1,721,225 research outputs found
Developing and Integrating an Augmented Reality App for Teaching and Learning About Enzymes
Full text linkIn this chapter, we report on the development of an augmented reality (AR) app for teaching the working of enzymes . The aim of the study presented was to investigate how teachers and developers can work together in creating technology for education, in this case AR for teaching biology. In the project, four teachers from two secondary schools participated in a Lesson Study (LS) team with educators and developers of teacher training institutes and a professionals specializing in creating applications for virtual and augmented reality. We report on the process of development, the resulting app and lessons as well as on the first experiences in the classroom. The main conclusion on the process concerns the integration between lesson design and app development. Basic preparations on acquainting teachers with the use of AR and its content need to be made before starting the design and development cycl
Inquiry-based learning in lower-secondary mathematics education in China (Beijing) and the Netherlands
No full textMathematics is considered to be a human activity and students should actively participate in the learning process. These features are fostered in inquiry-based learning (IBL). IBL is interpreted as a teaching approach that challenges students to solve problem situations before formal explanations and solution procedures are provided. The understanding and practices of IBL might be impacted by teaching cultures, which are considered to be remarkably different in East Asia and the West and have led to stereotypes. This study tried to move beyond these stereotypes and explored the current situations of IBL in lower-secondary mathematics education. China, specifically Beijing, and the Netherlands were taken as examples of the two teaching cultures. Perspectives of students, teachers, textbooks and classroom practices were explored. Chapter 2 focuses on students’ experience of IBL-related activities in mathematics lessons and their preference. 858 Beijing students from 30 classes and 441 Dutch students from 19 classes participated in the survey. Results show that generally the Beijing sample reported experiencing IBL activities in most mathematics lessons and the Dutch sample in some lessons. Students in both samples preferred the same amount of IBL activities as they experienced. Students’ reports show similar patterns. Chapter 3 focuses on beliefs and practices related to IBL described by mathematics teachers. 30 Beijing and 19 Dutch teachers participated in the semi-structured interviews. Results show that the two groups of teachers mentioned many shared IBL beliefs and practices. Compared to the Beijing teachers, although the Dutch teachers did not indicate a more frequent use of IBL as expected, they seemed to describe a lower level of teacher support. Chapter 4 focuses on to what extent opportunities for IBL are provided in mathematics textbooks through analyzing 404 Beijing and 244 Dutch algebra and geometry tasks. Results show many shared IBL features between the Beijing and Dutch textbooks. The textbooks allow students to make some choices to organize mathematically and explore solution procedures, but not to question, hypothesize, collaborate, communicate or reflect. Higher levels of IBL are rarely achieved. Chapter 5 focuses on to what extent IBL practices are involved in Chinese mathematics lessons. This chapter is based on 24 lessons of five Beijing teachers, including 19 usual lessons and 5 required IBL lessons. Compared with the usual lessons, the teachers distributed more time to introduce new content in the IBL lessons, while they kept whole-class activity as the dominating form, and they did not adjust much with respect to IBL practices. More opportunities for students to pose questions to tackle and hypothesize should be provided. Generally, although students reported some experiences of IBL in their lessons, mathematics teachers may not have a complete understanding of IBL and the full IBL cycle, thus they often do not include all phases of the IBL cycle in their teaching. This is possibly also related to the lack of abundant opportunities for IBL present in textbooks. Many shared features related to IBL between our Beijing sample and Dutch sample were identified, which challenges the stereotypes about teaching cultures
A Naturalistic Inquiry into Student Conceptions of Computing Technology and their Role for Learning and Transfer
Full text linkSchüler/innen zu befähigen, die allgegenwärtige Rechentechnik in ihrem Umweld zu erkennen und zu bewerten ist ein international proklamiertes Ziel sekundärer Informatikbildung. Zu diesem Zweck müssen sie von ihrem schulischen Wissen auch tatsächlich im Alltag Gebrauch machen. Ausgehend von Theorien zu Lerntransfer und existierender Forschung zu Schülervorstellungen, untersucht diese Dissertation die Denk- und Lernprozesse von Schüler/innen über konkrete informatische Geräte.
