Teachers’ designs of web- based inquiry learning environments as a probe for inquiry teaching and learning frameworks Alexia Sevastidou, Constantinos P. Constantinou Learning in Science Group, University of Cyprus Research is supported by Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation CBLIS 2010 Warsaw
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Teachers’ designs of web-based inquiry learning environments as a probe for inquiry teaching and learning frameworks Alexia Sevastidou, Constantinos P.
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Teachers’ designs of web-based inquiry learning environments as a probe forinquiry teaching and learning frameworks
Alexia Sevastidou, Constantinos P. ConstantinouLearning in Science Group, University of Cyprus
Research is supported by Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation
CBLIS 2010Warsaw
Research overview• Research goals
• How teachers elaborate inquiry as a teaching and learning framework through their efforts to design web-based inquiry learning environments
• How these teachers subsequently transfer their theoretically informed designs of inquiry-based teaching into classroom practice
• Pilot study to explore the affordances and constraints of • a) a design-based learning approach to teachers’
preparation for inquiry based learning and teaching• b) web-based tools that were developed to provide
teachers’ scaffolding for the task of designing
The problem
• Science curricula policy documents internationally emphasize inquiry as the primary context for learning science (Bybee, 2005)
• Many teachers appear to have difficulty creating classroom environments that are inquiry-based, and to support their students in developing informed views of scientific inquiry and the nature of science (Chiapetta & Adams, 2000; Lederman, 1992; Marx et al., 1994; Minstrell & van Zee, 2000)
What is inquiry-based science teaching?
• A multifaceted approach to teaching that can be used to accomplish many differing purposes (Deboer, 2004)
• Difficult to be framed in specific learning and teaching sequences
• Students in K-12 science classrooms should (NRC, 1996)– develop abilities to do scientific inquiry: identifying and posing
questions, designing and conducting investigations, analyzing data and evidence, using models and explanations, and communicating findings
– gain understandings about scientific inquiry: how scientists conduct their work, how concepts related to the nature of science
• Teachers should facilitate students in acquiring deep understanding of science concepts, carrying out inquiry
What impacts teachers’ ability to teach science as inquiry?
• The complex interactions of various factors– Contextual: such as school context, subject matter, assessment
standards– Personal: beliefs and knowledge (Wallace & Kang, 2004)
• Research documents that science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs have a profound effect on all aspects of their teaching (Magnusson et al., 2002)
• Knowledge of science concepts, pedagogical content knowledge, children’s developmental level and abilities
• Beliefs about learners and student learning, the nature of science, the role of the teacher
Our approach to inquiry based learning and teaching
• We interpret inquiry as a teaching and learning framework that seeks to promote collaborative development of conceptual models with interpretive capacity through classroom practices and discourse that highlights some aspects of authentic science.
• Inquiry should rely on self-regulated learning sequences with an emphasis on active engagement, discursive argumentation and emergent student autonomy.
Our approach to teacher learning
1. Learning settings should enable teachers to reflect upon their beliefs and understandings about learning, teaching, students, and the subject matter (Davis, 2003),
2. Learning experiences should be situated in meaningful contexts for teachers (Magnusson et. al, 2002)
3. Teacher learning should be framed in constructivist learning theory (Borko & Putnam, l996)
4. Teacher-learning communities should be transformed into knowledge-building communities (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006)
Characteristics of design as an approach to teacher learning
•Can provide teachers a context to reflect upon their beliefs and understandings about learning and teaching
Ill- structured problem solving
(Simon, 1973)
Ill- structured problem solving
(Simon, 1973)
•Can frame teachers’ learning in constructivist learning theory
Process of reflective judgment (Kitchner,
1981)
Process of reflective judgment (Kitchner,
1981)
Constructionist task, building a public
artifact(Papert, 1991)
Constructionist task, building a public
artifact(Papert, 1991) •As a complex activity it promotes
and is favored by collaboration
Alexia Sevastidou
Methodology
• Pilot study, fall semester 2009– Semester long graduate course at the University of
Cyprus about the role of new technologies in science learning and teaching
– 13 X 3hour meetings– Participants: 10 graduate education students– Diverse population, first degree in physics (n=3),
Our approach: Teachers novice designers of web-based inquiry learning environments
•Design task: develop a web-based inquiry learning environment on a scientific topic of their interest
•Design tool: STOCHASMOS a web-based, open-ended authoring tool, employs inquiry scaffolding features
•Relevant scaffolding: Interact with the course website,
•respond to prompts, •receive peer feedback,•reflect on issues and design decisions
Proposed Design SequenceProposed Design Sequence
Access to relevant theoretical information
Access to relevant theoretical information
Alexia Sevastidou
6. More broadly, you need to place more emphasis on frameworks / rubrics / criteria that will allow you to analyze the data and arrive at documented answers to your research questions and then to theoretical claims.When you develop this fully, your presentations will be able to show richer examples of data (eg aspects of the learning environments) and also more details on the procedures you followed to move from the data to the interpretations and the theoretical claims.
