science education, 87(4), 517-538.

Slotta, J. D., & Linn, M. C. (2009). WISE science: Web-based inquiry in the classroom. Teachers College Press.

“Learning environments that concentrate on conveying to students what scientists already know do not promote inquiry. Rather, an emphasis on inquiry asks that we think about what we know, why we know, and how we have come to know.” (National Research Council, 2000, p.5-6)

Simply, WISE projects aims to promote scientific inquiry by progressively working through with a student in a technology-enhance learning environment. Writing from SKI and WISE theorist strongly believes that learning is a personal and social construct where learners cycle through a process to assess, modify and revise current cognitive representations using technology-enhanced learning environment.

Key WISE prioritize are:

• Making learning accessible

Many theoriets believe that students can better access information when it is more interesting and personal(Linn, Clark, & Slotta, (2003); Gobert, Snyder & Houghton (2002)). In addition to this definition, Gobert, Snyder & Houghton (2002) believe that in order to make learning more accessible, the discussed topic and the way in which it is presented should be appropriate for their individual age and skill level.

• Making thinking visible

Another recurrent theme of the WISE pedagogy is to make thinking visible. Often, this materializes as comparing and contrasting previous assumptions, critiquing the views of others and using digital organizational tools and visualizers. More importantly, these visual modes of representation should be interactive.

• Making learning a social process

Scholars who write about WISE believe that students should take advantage of social cognition. Students’ work should utilize asynchronous or synchronous tools to solicit peer review and response.

Given this premise, here are some modifications for a WISE project to allow the WISE priorities to be made more prominently. Using “Thermodynamics Challenge” as the cornerstone from the WISE library, a few supplementary activities are added and some modification to the platform of the WISE activity. More noticeably, the supplementary activities and change in the documenting platform promotes more visible thinking and ensuring a stronger peer learning culture.

Thermodynamic Challenge

This is a project-based assignment promoting a stronger understanding about the way in which heat moves and the role of insulation.

Introduction:

In the selected WISE project, it entices the students by reimagining their roles as consultants to recommend materials for cups to preserve the temperature of its contents.

Addition: Plicker Questions

In order to better identify students’ prior knowledge and misconceptions, quick response activities allow teachers to easily assess students’ thoughts. The advantage of using Plicker is that it generates a visualization of the recorded feedback in real time. This also supports learning as a group. First, educators can survey students about the kinds of materials for cups that they have used previously for hot and cold drinks. Then, after students complete the 1.5 activities in WISE (i.e. students are asked to choose to use the same or different material), ask students this identical question on Plicker, then show results and prompt a whole class discussion.

Modification: Google Documents

Instead of using the embedded digital notebook, students should complete their work on Google Docs as it can be easily shared and students can directly comment and annotate on the shared work. This also helps promote a network of peer support.

Then, students should continue to follow the WISE project outline and explore with the computer interactive simulation to assess the interaction between the different types of material and time. Using computer simulation is a time saving method to observe the efficiency of the preservation of heat. Next, students should continue to follow the WISE project outline to design, plan and run their experiment (i.e. 1.6 – 1.8).

Modification: Google Documents

Notably, this TELE is lacking further support for scaffolding during the knowledge reconstruction, reflection & negotiation stages. Students are tasked to review and annotate on two other students’ work. Using the ‘Suggestion’ mode, learners should comment and edit on other students’ work in order to  make thinking more visible and accessible. More importantly, Google Documents allow students to comment on specific ideas and details (i.e. lines/parts). Addition, this promotes the idea that learning is a social process. In order to enhance the knowledge reconstruction, teacher should also comment in suggestion mode to help bridge evidence to theory.

Addition: T-chart (Offline)

To make thinking more visible, students should create their own pre and post experiment T-chart to rank the efficiency of the preservation of temperature. Students should first record their predicted ranking and then re-rank the variables after their experiment. This organizer helps students compare their original thoughts and new findings.

