Models of Learning with a Computational Medium

该项目探索、开发和测试使用集成的多功能计算媒体的教育可能性，该媒体包括完整的编程能力。Boxer定义了一个高性能的工作站环境，供20世纪90年代的儿童、教师和课程开发人员的个人和专业使用。在之前的NSF拨款中，我们在原则性设计中为这样一个系统建立了科学基础，并在可现场部署的实施中建立了技术基础。将开发和测试通过这种媒介实现的在学校环境中的新型教育实践模式。这些模型将突出拳击手的新的和特殊的特征，这些特征承诺在学校科学的秩序、内容和形式方面发生重要变化。特别是，它将证明Boxer是透明的，使学生和教师能够更快地通过系统的技术方面进行基本的数学和科学学习，并且Boxer在允许轻松结合系统的各个方面(文本编辑、数据库功能等)方面提供了戏剧性的协同作用，尤其是编程和学习科学原理之间的协同作用。将建立两个新的基于计算媒体使用的可推广的教育实践模型。第一个将通过在课堂上发展以产品为导向的社区实践来教授运动。这一实践将产生于一套精心设计和集成的练习微观世界，其在促进深层次概念变化方面的有效性将根据学生在完成课程后学习更多知识的能力来评估。第二种模式将教授事实密集型科学中的主题，如生物学，通过使用媒介来显示该领域中隐藏的知识结构，并通过支持专门适用于这些领域的学习和问题解决活动。

This project explores, develops and tests the educational possibilities of using an integrated, multi-functional computational medium that includes full programming capability. Boxer defines a high-powered work station environment for the personal and professional use of children, teachers, and curriculum developers of the 1990s. In a previous NSF grant, we established the scientific basis for such a system in a principled design, and we established the technological basis in a field-deployable implementation. Models of new kinds of educational practice in school settings that are made possible by such a medium, will be developed and tested. These models will highlight the new and special characteristics of Boxer that promise important changes in the ordering, content and form of school science. In particular, it will be demonstrated that Boxer is transparent, allowing students and teachers to get more quickly through the technical aspects of the system to basic mathematical and scientific learning, and that Boxer provides dramatic synergy in allowing easy combining of the various aspects of the system (text editing, data base capabilities, etc.), most particularly, synergy between programming and learning scientific principles. Two new generalizable models of educational practice based on the use of a computational medium will be built. The first will teach about motion by developing a product-oriented community practice in the classroom. That practice will grow out of a carefully designed and integrated set of exercise microworlds, and its effectiveness in promoting deep conceptual change will be assessed by the capability of students to learn more on completion of the course. The second model will teach topics in fact-intensive sciences like biology by using the medium to display the hidden structure of knowledge in the domain, and by supporting learning and problem solving activities specifically appropriate to such domains.