Models of Learning with a Computational Medium

这个项目探索、开发和测试了使用一个集成的、多功能的计算媒体的教育可能性，包括完整的编程能力。Boxer为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定义了一个高性能工作站环境。在之前的NSF拨款中，我们在原则性设计中为这样的系统建立了科学基础，并在现场可部署的实现中建立了技术基础。这种媒介使学校环境中的新型教育实践模式成为可能，这些模式将得到发展和检验。这些模型将突出Boxer的新的和特殊的特征，这些特征承诺在学校科学的顺序，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，允许学生和教师更快地通过系统的技术方面获得基本的数学和科学学习，并且Boxer提供了戏剧性的协同作用，允许系统的各个方面（文本编辑，数据库功能等）的轻松组合，尤其是，编程和学习科学原理之间的协同作用。基于计算媒介的使用，将建立两个新的教育实践的可推广模型。第一个课程将通过在课堂上开展以产品为导向的社区实践来教授运动。这种做法将产生于一套精心设计和综合的练习微观世界，其在促进深刻概念变化方面的有效性将通过学生在完成课程后学习更多知识的能力来评估。第二个模型将教授事实密集型科学（如生物学）的主题，通过使用媒体来显示领域中隐藏的知识结构，并通过支持专门适合这些领域的学习和解决问题的活动。

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.