Addition: Case studies

This WISE is lacking quality content scaffolds to help students rational their findings. Questions prompts are a good start, however, some students may fail to see the connections in the evidence. The goal of the conclusion of an inquiry is to “seek alternative hypotheses to explain anomalies or unexpected findings, and consider the applicability and impact of the findings to other organisms, theories, and domains” (Kim & Hannafin, 2011, p.406) To make better recommendations and to help fully explain their findings, students should review case studies about insulation in animals and homes. For example, students can watch short youtube clips (e.g. How an igloo keeps you warm; How do Whales, Penguins, and Polar Bears Keep Warm?)

Addition: Sharing Recommendations

Lastly, one area of improvement in the TELE is that students require more support to compare and contrast their recommendations. Again, students should review and assess their peers’ recommendations.

Ultimately, technology should be utilizied as an intellectual partner to promote scientific understanding and and discovery. In general, this WISE project that inquires about thermodynamics provides a sound foundation to investigate the relationship between different types of materials and temperature preservation. However, this WISE project on thermodynamics requires some modification in order to making thinking more visible and accessible and to enhance the social learning culture. To fully utilize this WISE project, educators can add content scaffolds and include more sharing and commenting options.

Discussion Questions

What are other digital tools to enhance learning via social means?

What are your thoughts about the relationship between scaffolding tools and WISE pedagogy?

Reference

Gobert, J., Snyder, J., & Houghton, C. (2002, April). The influence of students’ understanding of models on model-based reasoning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, Louisiana. This is a conference paper. Retrieved conference paper Saturday, October 29, 2013 from: http://mtv.concord.org/publications/epistimology_paper.pdf

Inquiry in Science and in Classrooms.” National Research Council. 2000. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9596.

Kim, M. C., & Hannafin, M. J. (2011). Scaffolding problem solving in technology-enhanced learning environments (TELEs): Bridging research and theory with practice. Computers & Education, 56(2), 403-417.

Linn, M., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. (2003). Wise design for knowledge integration. Science Education, 87(4), 517-538. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.10086/abstract

It is hard to imagine the world below our feet. Despite us all inhabiting planet earth, our home that is over 4.5 billion years old, students know very little about the inner workings of this amazing planet. Mud and rocks are part of everyday childhood play, but are rarely the focus of inquiry or scientific investigation outside of what they are told. In order to help to promote true scientific understanding there needs to be an experience that allows “carrying out complex projects and regularly critiquing, comparing, revising, rethinking, and review-ing [student] ideas about these projects” (Linn, Clark, & Slotta, 2003, p.530). This type of action cannot be accomplished through reading information from a book alone. In order to truly make thinking visible and allow for authentic collaboration, we have to make science accessible in the hands of students, this is what helps to foster an attitude of inquiry and promote lifelong learning (Linn, Clark, & Slotta, 2003). To bring the world under us to life I wanted to help edit the Rock Cycle page to allow for more collaboration between students, hands on activities to be done with the digital resources, and unique ways students could represent their thinking other than just answering fill in the blank questions.

The Rocky Cycle WISE project existed as a series of images, text based information, and verbal responses. Essentially the current project acted as a digital textbook. My first task was to edit the introduction to extend the rock cycle graphic that was provided and include a YouTube video from the Science Guy himself Bill Nye, bringing the learning to life and providing more of a relatable context for the students to understand what is under the ground.

Second I wanted to add way for students to make meaning while acquiring new scientific vocabulary. I created a Google Doc for students to record their new vocabulary words, but also a chance to move beyond the textbook definition. Students are invited to capture a contextual image of the word as well as provide their understanding of the term. Because this is a Google Doc, students could also do this collaboratively in teams of learners.

Next I wanted students to have a physical experience beyond the words and images on the page. If we allow for students to model tasks that place an emphasis of the nature of science we help to foster a deeper understanding and promote a lifelong interest and learning of the concept (Gobert, Snyder, & Houghton, 2002). I made a Google Slides choose your own adventure style of learning that took students on a virtual reality experience of the rock cycle using Google Expeditions.

While the virtual experience is valuable and engaging, students still need a real life context to collaborate, practice and apply their learning. The final task was to give students a chance to explore the identification tests for the three types of rocks while being able to demonstrate their learning through screencasting and creating rock trading cards.

