EXP: Using Technologies to Engage Learners in the Scientific Practices of Investigating Rich Behavioral and Ecological Questions

这个探索性项目由伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校和西北大学共同参与，调查了四年级和五年级小学生对基于传感器的技术和一般工程方法的使用，以及这些使用对学生如何在环境科学和生物科学中提出研究问题以及发展特定领域知识和概念的影响。教师、学生和研究人员正在与研究团队合作，为确保方法和设计的多样性投入做出贡献，因为他们在学习科学的同时探索使用传感技术的机会和挑战。在这个过程中考虑了几个研究问题，包括：哪些科学特征适合小学生去努力，哪些是他们在概念层面上挣扎的？哪些概念或过程对学生更有激励作用？如何利用已经丰富的软件技术来收集、存储、可视化和处理动物行为仪器调查中的数据？需要什么样的新工具来扩展这些功能？教育者如何组织活动以吸引学生的兴趣，并将课堂作业与实地调查联系起来？教育工作者和技术人员如何设计教学、材料和学习技术，以培养学生提出科学问题、选择措施和计划有效调查的能力？教师要支持以工程为基础的生态学研究，需要解决哪些务实和内容方面的问题？研究问题和分析包括小组和课堂话语的观察，学生的工作成果，以及反思性的接地访谈，以调查实践的各个方面，研究问题的操作化，研究设计的检查，循证论证和解释过程。为了充分理解传感技术及其对学习的影响，必须考虑设计因素。这项研究为学习科学领域提供了一些关于设计因素的急需信息，这些因素涉及基于传感器的技术和基于领域的知识，涉及科学实践和学生学习的工程方法。这个跨学科的项目对学习技术、工程教育和生物科学领域做出了贡献。

This exploratory project, involving The University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University, investigates the use of sensor-based technologies and general engineering approaches by fourth and fifth grade elementary students, and the effects of that use on how the students formulate research questions in environmental science and biological science and develop domain specific knowledge and concepts. Teachers, students, and researchers are partnering with the research team to contribute to an iterative process that ensures a diversity of inputs to the approach and design, as they explore opportunities and challenges of using the sensing technologies while learning science. Several research questions are considered in this process and include: Which scientific characteristics are appropriate for elementary school students to grapple with, and which do they struggle with on a conceptual level? Which concepts or processes are more motivating for students? How can an already rich bounty of software technologies for gathering, storing, visualizing, and working with data in instrumented investigations of animal behavior be leveraged? What kinds of new tools are needed to extend those capabilities? How can activities be structured by educators to engage student interest and connect classroom work to field investigations? How can educators and technologists design instruction, materials, and learning technologies in ways that foster students' abilities to formulate scientific questions, choose measures, and plan effective investigations? What pragmatic and content area concerns need to be addressed for teachers to support engineering-enhanced ecological research? The research questions and analysis include observations of small group and classroom discourse, student work products, and reflective grounded interviews to investigate aspects of practice, operationalization of research questions, and examination of research designs, evidence-based argumentation, and explanatory processes. For sensing technologies and their impact on learning to be fully understood, there are design factors that must be considered. This research is providing the field of learning sciences with some much needed information on design factors that involve sensor-based technologies and domain-based knowledge on scientific practices and engineering approaches to student learning. This interdisciplinary project makes contributions to the fields of learning technologies, engineering education, and biological sciences.