Alexia Sevastidou
7. We need graphical / flow chart representations of our "teaching treatment" ie of the ΣΧΕΔΙΑ environment and also of the teaching sequence in the course. For instance these flow charts will need to specify the scaffolds that were available through the teaching strategies and also through the ΣΧΕΔΙΑ tools. In line with the DBR methodology, in your thesis we will need to illustrate how these evolved from one intervention to the next.
Describe your design decisionsDescribe your design decisions
Reflect on your design decisionsReflect on your design decisions
Prompts for reflectionPrompts for reflection
Alexia Sevastidou
6. More broadly, you need to place more emphasis on frameworks / rubrics / criteria that will allow you to analyze the data and arrive at documented answers to your research questions and then to theoretical claims.When you develop this fully, your presentations will be able to show richer examples of data (eg aspects of the learning environments) and also more details on the procedures you followed to move from the data to the interpretations and the theoretical claims.
Alexia Sevastidou
7. We need graphical / flow chart representations of our "teaching treatment" ie of the ΣΧΕΔΙΑ environment and also of the teaching sequence in the course. For instance these flow charts will need to specify the scaffolds that were available through the teaching strategies and also through the ΣΧΕΔΙΑ tools. In line with the DBR methodology, in your thesis we will need to illustrate how these evolved from one intervention to the next.
Driving question
Give and accept peer feedbackGive and accept peer feedback
Sharing ideas, reflections, design decisions on the Reflection WallSharing ideas, reflections, design decisions on the Reflection Wall
Data sources
• Questionnaires administered during the first and the last course meeting
• Responses to questions and reflection prompts submitted through the course web-space
and differences among the five cases of environments
Content analysis scheme 1: Openness of inquiry
• Five essential features of classroom inquiry (NRC, 2000) – 1. Learner engages in scientifically oriented questions – 2. Learner prioritizes evidence in responding to questions – 3. Learner formulates explanations from evidence – 4. Learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge – 5. Learner communicates and justifies explanations
• Environments’ level of openness (level 1, 2, or 3)
Structured Guided Student-Initiated
Inquiry might beLOW HIGH
1 2 3
Findings: All environments received an average a
1.6 – 1.8 rating
Content analysis scheme 2: Types of scaffolding prompts
• Types of scaffolding prompts used in environmentsScaffolding design framework (Quintana et al., 2004)
– Sense Making: constructing meaning and elaborating on new knowledge– Process Management: taking strategic decisions involved in controlling the inquiry process– Articulation and Reflection: constructing, evaluating and articulating what has been learned
• Findings:
Sense Making
Articulation and Reflection
Process Management
Alexia Sevastidou
show excerpts/ examples from data
Content analysis scheme 3: Inquiry patterns
General pattern traced
Activity types
• Inquiry patterns: the way inquiry activities were sequenced• Categories of activities according to their role in the inquiry
sequence.
Alexia Sevastidou
make the scale after finalizing the inquiry patterns of the five approaches
Content analysis scheme 3: Inquiry patterns
• Inquiry patterns: the way inquiry activities were sequenced• Activity types according to their role in the inquiry sequence.
