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Title: Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning
Computational modeling tools present unique opportunities and challenges for student learning. Each tool has a representational system that impacts the kinds of explorations students engage in. Inquiry aligned with a tool’s representational system can support more productive engagement toward target learning goals. However, little research has examined how teachers can make visible the ways students’ ideas about a phenomenon can be expressed and explored within a tool’s representational system. In this paper, we elaborate on the construct of ontological alignment—that is, identifying and leveraging points of resonance between students’ existing ideas and the representational system of a tool. Using interaction analysis, we identify alignment practices adopted by a science teacher and her students in a computational agent-based modeling unit. Specifically, we describe three practices: (1) Elevating student ideas relevant to the tool’s representational system; (2) Exploring and testing links between students’ conceptual and computational models; and (3) Drawing on evidence resonant with the tool’s representational system to differentiate between theories. Finally, we discuss the pedagogical value of ontological alignment as a way to leverage students’ ideas in alignment with a tool’s representational system and suggest the presented practices as exemplary ways to support students’ computational modeling for science learning. more »« less
Wagh, A.; Fuhrmann, T.; Rosenbaum, L.; Eloy, A.; Blikstein, P.; Wilkerson, M.
(, Proceedings of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Learning Sciences)
Blikstein, P.; Brennan, K; Kiziko, R.; van Aalst, J.
(Ed.)
Though the medium of computational modeling presents unique opportunities and challenges for science learning, little research examines how teachers can effectively support students in this work. To address this gap, we investigate how an experienced 6th grade teacher guides her students through programming computational, agent-based models of diffusion. Using interaction analysis of whole-class videos, we define a construct we call ontological alignment in which the teacher facilitates discourse to surface, highlight, connect and seek supporting or contradictory evidence for student ideas in ways that align with the level of analysis available in the modeling tool. We identify two practices reflecting this construct; the teacher 1. primes students to orient to interactions between particles and 2. strategically selects evidence to help discern between student theories. We discuss the pedagogical value of ontological alignment and suggest the identified practices as exemplary for supporting students’ learning through computational modeling.
Radke, Sarah C.; Vogel, Sara E.; Ma, Jasmine Y.; Hoadley, Christopher; Ascenzi-Moreno, Laura
(, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education)
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.
Shin, N.; Bowers, J.; Krajcik, J.; Damelin, D.
(, Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research)
null
(Ed.)
This paper introduces project-based learning (PBL) features for developing technological, curricular, and pedagogical supports to engage students in computational thinking (CT) through modeling. CT is recognized as the collection of approaches that involve people in computational problem solving. CT supports students in deconstructing and reformulating a phenomenon such that it can be resolved using an information-processing agent (human or machine) to reach a scientifically appropriate explanation of a phenomenon. PBL allows students to learn by doing, to apply ideas, figure out how phenomena occur and solve challenging, compelling and complex problems. In doing so, students take part in authentic science practices similar to those of professionals in science or engineering, such as computational thinking. This paper includes 1) CT and its associated aspects, 2) The foundation of PBL, 3) PBL design features to support CT through modeling, and 4) a curriculum example and associated student models to illustrate how particular design features can be used for developing high school physical science materials, such as an evaporative cooling unit to promote the teaching and learning of CT.
Shin, Namsoo; Bowers, Jonathan; Krajcik, Joseph; Damelin, Daniel
(, Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research)
Abstract This paper introduces project-based learning (PBL) features for developing technological, curricular, and pedagogical supports to engage students in computational thinking (CT) through modeling. CT is recognized as the collection of approaches that involve people in computational problem solving. CT supports students in deconstructing and reformulating a phenomenon such that it can be resolved using an information-processing agent (human or machine) to reach a scientifically appropriate explanation of a phenomenon. PBL allows students to learn by doing, to apply ideas, figure out how phenomena occur and solve challenging, compelling and complex problems. In doing so, students take part in authentic science practices similar to those of professionals in science or engineering, such as computational thinking. This paper includes 1) CT and its associated aspects, 2) The foundation of PBL, 3) PBL design features to support CT through modeling, and 4) a curriculum example and associated student models to illustrate how particular design features can be used for developing high school physical science materials, such as an evaporative cooling unit to promote the teaching and learning of CT.
Dabholkar, Sugat; Irgens, Golnaz Arastoopour; Horn, Michael; Wilensky, Uri
(, International Conference of the Learning Sciences)
Teaching science inquiry practices, especially the more contemporary ones, such as computational thinking practices, requires designing newer learning environments and appropriate pedagogical scaffolds. Using such learning environments, when students construct knowledge about disciplinary ideas using inquiry practices, it is important that they make connections between the two. We call such connections epistemic connections, which are about constructing knowledge using science inquiry practices. In this paper, we discuss the design of a computational thinking integrated biology unit as an Emergent Systems Microworlds (ESM) based curriculum. Using Epistemic Network Analysis, we investigate how the design of unit support students’ learning through making epistemic connections. We also analyze the teacher’s pedagogical moves to scaffold making such connections. This work implies that to support students’ epistemic connections between science inquiry practices and disciplinary ideas, it is critical to design restructured learning environments like ESMs, aligned curricular activities and provide appropriate pedagogical scaffolds.
Wagh, Aditi, Rosenbaum, Leah F, Fuhrmann, Tamar, Eloy, Adelmo, Blikstein, Paulo, and Wilkerson, Michelle. Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10616202. Cognition and Instruction 43.1-2 Web. doi:10.1080/07370008.2024.2427400.
Wagh, Aditi, Rosenbaum, Leah F, Fuhrmann, Tamar, Eloy, Adelmo, Blikstein, Paulo, & Wilkerson, Michelle. Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning. Cognition and Instruction, 43 (1-2). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10616202. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2024.2427400
Wagh, Aditi, Rosenbaum, Leah F, Fuhrmann, Tamar, Eloy, Adelmo, Blikstein, Paulo, and Wilkerson, Michelle.
"Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning". Cognition and Instruction 43 (1-2). Country unknown/Code not available: Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2024.2427400.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10616202.
@article{osti_10616202,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10616202},
DOI = {10.1080/07370008.2024.2427400},
abstractNote = {Computational modeling tools present unique opportunities and challenges for student learning. Each tool has a representational system that impacts the kinds of explorations students engage in. Inquiry aligned with a tool’s representational system can support more productive engagement toward target learning goals. However, little research has examined how teachers can make visible the ways students’ ideas about a phenomenon can be expressed and explored within a tool’s representational system. In this paper, we elaborate on the construct of ontological alignment—that is, identifying and leveraging points of resonance between students’ existing ideas and the representational system of a tool. Using interaction analysis, we identify alignment practices adopted by a science teacher and her students in a computational agent-based modeling unit. Specifically, we describe three practices: (1) Elevating student ideas relevant to the tool’s representational system; (2) Exploring and testing links between students’ conceptual and computational models; and (3) Drawing on evidence resonant with the tool’s representational system to differentiate between theories. Finally, we discuss the pedagogical value of ontological alignment as a way to leverage students’ ideas in alignment with a tool’s representational system and suggest the presented practices as exemplary ways to support students’ computational modeling for science learning.},
journal = {Cognition and Instruction},
volume = {43},
number = {1-2},
publisher = {Taylor & Francis},
author = {Wagh, Aditi and Rosenbaum, Leah F and Fuhrmann, Tamar and Eloy, Adelmo and Blikstein, Paulo and Wilkerson, Michelle},
}
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