Before reading this week's papers I had already decided to redo my model cause it's just become impossible to understand. Some of the readings reinforced notions that I had already included in my model, but some other brought a new order to my ideas. I want to focus my model on representing the interactions amongst the members of the learning community within an undergrad programming class. Nevertheless, I find it also important to show who the actors of the learning community are and how they relate to each other. I don't know yet exactly how to show that. I've seriously felt tempted to use a customized version of some UML(Unified Modeling Language) diagrams to represent this different perspectives of my model. But so far I haven't made up my mind about that either.
What I do know, though, is what I (after all the readings we've done so far) consider the description of a successful inclusion of technology in the classroom:
As mentioned in "Teachers as Designers: Integrating Robotics in Early Childhood Education", "teachers are asked to design a learning environment to support children in their explorations, to scaffold learning, and to provide interesting materials for children to manipulate in order to make concrete projects to share with others in the community". In a constructivist environment, the teacher is responsible of designing the content and activities for a class according to the specific goals of the curriculum. Designing activities for the class is much like designing experiences to support the children's construction of their own knowledge[1].
Also, as explained by Danish in his article about young children learning Complex Systems, "it is often necessary for students to be able to switch between multiple perspectives so that they can examine and experiment with the local, the aggregate, and the relationship between the two". Activities designed by the teacher are meant to support the course's goals from different perspectives. This means that activities should all be complementing each other, addressing different sides of a specific concept.
As we have read in several papers now, activities for introducing new concepts should be carried on first, and activities to reinforce those concepts, such as software aided simulations, can follow. Every activity should be followed up by a reflective discussion. For example, one activity that could introduce the concept of algorithms in a Programming class could be to solve a tangram (japanese puzzle) in small groups, ask them to describe the steps they followed to solve it and then have a discussion with the entire class to talk about the difficulty of describing steps to solve a problem.
A teacher should have flexibility on how he plans his activities and he should be prepared to adapt them to the response of the students if necessary. This should be true even if the activity is supported by technology. Examples of flexible classroom technologies are Beesign ("BeeSign only displays information specifically requested by the user, allowing the teacher to specify what information is initially visible to the students and then to add additional layers of complexity when relevant or when students become more comfortable with the information display") , Thinking Tags [2] (badges that can be programmed by the teacher depending on the activity/simulation they want to run) and Netlogo [3] (where students set the elements and rules that govern them according to the activity created by the teacher)
Technology should be an aid for the class, not its driver. It should be used in cases where its advantages, such as providing immediate feedback, can really support the class' goals. Activities in that sense, are not all meant to be computationally supported. Computational technology should be used to provide opportunities for children to engage in experiences that would not be accessible to children otherwise[4].
Students would always try to look for their peers' opinions and feedback. Therefore, the teacher should take advantage of this by designing both small group activities (such as some of the activities mentioned in [5],[6]) or as well as activities where the whole class intervenes (such as participatory simulations). Interaction amongst students or between students and technology, could also be used to allow them play new roles becoming researchers and even experts in a certain problem and having to teach/explain their reasoning either to the computer or to another student. This teaching helps students structure their own knowledge [7].
A class activity could be of different types depending of the goal it pursues. If the goal is to design a solution for a proposed problem or formulate possible outcomes for a specific situation (such as in the bees' example), iteration must be supported. Once a problem is proposed or a question is formulated, students should be given attempt to identify the problem, explore possible solutions/answers, propose one solution, dig deeper into it and receive immediate feedback on it (whether it works or not, what are the problems with it). The solving of a problem is an iterative process where students need to share their thoughts, and receive feedback so they can reflect and improve. [8][9][10]
The real world context should also play an important role in the activities planned. "Learning is always fundamentally about doing something for some purpose in a social context equipped with tools and resources, making the minimal meaningful ontology the “who, what, where, and whys” of a situation" (Wertsch, 1998)[11] One of the main advantages of computational technologies is that it helps students to play within a safe environment that resembles a simpler version of the real world. Participatory simulations, augmented reality simulations, robotics and physical programming are some examples of how computational technologies can give students a sense of safe reality to play with.
As we have seen in several articles now, reinforcing reflection throughout all the activity is the most important part of it[9][10]. Once students have achieved what they believe to be a solution to a problem they should justify their process and their proposed solution to the whole class. Allowing peer critique in a classroom encourages self-reflection on both the designer of the solution as well as the other students in the class.
Finally but not last, it is very important to assess how students internalized concepts, by providing them of a different context where they might have to use those concepts. Self and co-evaluation are ways for the students to self-reflect about their performance and they goals. [12][13]
I'm still debating on how to create a simple graphical abstraction of all what I've mentioned, but I'm getting there. My next post should show my new model :D.
[1] Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding Through Immersive Dynamic Modeling, Colella V., page 472
[2] Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding Through Immersive Dynamic Modeling, Colella V., page 478
[3]Thinking Like a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Firefly: Learning Biology Through Constructing and Testing Computational Theories—An Embodied Modeling Approach, Uri Wilensky a; Kenneth Reisman, page 176
[4] Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding Through Immersive Dynamic Modeling, Colella V., page 473
[5] Technological Tools and Instructional Approaches for Making Scientific Inquiry Accessible to All, White B., Frederiksen J., page 337
[6] Explanation-Driven Inquiry: Integrating Conceptual and Epistemic Scaffolds for Scientific Inquiry, Sandoval W., page 353
[7] ANIMATIONS OF THOUGHT: INTERACTIVITY IN THE TEACHABLE AGENT PARADIGM
Schwartz D., Blair K., Leelawong K., page 4
[8] Teachers as Designers: Integrating Robotics in Early Childhood Education, BERS M. , page 139
[9] BeeSign: a Design Experiment to Teach Kindergarten and First Grade Students About Honeybees From a Complex Systems Perspective, Danish J., page 34, 35
[10] Thinking Like a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Firefly: Learning Biology Through Constructing and Testing Computational Theories—An Embodied Modeling Approach, Wilensky U., page 181
[11] Augmented Reality Simulations on Handheld Computers, Squire K., pg. 3
[12] Technological Tools and Instructional Approaches for Making Scientific Inquiry Accessible to All, White B., Frederiksen J., page 349, 350
[13] Explanation-Driven Inquiry: Integrating Conceptual and Epistemic Scaffolds for Scientific Inquiry, Sandoval W., page 363, 364
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