- Award ID(s):
- 1846227
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10287047
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Educational measurement issues and practice
- ISSN:
- 0731-1745
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Background/Context: Bi/multilingual students’ STEM learning is better supported when educators leverage their language and cultural practices as resources, but STEM subject divisions have been historically constructed based on oppressive, dominant values and exclude the ways of knowing of nondominant groups. Truly promoting equity requires expanding and transforming STEM disciplines. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article contributes to efforts to illuminate emergent bi/multilingual students’ ways of knowing, languaging, and doing in STEM. We follow the development of syncretic literacies in relation to translanguaging practices, asking, How do knowledges and practices from different communities get combined and reorganized by students and teachers in service of new modeling practices? Setting and Participants: We focus on a seventh-grade science classroom, deliberately designed to support syncretic literacies and translanguaging practices, where computer science concepts were infused into the curriculum through modeling activities. The majority of the students in the bilingual program had arrived in the United States at most three years before enrolling, from the Caribbean and Central and South America. Research Design: We analyze one lesson that was part of a larger research–practice partnership focused on teaching computer science through leveraging translanguaging practices and syncretic literacies. The lesson was a modeling and computing activity codesigned by the teacher and two researchers about post–Hurricane María outmigration from Puerto Rico. Analysis used microethnographic methods to trace how students assembled translanguaging, social, and schooled practices to make sense of and construct models. Findings/Results: Findings show how students assembled representational forms from a variety of practices as part of accomplishing and negotiating both designed and emergent goals. These included sensemaking, constructing, explaining, justifying, and interpreting both the physical and computational models of migration. Conclusions/Recommendations: Implications support the development of theory and pedagogy that intentionally make space for students to engage in meaning-making through translanguaging and syncretic practices in order to provide new possibilities for lifting up STEM learning that may include, but is not constrained by, disciplinary learning. Additional implications for teacher education and student assessment practices call for reconceptualizing schooling beyond day-to-day curriculum as part of making an ontological shift away from prioritizing math, science, and CS disciplinary and language objectives as defined by and for schooling, and toward celebrating, supporting, and centering students’ diverse, syncretic knowledges and knowledge use.more » « less
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Abstract This paper presents an implementation of Connected Spaces (CxS)—an ambient help seeking interface designed and developed for a project‐based computing classroom. We use actor network theory (ANT) to provide an underutilized posthumanist lens to understand the creation of collaborative connections in this Computational Action‐based implementation. Posthumanism offers an emerging and critical extension to sociocultural perspectives on understanding learning, by pushing us to decenter the human, and consider the active roles that human and non‐human entities play in learning environments by actively shaping each other. We analyse how students in this class adjusted their help‐seeking and collaborative habits following the introduction of CxS, a tool designed to foster (more inter‐group) collaboration. ANT proposes generalized symmetry—a principle of considering human, non‐human and more than human entities with equivalent and comparable agency, leading to describing phenomena as networks of actors in different evolving relationships with each other. Analysing collaborative interactions as fostered by CxS using an ANT approach supports design‐based research—an iterative design revision process highlighting understandings about design as well as learning—by providing a temporal and informative lens into the relationship between actors and tools within the environment. Our key findings include a framing of technologies in classrooms as bridging
agentic gaps between students and becoming actors engaging in different behaviours; learners enacting new agencies through technologies (for instance a more comfortable non‐intrusive help seeker), and the need for voicing and teachers to connect help networks in CxS equipped classrooms.Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic
Collaborative learning is a valuable skill and practice; opportunities to mentor others are critical in empowering minoritized learners, especially in STEM and computing disciplines.
School norms solidify a power and expertise hierarchy between teachers and learners and fail to productively support learners in learning from each other.
Additionally, lack of awareness about peers' knowledge is a common hindrance in students knowing who to ask for help and how.
What this paper adds
An example of a designed interface called Connected Spaces with potential to foster more inter‐student collaboration, especially outside of mandated within‐group collaboration—in the form of cross‐group help seeking and help giving.
A design based research study using actor network theory highlighting the limitations of Connected Spaces in sparking notable behaviour change among students by itself but being retooled as a teacher support tool in enabling cross‐group collaborations.
