Inquiry and Resource Use Strategies that Emerge Among Middle Schoolersin a Guided Discovery-Based Program of Game Design Learning

Inquiry and Resource Use

Strategies that Emerge Among

Middle Schoolersin a Guided

Discovery-Based Program of Game Design Learning

ALISE 2014Rebecca Reynolds, Assistant Professor

Xiaofeng Li, Doctoral FellowEun Baik, Doctoral Student

School of Communication & InformationLibrary and Information Science

Rutgers University

Learning Management Systems Are Coming to K-12

LMS Curriculum Management, Content

Course Management

Course Resource Sharing

Prima Facie Assumptions

Using LMS will improve teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes at middle school and high school level.

• Where are the data?

Questions of infrastructure:

• 1:1 teacher and 1:1 student computer availability; printers; scanners

Prima Facie Assumptions

Teachers:

• Questions of fit: Subject domain, topic, assignment, grade level

• Teacher’s own digital and information literacy, individual differences

• Organizational skills

• Information architecture / user interface design capabilities• Navigation, labeling, categorizing, language

• What material makes sense to digitize, what makes sense to keep in print?

• How to effectively incorporate their own and students’ LMS access and use into precious school instructional hours: During class? After school? At home? Homework?

Prima Facie Assumptions

Students:• Age / grade level / developmental readiness• Individual differences (gender, SES, ELL status, IEPs, struggling readers, etc.)

• Prior technology experience / expertise variation• Home access variation • Information and digital literacy:

• Orientation to and navigation of hypertextual environment• Internet reading• Searching/Finding/Interpeting/Using

Inquiry, Collaboration, Creation during a Game Design Course

My research investigates MS and HS student engagement in collaborative information-seeking behavior, within a pilot game design learning program involving a wiki-based LMS as a “coordinating representation” and productive social media platform. Design affordances / constraints of the environment Student inquiry and collaborative processes Learning outcomes: successes, struggles / challenges• This testbed environment and program is richly and deeply

integrated into the schools in which it is being piloted.• Research is eliciting understandings that are generalizable to wider

LMS proliferation, and may have implications for their successful implementation.

INTERVENTION: Guided discovery-based game design program and curriculum offered by the World Wide

Workshop. MS, HS teachers and students gain experience and expertise in a range of agentive digital

practices.

Globaloria is currently active in 4 U.S. states: CA, TX, NY, WV, >2000

students

Learning Management System as Information System

Learning Management System as Information System

Flash software, Wiki Environment, Curriculum, Tutorials

“Hands On” Training Sessions (virtual, local) • Globaloria Academy – In-person, intensive trainings (3)

• Online Mini Webinars - Web-based workshops (7)

Globaloria Mentors ProgramExperienced educators take on a leadership role by supporting other educators

“24/7” Virtual Support • Expert Support via wikis, blogs, email, WebEx

• Educator Community Development – private educators community wiki, peer-to-peer mentoring, weekly educators newsletter, sharing teaching & learning reports

Rewards and Recognition•Teachers: Stipends and Graduate credits are earned•Students: Nationally-Recognized Game Design Competitions

Learning Supports for Students and Educators:

Domains of Learning and Expertise

• Game Example

• Constructionist digital literacy (skills needed in knowledge economy => 6-CLAs)

• Computational thinking through game design in Flash and programming in Actionscript

• Core curricular subject matter:o When game subjects are linked to core curriculum and students deepen

knowledge about topic through online research and design

• STEM career interests: Technology & Engineering; Computer Science

• Motivation, Affect, Attitudes, Life Choices, New Possibilities and Horizons

(Reynolds, Hmelo-Silver, Sorenson, & Van Ness, 2013; Reynolds, Baik, Li, 2013).o “What collaborative information behaviors do middle school

students evidence when given the chance to self-organize their game design task-driven teamwork?”

o Step 1: Categorical analysis o Data sources:

o video recorded face-to-face and virtual interviews with student teams, transcripts, coded in 2 waves in Dedoose

o Step 2: Case study analysis of 4 distinctly dissimilar teams (Firestone, 1993)

o Data sources:o wiki log files, wiki history, teacher quarterly progress

reports, game design evaluation results, and individual student blogs

Research Questions, Methods

Collaborative Information Behavior Research Findings in Globaloria

(Reynolds, Hmelo-Silver, Sorenson, & Van Ness, 2013; Reynolds, Baik, Li, 2013).

o Primary TASK categories that students engaged in during class were identified as:

o game designo game domain narrative developmento game programming

o Students engaged in resource uses on the wiki to support these primary tasks

o Collaboration & information seeking are meta processes supporting the primary game design task

Collaborative Information Behavior Research Findings in Globaloria

(Reynolds, Hmelo-Silver, Sorenson, & Van Ness, 2013; Reynolds, Baik, Li, 2013).

Collaboration:o Teams of 2-4 collaborate to complete a game (& some indivs)o Unstructured collaboration practicesInquiry:o LMS provides information / organizational scaffolds for game

planning, programming, creationo Unstructured inquiry practices

Wiki LMS Resource Uses:o Review of Worked Examples of Existing Gameso Assignment completiono Use of Tutorialso CMCo Review One’s Own Earlier Worko Information seeking for programming solutions to emergent problemso Unsuccessful Attempts.