This new WISE exploration balances the making of thinking visible, collaboration, and making science hands on and accessible. These activities “takes place somewhere between the extremes, where students are guided, through a process of scientific investigation, to particular answers that are known to the teacher( Furtak, 2006, p.454)

Trish

PS

One extreme difficulty I found while exploring the WISE resources is that a large majority of them are not Chromebook friendly. I therefore made sure that the project I edited could be completely accessible using a Chromebook, which happens to be the largest majority device found in my school district.

References

Furtak, E. M. (2006). The problem with answers: An exploration of guided scientific inquiry teaching. Science Education, 90(3), 453-467

Gobert, J., Snyder, J., & Houghton, C. (2002, April). The influence of students’ understanding of models on model-based reasoning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, Louisiana. This is a conference paper.

Linn, M., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. (2003). Wise design for knowledge integration. Science Education, 87(4), 517-538. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.10086/abstract

I customized the Photosynthesis: Initial Ideas activity on the WISE platform. Personally, I have not taught science above grade 6. Therefore this was a topic I could relate to you. From the outset, I found the original inquiry project to be very text heavy with no visuals, audios or videos. I believe the creator of this project did not take into account the constructivist approach, where learning is active social and situated to alter and empower the learner and in this case through the use of technology.

The original Photosynthesis: Initial Ideas activity did not design and develop their project around the four key components for knowledge integration (Slotta, J. D., & Linn, M. C. 2009). First, making learning accessible is designed to guide students to hypothesize, investigate and make possible predictions. Moreover, asking them to interpret the results of activity based on their predictions. Second, the many multiple choice questions did not allow for making thinking visible. There were a few open-ended questions that did provide some opportunities for the learner to gain insight into their own learning. Third, this article noted the importance of the Learner from others. This project could have included peer review activities where students are guided to critique others thoughts and opinions. Especially, since this more of background knowledge project, it would be vitally important to conduct these types of discussion to alleviate any misconceptions about photosynthesis. Lastly, the authors illustrated that “WISE has many different tools and activities to promote autonomous learning, such as graphing, drawing, data collection, online discussion, note-taking concept-mapping, peer-exchange and reflection” (p. 70), none of the features were used in this project to enhance the learning for the student.

I altered the first three activities in this project to guide students in a more autonomous form of learning that reflects that nature of scientific investigation.  

#1 I introduced the concept of photosynthesis by incorporating a comic strip. Constructivist educators believe that prior knowledge impacts the learning process (Vygotsky, Lev S. 1987). In trying to solve scientific problems students have the opportunity to construct new information into their existing understanding of photosynthesis actively.

#2 As reiterated in the Jasper project, video can be as good an instructional tool to give real-world facts or demonstrate procedural requirements that assist with solidifying the information into long-term memory. For this page, I video gives visual cues of the importance of food has for all living things.

#3 chloroplasts can be a complex concept for students to understand. The luxury of the video is that students can rewatch and understanding those misconceptions. By scaffolding the knowledge (SKI) through the WISE activities students are guided through the process of scientific investigation Furtak, E. M. (2006).

In closing, I did ask a colleague, with significant science and teaching experience, to navigate through the WISE platform.  Interestingly, he came back saying it would not be an instructional tool he would use because the setup and limitation to customize the overall project would deter him from using in the future. I would like to further explore if there other options for providing effective science materials online. 

Furtak, E. M. (2006). The problem with answers: An exploration of guided scientific inquiry teaching. Science Education, 90(3), 453-467.

Slotta, J. D., & Linn, M. C. (2009). WISE science: Web-based inquiry in the classroom. Teachers College Press.

Vygotsky, Lev S. 1987.. Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, trans. Norris Minick. New York: Plenum.

Following the Jasper Project readings, I was excited to explore another platform to extend student learning.  The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) provides students with an individualized learning experience catered to themselves.  Having tried out the program, I do believe that it has a lot of benefits, but like any resource it has some faults.