Die erste Studie untersucht, welche Arten von Technik Schüler/innen allgemein unterscheiden. Ich stelle eine Grounded Theory zu einer entsprechenden Taxonomie vor. Diese legt nahe, dass Rechentechnik keine vordergründige Kategorie für sie darstellt, was entsprechenden Transfer erschweren würde. Die zweite Studie untersucht, wie Schüler/innen Rechen- von Nicht-Rechentechnik unterscheiden. Ich stelle eine Grounded Theory entsprechender Denkprozesse vor. Diese zeigt, dass etliche Schüler/innen Rechentechnik unsachgemäß anhand inhärenter Fähigkeitsgrenzen unterscheiden, was ebenfalls Transfer behindern würde. Die dritte Studie untersucht daraufhin Lernprozesse im Kontext einer Intervention, die die oben genannten Punkte adressieren soll. Sie zeigt, dass einige Schüler/innen Probleme damit haben, Rechentechnik als gleichzeitig ökonomisch und leistungsfähig zu verstehen, was wiederum seine Verbreitung und Auswirkungen einschränkt. Die Analyse legt zudem erste Richtlinien für das Design entsprechender Interventionen nahe.
Die Studien werden anschließend integriert diskutiert. Insbesondere stelle ich Lernziele und Aktivitäten vor, welche eine Teilantwort meiner ursprünglichen Leitfrage bilden: was müssen Schüler/innen lernen, um Rechentechnik im Alltag adäquat zu erkennen und zu bewerten? Ich diskutiere Implikationen für die Praxis sowie potentielle weiterführende Forschung, vor allem im Bezug zu einer Informatikbildung, die sich als Säule moderner Allgemeinbildung versteht.Enabling students to recognize and evaluate the ubiquitous computing technologies in their lives is an internationally proclaimed goal of a secondary informatics education. To that end, they need to actually engage with their school-learned knowledge in the context of everyday situations. Based on theories of knowledge transfer and prior research on student conceptions, this thesis investigates students' related thinking and learning processes.
The first study investigates what kinds of technology students generally distinguish. I propose a grounded theory for a related taxonomy. It suggests that computing technology is, in fact, not a very salient kind of technology for many, which poses a challenge for related transfer. The second study investigates how students even distinguish computing from non-computing technology. I propose a grounded theory of their related reasoning processes. It shows that students may inappropriately distinguish computing devices on the basis of inherent capability limitations, which would also be detrimental to transfer. The third study investigates students' learning processes in the context of an intervention designed to address these issues. It revealed that several students apparently had difficulty to conceive of computing technology as simultaneously economical and powerful, thus limiting its potential ubiquity and impact. The analysis also indicates some initial guidelines for the design of related interventions.
The three studies are then integrated and discussed. In particular, I propose a set of learning objectives and activities as a partial answer to my original guiding question: what is it that students need to learn in order to adequately recognize and evaluate computing technologies in their lives? I discuss implications for practice and potential avenues for future research, especially with respect to a general informatics education that regards itself as part of a contemporary general education
Guiding Student Thinking Through Teacher Questioning When Learning with Dynamic Representations
No full textDynamic representations (e.g., dynamic geometry software GeoGebra for mathematics learning and PhET simulations for science learning) offer excellent opportunities for students to conduct investigations and to formulate explanations for the visualized phenomena. In order for this to be effective, students need guidance, for example, for planning their investigations and reflecting on their actions. One way to support students is by prompting them by using questions that are adapted to the students’ current situation. This chapter focuses on how pre-service teachers provide guidance for students through questioning and by both structuring and problematizing student learning. Data comes from science lessons taught by pre-service primary school teachers and mathematics lessons taught by pre-service subject teachers. The analysis focused on the different question types the pre-service teachers used as well as how their questioning was adapted to students’ situation. The results show how the pre-service teachers used questions both to structure student thinking and to problematize their answers and reasoning. Questioning was not always adapted to the students’ needs. We propose that adapting teacher questioning to student thinking requires balancing between structuring and problematizing and high level of interpretation from the teacher. Teachers’ skills for interpretation are still beyond the skills of software. Implications for teaching with dynamic representations are discussed.peerReviewe
Virtual Reality Enzymes: Interdisciplinary and international project towards an inquiry-based pedagogy
Full text linkEducation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is moving towards more inquiry-based and creativity-stimulating pedagogies. Part of a curriculum based on such pedagogies should be challenging learning activities that engage students in investigation. At the same time, it is imperative that such activities are developed and validated in collaboration with the teachers who will incorporate them in their lesson planning. In this project, educators, researchers, and developers from Singapore and the Netherlands are working closely to develop innovative tools that assist biology education. Model-based and virtual reality-enabled solutions are being studied through interdisciplinary and international collaboration among the project members from the two countries