Patterns that were sequential
Data analysis activities missing or limited
Alexia Sevastidou
make the scale after finalizing the inquiry patterns of the five approaches
Content analysis scheme 3: Inquiry patterns
Extended and elaborate patternsEmphasis into theoretical sense making and then progressed into data analysis
Alexia Sevastidou
make the scale after finalizing the inquiry patterns of the five approaches
Content analysis scheme 3: Inquiry patterns
Elaborate data analysis activity sequences, repeated and blended with elaboration and articulation activities
Alexia Sevastidou
make the scale after finalizing the inquiry patterns of the five approaches
Content analysis scheme 3: Inquiry patterns
• Inquiry patterns: the way inquiry activities were sequenced in environments
• Constant comparative method– Recurrence of data selection and analysis activities– Blending of reflection and articulation activities with
data selection and analysis– Required reasoning addressed by planned tasks
Coherence of inquiry pattern
Alexia Sevastidou
make the scale after finalizing the inquiry patterns of the five approaches
Inquiry patterns: attribute analysisRecurrence of data selection and analysis activities
Blending of reflection and articulation activities with data selection
Addressing required reasoning skills through environment tasks
Data analysis: design decisions, reflection on design decisions
• Data analysed qualitatively• Self –reported challenges:
– Specifying an inquiry topic– Specifying and sequencing inquiry tasks– Goal setting– Ways of achieving concept elaboration and understanding– The role of experimentation – The open-ended nature of the approach
• Challenges with inquiry based teaching were problematized and illustrated in environments
Problematizing the issue of sequencing and specifying inquiry tasks
• “A problem we have to deal with is that the students’ final learning products have to come out from the elaboration of various datasets” (Pair5, reflection notes)
• “Developing a sequence of activities is not as hard as finding a way to present the activities so that they will serve your goals. We had to deal with the problem of how to present students the data at each stage”. (Pair5, reflection notes)
• A carefully planned sequence data selection and analysis activities, dealing with a single dataset at a time
Problematizing the issue of choosing an appropriate driving question
• “We are very much concerned with our scenario and I believe it is too directing and shows what the problem is… so we should not ask students to inquire into this problem” (Pair 1, reflection notes)
• “I am concerned though whether we should let the students find out themselves about the problem of water shortage or whether we should state this in our scenario” (Pair1, reflection notes)
• The uncertainty of participants about the issue they wanted to present to students resulted into an incoherent inquiry problem and into an environment with a series of activities that seemed disconnected.
Discussion - Conclusions
• Teachers’ designs shared common characteristics– Participants designed guided inquiry environments where
learners were independent in carrying out the various tasks, but questions pursued, sequence of activities were provided
– The scaffolding on all the environments followed the same trend
• Management prompts were overemphasized revealing a need for teachers to control the flow of activities
• Commonalities in designs can be attributed to– Functionality provided by the authoring platform e.g. the
absence of dedicated sense making tools– Scaffolding provided through the course
Discussion - Conclusions
• Teachers’ designs varied in the way inquiry sequences and tasks were developed on implicit inquiry patterns– Patterns on which activities were sequenced could
• respond to the nature of scientific inquiry• respond to constructivist pedagogy• serve administrative purposes
• Variations in inquiry patterns can be attributed to participants’ knowledge and beliefs about learning and teaching, learners, nature of scientific inquiry
• Future step to explore how and if knowledge and beliefs progress or change through the process of design
Conclusions
• Self-reported challenges faced by participants were in some cases successfully overcome, while in other cases were not
• In both cases challenges were illustrated in successful or unsuccessful design decisions
• The process of design provided a means for teachers’ challenges to be illustrated in design decisions and allowed them to react on these challenges on a metacognitive level
StudyOn this page you can find information about sound and its properties. Study this information carefully. ObserveWatch a video about sound. Write down your observations in the template named “Observations”.
Example of a sense making prompt
Complete the concept map with information concerning bacteria
Example of an articulation and reflection prompt
Prepare a report to show to your colleagues how your research has progressed.