Linn, Clark and Slotta (2002) define this inquiry learning as “engaging students in the intentional process of diagnosing problems, critiquing experiments, distinguishing alternatives, planning investigations, revising views, researching conjectures, searching for information, constructing models, debating with peers, communicating to diverse audiences, and forming coherent arguments” (p. 518).  Using a scaffolded approach, the program sets to make thinking visible, making the science accessible, helping students to learn from each other, and promote lifelong learning.  They believe that the learning is accessible by providing information that is relevant to the students.  The authors state that WISE invites students to report their ideas, teachers to provide feedback, and the creation of models, simulations, and other representatives to make students learning visible. Additionally, following with Vygotsky’s zones of proximal development, it is recommended that students work in groups of two to help students learn from each other.  Finally, it is hoped that if students are engaging with material that is important to them, they will continue to explore the questions after class.

Following these four guidance, I explored the Designing an Amusement Park Ride project.  Students as assigned to two groups, the thrill team or the safety team.  Taking on the perspective of professions in these fields they are asked to create a ride to add to an amusement park.  As you make your way through the project, students are provided the opportunity to play with slopes but immediate following are asked to answer 3 to 4 multiple choice questions (reminded me of the FSA assessments).  What was lacking also for me was the immediate feedback regarding my answers.  For both the multiple choice and written questions I wrote nonsense answers to see what would happen and it let me progress through without correcting me.  Coming back to the ideas of misconceptions, I think is a perfect example where students are answering questions using their beliefs and not being corrected along the way.  I also found that there was a lack of videos.  Referencing the Jasper project, one of the major positives for that project was the video components to engage students in the material in real-time.  This is an adjustment I would make to this project where students are able to see a real-life example of the ride they are creating, while they are creating it.

Overall though I do believe that this could be a fantastic tool and I will be continuing to play with it.  Especially to see if I can create one that works for the grade 3-5 grade range where there are currently 0 projects.

Linn, M. & Clark, D. & Slotta, J. (2002). WISE Design for Knowledge Integration, Graduate School of Education, University of California at Berkeley, 87(4), 517-538.

I have had the opportunity to work with students who have designations in terms of learning disabilities; therefore, they come to the learning center during their study block or after school to get extra help. I feel that using WISE with my learning center students would be a ‘wise’ idea to help them understand some of the concepts they did not understand fully in class. I would be using WISE as a supplement tool for students to re-learn or perhaps review what they learned in their class. Based on my experience, most of the times these students think that either the teacher went over the material in class way too fast or they were just not paying attention when the lesson was taught. Either way, it shows that they are fully capable of understanding the concept that they missed if taught in a different setting at a different pace using a different PCK.

Using WISE would help these students have a better chance/ another chance at learning the missed material or perhaps the misconceptions that may have taken place the first time they learned about it. WISE would also be a great tool for these individuals as most of the WISE lessons are interactive and one can learn at their own pace in their own time. One of the best thing about WISE lessons is the scaffolding happening starting from the beginning and question prompts as the students go through the lesson to support the learning. My students would benefit a great deal with SKI taking place in WISE lessons as they can go back to the content to re-learn the material if they get the answer wrong for one for one of the questions as they go through the lesson.

I would ask my student to start by going over the table of contents for the lesson, so they see some of the familiar terminologies that they have seen earlier in their class. I chose to edit the “Plate Tectonic” lesson as I have taught this lesson to an Earth science class before and am familiar with the content knowledge in this lesson. This lesson starts with a slide on “Did you feel it?” asking if you felt small-scale earthquakes during the day. One change I would make is to ask my student to google “earthquakes in Vancouver” and see for themselves that how many small-scale earthquakes actually take place every day that are rarely felt by us. The reason why I would make this change is to make this lesson’s beginning a little inquiry-based. Instead of telling them, students learn better if they see it for themselves.

Another change I made in the lesson was to add a “modeling” question at the end of the second lesson’s slides. The question is to ask students to draw “continental-oceanic” vs. “continental-continental” plates on a piece of paper and write about the difference between these two plates on WISE. The reason why I added this is because first, students use “model as a communication tool” (Gobert, Snyder, & Houghton, 2002, p. 5) and second, it helps students test themselves and be confident about certain knowledge. In my setting, where I will only be working with one student at a time, comparing the model with other models would not work. Although, I think students learn a great deal from their peers by evaluating their work. To conclude my lesson with this student, I will ask the student to compare their drawing with the one on the previous slide and point out the differences and make corrections.

