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Abstract BackgroundComputational approaches in STEM foster creative extrapolations of ideas that extend the bounds of human perception, processing, and sense-making. Inviting teachers to explore computational approaches in STEM presents opportunities to examine shifting relationships to inquiry that support transdisciplinary learning in their classrooms. Similarly, play has long been acknowledged as activity that supports learners in taking risks, exploring the boundaries and configurations of existing structures, and imagining new possibilities. Yet, play is often overlooked as a crucial element of STEM learning, particularly for adolescents and adults. In this paper, we explorecomputational playas an activity that supports teachers’ transdisciplinary STEM learning. We build from an expansive notion of computational activity that involves jointly co-constructing and co-exploring rule-based systems in conversation with materials, collaborators, and communities to work towards jointly defined goals. We situate computation within STEM-rich making as a playful context for engaging in authentic, creative inquiry. Our research asksWhat are the characteristics of play and computation within computational play? And, in what ways does computational play contribute to teachers’ transdisciplinary learning? ResultsTeachers from grades 3–12 participated in a professional learning program that centered playful explorations of materials and tools using computational approaches: making objects based on rules that produce emergent behaviors and iterating on those rules to observe the effects on how the materials behaved. Using a case study and descriptions of the characteristics of computational play, our results show how familiarity of materials and the context of play encouraged teachers to engage in transdisciplinary inquiry, to ask questions about how materials behave, and to renegotiate their own relationships to disciplinary learning as they reflected on their work. ConclusionsWe argue computational play is a space of wonderment where iterative conversations with materials create opportunities for learners to author forms of transdisciplinary learning. Our results show how teachers and students can learn together in computational play, and we conclude this work can contribute to ongoing efforts in the design of professional and transdisciplinary learning environments focused on the intersections of materiality, play, and computation.
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Documenting professional learning focused on implementing high-quality instructional materials in mathematics: the AIM–TRU learning cycle
Abstract BackgroundTo increase teachers’ capacity to implement high-quality instructional materials with fidelity in their classrooms through a video-based professional learning cycle, the Analyzing Instruction in Mathematics Using the Teaching for Robust Understanding framework (AIM–TRU) research–practice partnership was formed. Drawing upon the design-based research paradigm, AIM–TRU created the initial design for the professional learning cycle and wanted to engage in continued iterative redesign as the year progressed. This necessitated a method, common among those who adjust their designs when applying them in context, by which to document and justify changes made over time to our model. The research contained in this article used qualitative methods to articulate and test the design underlying our professional learning cycle by advancing conjecture mapping, a device by which the embodiments of the design are made transparent to be analyzed in practice. ResultsThe initial design conjectures and activity structures teachers engaged in through our model of professional learning were refined to address three themes that emerged. Firstly, it was found that the ways participants engaged with the mathematics of the lesson were underwhelming, in large part, because our own definition of what rich talk around mathematics should entail was lacking in details such as the mathematical objects in the lesson, the presence of multiple solution pathways, or the various representations that students could use. Second, talk structures did not always allow for equitable exchanges among all teachers. Finally, activity structures did not encourage teachers to delve deeply into the mathematics so they could perceive the lesson as a coherent piece of their own classroom curriculum. Our design conjectures and activity structures were revised over the course of the year. ConclusionsOur use of conjecture mapping allowed us to address the concern with research–practice partnerships that they should develop and utilize tools that make the systemic inquiry they engage in transparent, allowing for other researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders to see the complete design process and make use of the findings for their local context. Implications for this process as a tool for those who pilot and scale professional development are raised and addressed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1908319
- PAR ID:
- 10368822
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of STEM Education
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2196-7822
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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