Presenting conceptions of collaboration through technologies as bridging agentic gaps and acting with new agencies in performing help‐seeking related actions.
Provoking the idea of testing emerging technologies in classrooms along with sharing our analyses and reflections with the classroom as a key idea in computing education—surfacing the gap between designed intentions and the different kinds of extra social work needed in the on‐ground success of different technologies.
Implications for practice and/or policy
Designers and researchers should create and test more interfaces alongside teachers across different classrooms and contexts aimed at supporting different kinds of voluntary collaborative interactions.
Curricula, standards and school practices should further center providing students with opportunities to engage as mentors and build communities of learning across disciplines to empower minoritized students.
Researchers engaging in design based research should consider using more posthumanist lenses to examine educational technologies and how they affect change in learning environments.
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Abstract Global science education reform calls for developing student knowledge-in-use that applies the integrated knowledge of core ideas and scientific practices to make sense of phenomena or solve problems. Knowledge-in-use development requires a long-term, standards-aligned, coherent learning system, including curriculum and instruction, assessment, and professional learning. This paper addresses the challenge of transforming standards into classrooms for knowledge-in-use and presents an iterative design process for developing a coherent and standards-aligned learning system. Using a project-based learning approach, we present a theory-driven, empirically validated learning system aligned with the U.S. science standards, consisting of four consecutive curriculum and instruction materials, assessments, and professional learning to support students’ knowledge-in-use in high school chemistry. We also present the iterative development and testing process with empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of our learning system in a five-year NSF-funded research project. This paper discusses the theoretical perspectives of developing an NGSS-aligned, coherent, and effective learning system and recaps the development and testing process by unpacking all essential components in our learning system. We conclude that our theory-driven and empirically validated learning system would inform high school teachers and researchers across countries in transforming their local science standards into curriculum materials to support students’ knowledge-in-use development.
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In recent years, Wyoming has developed Computer Science (CS) standards for adoption and use within K-12 classrooms. These standards, adopted in January of 2022, go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year. The University of Wyoming has offered two different computer science week-long professional developments for teachers. Many K-12 teachers do not have a CS background, so developing CS lessons plans can be a challenge in these PDs.This research study is centered around three central questions: 1) To what extent did K-12 teachers integrate computing topics into their PD created lesson plans; 2) How do the teacher perceptions from the two CS PDs compare to each other; and 3) How was the CS PD translated to classroom activity? The first PD opportunity (n=14), was designed to give hands-on learning with CS topics focused on cybersecurity. The second PD opportunity (n=28), focused on integrating CS into existing curricula. At the end of each of these PDs, teacher K-12 teachers incorporated CS topics into their selected existing lesson plan(s). Additionally, a support network was implemented to support excellence in CS education throughout the state. This research study team evaluated the lesson plans developed during each PD event, by using a rubric on each lesson plan. Researchers collected exit surveys from the teachers. Implementation metrics were also gathered, including, how long each lesson lasted, how many students were involved in the implementation, what grades the student belonged to, the basic demographics of the students, the type of course the lesson plan was housed in, if the K-12 teacher reached their intended purpose, what evidence the K-12 teacher had of the success of their lesson plan, data summaries based on supplied evidence, how the K-12 teachers would change the lesson, the challenges and successes they experienced, and samples of student work. Quantitative analysis was basic descriptive statistics. Findings, based on evaluation of 40+ lessons, taught to over 1500 K-12 students, indicate that when assessed on a three point rubric of struggling, emerging, or excellent - certain components (e.g., organization, objectives, integration, activities & assessment, questions, and catch) of K-12 teacher created lessons plans varied drastically. In particular, lesson plan organization, integration, and questions each had a significant number of submissions which were evaluated as "struggling" [45%, 46%, 41%] through interesting integration, objectives, activities & assessment, and catch all saw submissions which were evaluated as "excellent" [43%, 48%, 43%, 48%]. The relationship between existing K-12 policies and expectations surfaces within these results and in combination with other findings leads to implications for the translation of current research practices into pre-collegiate PDs.more » « less
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