More Like this

1. Mobile app features that scaffold pre‐school learning: Verbal feedback and leveling designs

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13055  

   Callaghan, Melissa N. ; Reich, Stephanie M. ( December 2020 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   Guiding hints and challenge can help scaffold learners to progress beyond what they would achieve independently. The interactive and adaptive capabilities of mobile devices allow educational applications (apps) to support learning through scaffolding designs. However, little research has tested the effects of scaffolding features in apps on young children’s learning. Using a 3 × 2 between‐subjects design, this study experimentally tests how three types of app feedback (nonverbal sounds, verbal encouragement, or scaffolded verbal hints) and two types of leveling (gradual vs. random‐ordered challenge) influence 4–5‐year‐old children’s learning of novel words (N = 240). Results showed that scaffolded feedback was especially useful when provided at the beginning of app play (p < .01), and scaffolded leveling through gradual increases in difficulty supported faster and more accurate responses than random order challenge (p < .001).

   What is already known about this topic

   Researchers have worked to apply what we know about traditional in‐person teaching with young learners and how that might translate to digital platforms.

   Parent and teacher scaffolding has been shown to successfully help young children learn. Guidance through increased difficulty and explanatory feedback can help learners gradually build their skills and reflect more deeply on the content they are learning.

   What this paper adds

   This study adds to the newly growing collection of experiments testing the design features of educational pre‐school apps.

   Findings show that scaffolding through educational app feedback and leveling can support young children learning.

   Results also show that the impact of scaffolding can depend on when the guidance is presented during app play – at the very beginning of play versus later on.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Findings can help educators and other consumers identify which types of apps are better for scaffolding young children’s learning.

   Suggestions are provided to support educational app developers in designing products that are truly effective.

   Findings suggest that combinations of app designs may differently impact young children’s learning, providing next step testing conditions for educational app designs.

    

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2. Identifying the effects of scaffolding on learners’ temporal deployment of self-regulated learning operations during game-based learning using multimodal data

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1280566  

   Dever, Daryn A. ; Wiedbusch, Megan D. ; Romero, Sarah M. ; Smith, Kevin ; Patel, Milouni ; Sonnenfeld, Nathan ; Lester, James ; Azevedo, Roger ( November 2023 , Frontiers in Psychology)

   Self-regulated learning (SRL), or learners’ ability to monitor and change their own cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and motivational processes, encompasses several operations that should be deployed during learning including Searching, Monitoring, Assembling, Rehearsing, and Translating (SMART). Scaffolds are needed within GBLEs to both increase learning outcomes and promote the accurate and efficient use of SRL SMART operations. This study aims to examine how restricted agency (i.e., control over one’s actions) can be used to scaffold learners’ SMART operations as they learn about microbiology with Crystal Island, a game-based learning environment.

   Undergraduate students (N = 94) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (1) Full Agency, where participants were able to make their own decisions about which actions they could take; and (2) Partial Agency, where participants were required to follow a pre-defined path that dictated the order in which buildings were visited, restricting one’s control. As participants played Crystal Island, participants’ multimodal data (i.e., log files, eye tracking) were collected to identify instances where participants deployed SMART operations.

   Results from this study support restricted agency as a successful scaffold of both learning outcomes and SRL SMART operations, where learners who were scaffolded demonstrated more efficient and accurate use of SMART operations.

   This study provides implications for future scaffolds to better support SRL SMART operations during learning and discussions for future directions for future studies scaffolding SRL during game-based learning.

    

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3. Supporting collaborative classroom networks through technology: An actor network theory approach to understanding social behaviours and design

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13274  

   Kumar, Vishesh ; Tissenbaum, Mike ( September 2022 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   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 bridgingagentic gapsbetween 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.

   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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4. Investigating pedagogical agents' scaffolding of self‐regulated learning in relation to learners' subgoals

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13432  

   Dever, Daryn A. ; Wiedbusch, Megan D. ; Romero, Sarah M. ; Azevedo, Roger ( January 2024 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to scaffold learners' self‐regulated learning (SRL) via prompts and feedback to promote learners' monitoring and regulation of their cognitive, affective, metacognitive and motivational processes to achieve their (sub)goals. This study examines PAs' effectiveness in scaffolding and teaching SRL during learning with MetaTutor, an ITS on the human circulatory system. Undergraduates (N = 118) were randomly assigned to a condition:Control Condition(i.e. learners could only self‐initiate SRL strategies) andPrompt and Feedback Condition(i.e. PAs prompted learners to engage in SRL). Learners' log‐file data captured when strategies were used, the initiator of the strategy (i.e. learner and PA), and the relevance of instructional content pages in relation to learner subgoals. While results showed that PAs were effective scaffolders of SRL in which they prompted learners to engage in SRL strategies more when content was relevant towards their subgoals and as time on page and task increased, there were mixed findings about the effectiveness of PAs as teachers of SRL. Findings show how production rules guiding PA prompts can improve their scaffolding and teaching of SRL across the learning task – through contextualizing SRL strategies to the instructional content and in relation to the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals.