Findings

o “… we always go back to the wiki and read it over again…”

o “we can use other people’s games from past semester files and get ideas from them.”

o “sometimes I look and can’t find the information.”

o “sometimes the wiki doesn’t have answers to the exact problem we have.”

Findings

Wider Internet Resource Uses:o Internet – texto Internet – videoo Internet – gameso Internet – imageso Evaluation of sources: strategies, challengeso Synthesis of information: how they use it, challenges

“I went to Google and I saw the oil spill, was thinking why did it happen…I was thinking from my teacher, I need more like what happened with an oilspill at Yellowstone River, but went to YouTube, and I put in oil spill in Yellowstone…I ended up picking the Gulf Mexico instead of the Yellow Stone cause the Gulf has more information…I was doing separate search to think ‘what is better, Yellow Stone oil spill, or the Gulf coast?’”

Findings

Non-internet based human resources:o Peer help, o Giving helpo Help desko Teacher expertiseo Alternative resourceso Engagement @ Homeo Other classeso Mainstream media

Exemplifies: Collaborative information seeking

“I just ask someone, could you please check on work, and then they would go ‘yea can you check mine,’ and we check it, that’s how we know what we are doing wrong.”

Findings

Knowledge Building as Conditions to Cultivate in Instructional Design

Reynolds & Hmelo-Silver. (2013). Areas of Convergence in Constructionism, Knowledge Building and Guided Discovery Based Learning in the Globaloria Game Design Initiative. Presented at AERA 2013 in San Francisco, CA.

Scardamalia & Bereiter (2006) describe knowledge building conditions in brief : Knowledge advancement as a community rather than individual

achievement Knowledge advancement as idea improvement rather than as progress

toward true or warranted belief Knowledge of in contrast to knowledge about Discourse as collaborative problem solving rather than as argumentation Constructive use of authoritative information Understanding as emergent

Knowledge building is afforded, but not guaranteed

How does Globaloria structure and scaffold students?

(Reynolds, Hmelo-Silver, Sorenson, & Van Ness, 2013; Reynolds, Baik, Li, 2013)o Little scaffolding for effective discovery-based engagement

with the LMS (e.g., minimal information literacy instruction; no inquiry circles (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007)

• This result may generalize to other present and future LMS implementations with middle school and high school students

• Signals strong need for information literacy skills instruction• Signals strong and growing role for school librarians to

develop and implement scaffolds for more effective “collaborative information literacy”

How does Globaloria structure and scaffold students?

• Guided Inquiry model of Kuhlthau is informing ongoing modifications for information literacy; collaboration (e.g., more explicit information literacy instruction; transportation to transformation in SYNTHESIS AND USE; reciprocal teaching / inquiry circles)

• Quantitative research is investigating role of instructional design factors and individual differences among students as contributors to outcomes (for instance intrinsic motivation)

• The more intrinsically motivated, the more successful• Inquiry process may actually move the needle on some

students’ motivation – opportunity for inquiry creates awareness of personal agency

Scaffolding Information Literacy and Collaboration

• Leverage agency inherent to inquiry; cultivate agency in students

• But don’t lose the learning and knowledge production needed during the inquiry process

• Creating information literacy modifications in Globaloria• Help students track sources, find and use information more

effectively• Delicious; NoodleTools; others?

• Ross Todd: “Transportation vs. Transformation”• Internet reading comprehension literature; Donald Leu

• School librarians can help; professional development of SLs as information literacy experts and curriculum developers => Common Core emphasis on non-fiction information texts; digital environments

[email protected]

Rutgers University websitehttp://comminfo.rutgers.edu/directory/rbreynol/index.html

Thanks to IMLS!

Thanks to my partners!

Globaloria.orgWorldwideworkshop.org

Thank you!

References

• Reynolds, R., & Chiu, M. (2013).  Context matters:  The effect of formal and informal context differences upon pre- to post-program changes in student engagement in a program of game design learning.  Journal of Learning, Media & Technology.

• Reynolds, R.; Baik, EB & Li, X. (2013). Collaborative information seeking in the wild: Middle-schoolers’ self-initiated teamwork strategies to support game design. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST), 2013.

• Reynolds, R., & Chiu, M. (2013). How sustained engagement in game design and social media use among diverse students can mitigate effects of the digital divide. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Education Research Association (AERA), San Francisco, CA, April, 2013.

• Reynolds, R., Hmelo-Silver, C., Sorenson, L., & Van Ness, C. (2013). Interview findings on middle schoolers’ collaboration in self-organizing game design teams. Poster presented at the International Conference of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, July 2013, Madison, WI.

• Reynolds, R., and I. Harel Caperton. 2011. Contrasts in student engagement, meaning-making, dislikes, and challenges in a discovery-based program of game design learning. Educational Technology Research and Development 59 (2): 267–289.

• Reynolds, R. (2011). Children's game design learning in discovery-based contexts: Contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations to student outcomes. Paper presented at the annual International Communication Association (ICA) conference, May 2011, Boston, MA.

• Reynolds, R. (2012). Changes in student attitudes towards 6 dimensions of digital engagement in a program of game design learning. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Education Research Association (AERA), April 2012, Vancouver, Canada.

• Reynolds, R., & Chiu, M. (2012). Contribution of motivational orientations to student outcomes in a discovery-based program of game design learning. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), July 2012, Sydney, Australia.