Gobert, J., Snyder, J., & Houghton, C. (2002, April). The influence of students’ understanding of models on model-based reasoning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, Louisiana.

I was quite impressed by this week’s topic on the WISE platform; creating a dynamic and interactive platform with collaborative learning and authoring is no easy task. I chose to customize “What Impacts Global Climate Change?” from the WISE library. I chose this primarily because it is currently a very hot topic and the political climate surrounding it is quite stormy. Triple puns aside, Linn et al. (2003) defines inquiry as “engaging students in the intentional process of diagnosing problems, critiquing experiments, distinguishing alternatives, planning investigations, revising views, researching conjectures, searching for information, constructing models, debating with peers, communicating to diverse audiences, and forming coherent arguments” (p. 518). I suspect many of you would agree that inquiry is a desirable learning method in modern education, but the devil is the details so to speak. For instance, one change that I wanted to make was in the simulation Step 2.8 Add Gasses to the Model (click here), unfortunately I could not find a way to do that. As you click on the Drive! button, temperature increases exponentially; students not paying attention could easily miss the confusing scale at the bottom in thousands of years. In addition, there is only one car in the simulation putting out CO2. As this is created for students in grades 6-8, the simulation could be misinterpreted in any number of ways. As an educator, I feel it is necessary to be careful about how we display information, to be as accurate as possible, or else students will construct models and arguments that are not based on actual facts. Given the chance, I would change the image to be more representative (i.e. add more cars, even cows if we want to get technical), have a time scale at the bottom that would be more identifiable, and perhaps have an indicator of how much CO2 is being put in the air as the student presses the button. I would also ensure that the temperature increase is consistent with data from multiple sources (see below) and current statistical models.

Linn, M. C., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. D. (2003). WISE design for knowledge integration. Science education, 87(4), 517-538.

The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) works with teachers, researchers and scientists to create technology enhanced, interactive, inquiry based projects. All of these projects are then editable by teachers to help fit the needs and interests of their students. The project that I chose to edit and revise was called Photosynthesis (ID 23333). I chose this topic as this is one of the topics my class will be learning about in our upcoming science units. I was really impressed with how interactive these projects were. “WISE has also proven its worth for students and teachers in classrooms around the world. This project can be judged a success based solely on the number of teachers who have adopted WISE in their science courses for all topics from grades 6-12 (ages 11-17). More than 100,000 students have now participated in a WISE inquiry project, and more than a thousand teachers” (Slotta & Linn, p.4).

These projects appeal to all types of learners. For example, our visual learners are able to learn through diagrams and videos. They also have some interactive activities that create opportunities for the students to actively engage in their learning. The students are also provided with a variety of ways to show their learning. The Photosynthesis project has multiple choice and short answer questions, as well as drag and drop activities. I would have my students work in pairs to create opportunities for them to collaborate, communicate and problem solve together. I think these projects would work great in a constructivist setting as the students get to learn at their own pace while they work through the different activities. The teacher can guide the students when they are having difficulty. The activities provided in this project, give the students immediate feedback so that they can go back and review the material if needed. If students show an interest in a particular topic, they would be able to branch out and explore the areas of interest in more depth.

I made a couple of changes to the Photosynthesis project. First, I added a BrainPop video about photosynthesis after the page titled “what is photosynthesis.” I did this just in case the students did not understand the diagram or needed a more thorough explanation.

For the open ended questions (listed below) I will have the students write their ideas down on a large post-it note paper that will be displayed in the room. This will give us discussion points after the whole class had completed the project in partners. I find that this helps students expand their thinking.

• Plants Out in Thin Air: Have a look at the healthy plants below. Notice anything they don’t have?
• But how do plants turn these elements into glucose? What do plants do with light energy during photosynthesis?

After my students have completed this project, I would probably make more edits and changes to it. I would use the feedback that they provide to help guide these changes. I found that I did not need to make very many changes as the author of this particular project did a great job. I also think that as I become more comfortable with using this program, I would feel more comfortable making more changes. The next project that I am interested in editing is Climate Change as my students will be working on this topic during Earth Month (April).

References:

Slotta, J. D. & Linn, M. C. (in press). WISE Science: Inquiry and the Internet in the Science Classroom. Teachers College Press.