   Most learners struggle to efficiently and effectively use self‐regulated learning (SRL) strategies to attain goals and subgoals.

   There is a need for SRL to be scaffolded for learners to manage multiple goals and subgoals while learning about complex STEM topics.

   Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) typically incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to prompt learners to engage in SRL strategy and provide feedback.

   There are mixed findings on the effectiveness of PAs in scaffolding learners' SRL.

   We consider PAs not only scaffolders but also teachers of SRL.

   Results showed that while PAs encouraged the use of SRL strategies when the content was relevant to subgoals, they did not discourage the use of SRL strategies when the content was not relevant.

   Results for this study were mixed in their support of PAs as teachers of SRL.

   Learners increasingly depended on PAs to prompt SRL strategies as time on task progressed.

   PAs are effective scaffolders of SRL with more research needed to understand their role as teachers of SRL.

   PA scaffolding is more essential as time on task progresses.

   When deploying specific cognitive and metacognitive SRL strategies, the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals should be taken into account.

    

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5. Patches as an expressive medium for exploratory multi‐agent modelling

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13087  

   Brady, Corey ( April 2021 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   This paper outlines the potential gains for Constructionist research and praxis in modelling that might be obtained by recognising the power of the Patch—a humble computational being in the NetLogo modelling environment that has been overshadowed by its more popular fellow agent, the Turtle. To contextualise this opportunity, I describe how Constructionist modelling has thrived by promoting forms of learning that rely on learners’ identifying with agents. I argue that patches are a neglected agent type in this multi‐agent modelling tradition, and that the possibilities for learners to adopt the patch perspective in support of exploratory forms of modelling and aesthetic expression have been under‐researched. Nevertheless, I show there are a variety of powerful ways for learners––both individually and in groups––to identify with patches. I describe ongoing research showing how taking an aesthetic approach to patches has the potential to support individuals and groups in powerful forms of learning with and about multi‐agent modelling.

   What is already known about this topic

   Turtles (movable agents in Logo and Constructionist environments descended from Logo) can be ‘transitional objects’ that provide learners a way to make powerful ideas their own.

   These agents can be powerful ‘objects‐to‐think‐with’ in large part because they encourage learners to identify with them in a form of learning known as ‘syntonic learning’.

   Expressive activities that draw on learners’aestheticinterests can support their learning with and about computational representations.

   Multi‐agent modelling is a powerful extension of Logo‐based learning environments that provides access to powerful ideas about complex systems and their emergent properties.

   In the multi‐agent setting, individual learners and/or groups of learners can identify syntonically with agents to provide entry points for reasoning about complexity.

   What this paper adds

   Patches (non‐movable agents in the NetLogo modelling environment) are under‐represented in the research on multi‐agent modelling, and the potential for learners to adopt the patches’ perspective has been neglected.

   An aesthetically driven approach to patches can ground students’ understanding of their expressive value.

   Participatory activities in which learners play the role of patches (called ‘Stadium Card’ activities) can ground the patch perspective, so that learners can achieve a form of syntonicity and/or collectively adopt the perspective of patches in the aggregate.

   Participatory activities that blend intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives on the patch grid can further enhance learners’ facility with programming for patches and their understanding of patches’ collective expressive power.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Balancing the focus between turtles and patches can enrich the modelling toolbox of learners new to agent‐based modelling.

   Patchesdocapture important aspects of individual and collective experience, and so can be good objects‐to‐think‐with, especially when conceptualising phenomena at a larger scale.

   The expressive potential of the patch grid is an important topic for computer science as well (eg, through 2D cellular automata). This is a rich context for learning in itself, which can be made accessible to groups of learners through physical or virtual participatory role‐play.

   Moreover, physical or virtual grids of people‐patches may exhibit novel aggregate computational properties that could in turn become interesting areas for research in computer science.

    

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