CAREER: Bridging Formal and Everyday Learning through Wearable Technologies: Towards a Connected Learning Paradigm

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A significant problem in science learning is that students do not always see the relevance of the concepts they are learning. This lack of perceived relevance may then lead to less student engagement in science. This project will investigate how to connect 4th to 6th grade students’ out-of-classroom, everyday experiences with formal in-classroom science instruction through the use of wearable and visualization technologies. Students will use wearable technologies to capture their everyday experiences related to science and reflect on these experiences through a web-based interface. A dashboard application will support teachers in tailoring their classroom science lesson plans accordingly. The project will contribute to our understanding of how to design wearable technologies for connecting learning across contexts and will inform a framework of teaching science that is better grounded in students’ everyday experiences with science concepts. Students from two highly diverse K-12 schools will participate in the project. Outcomes of the project will lead to the design of new structures for connected science learning that are responsive to diverse student experiences and backgrounds.In investigating connected learning across both everyday experience and formal school contexts, the project consists of a 4-phase work plan over five years. Phase 1 will explore how to support 4th to 6th grade students with wearable technologies to reflect on their everyday experiences through the lens of science concepts. Phase 2 will conduct iterative participatory design sessions with pre- and in-service teachers to investigate how to support them in incorporating students’ everyday science reflections into school instruction through interactive dashboards. Phase 3 will develop an exemplar system that integrates the designed wearable with the teacher dashboard. Two evaluation studies will be conducted with two partner schools: the first study will address a single science concept, and the second study will be longer-term, allowing teachers to have free-use of the system for any number of science concepts over a semester. Phase 4 will identify guidelines for connected learning technologies and determine the extent to which these guidelines may generalize to other education levels (e.g., STEM college sophomores). Both qualitative and quantitative data will be collected across the phases to assess the impact of the connected learning system on students’ perceived relevance of science, motivation to engage in science, scientific thinking or mindset, and teachers’ classroom instruction. Workshops will also be conducted to introduce teachers to the paradigm of connected learning, and the associated technologies. Overall, by connecting students’ science-related everyday experiences with formal instruction, the project will lead to more personally relevant student learning, and ultimately to an educational approach that is more receptive to a diverse student population.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.