Virtual Reality Enzymes: An Interdisciplinary and International Project Towards an Inquiry-Based Pedagogy
Full text linkEducation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is moving towards more inquiry-based and creativity-stimulating pedagogies. Part of a curriculum based on such pedagogies should be challenging learning activities that engage students in investigation. At the same time, it is imperative that such activities are developed and validated in collaboration with the teachers who will incorporate them in their lesson planning. In this project, educators, researchers, and developers from Singapore and the Netherlands are working closely to develop innovative tools that assist biology education. Model-based and virtual reality-enabled solutions are being studied through interdisciplinary and international collaboration among the project members from the two countries
Designing learning opportunities for the hardest to reach - Game-based mathematics learning for out-of-school children in Sudan
No full textWorldwide, 61 million children are not in school. Despite many campaigns and initiatives, this number has not decreased over the last 10 years. There is a growing recognition that especially the most marginalised children will not be reached by simply expanding the current education system. Innovative education technology, coupled with a context specific approach, could provide opportunities. This thesis describes a project that attempts to provide education for hard to reach children. To support children to learn, without additional instruction from teachers, it was decided to design and develop a mathematics game, targeting children in Sudan with no ready access to education (in remote areas, nomadic or Internally Displaced People). The overall question of this thesis is: How can children in remote villages in Sudan learn mathematics from playing a mathematics game without additional instruction from teachers? As there was no existing curriculum-based, Arabic mathematics game, a new game had to be designed. Following a research-based approach, a set of requirements for a mathematics game that could reach these children was identified. Then the mathematics game was designed, developed and evaluated. To study whether children in remote villages in Sudan can learn mathematics from playing the game autonomously, two pilots were carried out. Pilot I focused on the question whether out-of-school children in remote villages in Sudan can learn mathematics from playing the game at all. Following positive results, sustained learning was studied in pilot II; a longer pilot, including more children and more, diverse, learning objectives. The question whether children can learn can be answered with a wholehearted ’yes’. Children who played the game have learned as much as, and probably more than, children in the control groups (no education in the same period; informal education in the same period). The set of requirements that was identified and the careful game design have resulted in a mathematics game that is engaging and motivating for the target population, leading to significant learning results. Unintentionally, even the flexibility of the game-based learning approach was proven: children only played an average 2-3 days a week instead of the planned five days a week and still increased their test scores significantly. This shows that skipping a few days a week, or even a whole week once in a while, does not get in the way of learning. Finally, the influence of child-related and context factors on learning effect was studied. The distance to the nearest primary school, self-esteem and self-efficacy showed positive correlations with test results, with a medium effect. At the same time, self-esteem has increased during the pilot. For the Sudan game, this does not mean immediate changes are necessary. When taking the game to a school context, changes should be made. At the same time, the design process and the game components can and have been used to adapt the game. The mathematics game has been adapted for Lebanon and Jordan, with Syrian refugees in mind. In addition, a literacy game for Sudan and Jordan was designed and developed
Chasing Newton: Designing and implementing an intrinsically integrated game on Newtonian mechanics
Full text linkIt has long been a coveted idea to combine the motivational aspects of games with learning in formal education. Digital educational games have indeed shown potential in this respect. However, individual educational games demonstrate large variations in (learning) outcomes. Ensuring that learning and gameplay are integrated with each other appears to be the key to obtaining higher learning outcomes. This is referred to as intrinsic integration. This dissertation adds to the body of knowledge on the characteristics that make educational games effective, realizing that no easy fix exists. To use a game in formal education, students should be able to transfer their acquired conceptual knowledge from the game context to other scenarios. This is possible by embedding the game in other learning activities. This dissertation describes four studies that were conducted to answer the main research question: How can a digital intrinsically integrated game be designed and implemented in a lesson fostering conceptual knowledge and transfer regarding Newtonian mechanics? Findings of our studies provide more insight on how students learn using a digital educational game. We developed a guiding frame for designing an intrinsically integrated game. Our studies demonstrate the benefits of embedding an educational game within other learning activities. Based on our findings, we give practical recommendations for such learning activities. Our studies provide an in-depth analysis, giving more insight on students’ learning and providing recommendations for others who want to venture into the wonderful world of game didactics
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