Computational Thinking Integration into Middle Grades Science Classrooms: Strategies for Meeting the Challenges

This paper reports findings from the efforts of a university-based research team as they worked with middle school educators within formal school structures to infuse computer science principles and computational thinking practices. Despite the need to integrate these skills within regular classroom practices to allow all students the opportunity to learn these essential 21st Century skills, prior practice has been to offer these learning experiences outside of mainstream curricula where only a subset of students have access. We have sought to leverage elements of the research-practice partnership framework to achieve our project objectives of integrating computer science and computational thinking within middle science classrooms. Utilizing a qualitative approach to inquiry, we present narratives from three case schools, report on themes across work sites, and share recommendations to guide other practitioners and researchers who are looking to engage in technology-related initiatives to impact the lives of middle grades students

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

A Learning Design Studio in Mobile Learning

Mobile learning is a young and vibrant field of research and practice. Teaching a university course on mobile learning is a challenge: how do you connect the theories and case studies to students’ experience, and make them relevant for their educational practice? This paper reports on one such course which was conducted using a Learning Design Studio format: working in groups, students identified an educational challenge, conducted independent search and analysis of the relevant literature, devised an innovative solution and evaluated it. The studio approach has been used successfully by several researchers in the past. The course described here was conducted at the University of Haifa in spring 2012. During the course, students engaged with core literature, reviewed case studies, and designed, implemented and evaluated six mobile learning projects. We argue that the Learning Design Studio format is particularly suitable for teaching about mobile learning, as it situates students learning in a genuine context and allows them to learn through conducting meaningful research

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed ‘citizen inquiry’, which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, ‘citizen inquiry’, by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time

From design to narrative: the development of inquiry-based learning models

The University of Nottingham and the Open University are partners in a ca. £1.2m project to help school students learn the skills of modern science. The three-year project, Personal Inquiry (PI) (funded by the UK ESRC and EPSRC research councils), is developing a new approach of 'scripted inquiry learning', where children investigate a science topic with classmates by carrying out explorations between their classroom, homes and discovery centres, guided by a personal computer. This paper describes our progress to date on the development of four models for inquiry-based learning, as part of the PI project. These are being used as the basis for the development of educational scenarios and associated scripts to explore the use of mobile technologies in supporting an inquiry-based approach to teaching Scientific thinking across formal and informal learning

Gaming Business Communities: Developing online learning organisations to foster communities, develop leadership, and grow interpersonal education

This paper explores, through observation and testing, what possibilities from gaming can be extended into other realms of human interaction to help bring people together, extend education, and grow business. It uses through action learning within the safety of the virtual world within Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Further, I explore how the world of online gaming provides opportunity to train a wide range of skills through extending Revans’ (1980) learning equation and action inquiry methodology. This equation and methodology are deployed in relation to a gaming community to see if the theories could produce strong relationships within organisations and examine what learning, if any, is achievable. I also investigate the potential for changes in business (e.g., employee and customer relationships) through involvement in the gaming community as a unique place to implement action learning. The thesis also asks the following questions on a range of extended possibilities in the world of online gaming: What if the world opened up to a social environment where people could discuss their successes and failures? What if people could take a real world issue and re‐create it in the safe virtual world to test ways of dealing with it? What education answers can the world of online gaming provide

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Research-practice interactions as reported in recent design studies: Still promising, still hazy

This study portrays recent research–practice connections found in 18 design research reports focusing on the creation of instructional solutions. Solutions in different stages of development varied greatly in duration, ranging from one lesson to a whole year curriculum, spanned all levels of education, many subjects (science, math, language, culture, teacher education, etc.). Close collaboration between researchers and practitioners was prominent in all of the 18 projects studied. Participants in primary and secondary education projects have quite distinct roles regarding the teaching and researching, but they design their instruction solutions often collaboratively. Nearly all projects reported on how designed solutions were anchored in research, either from literature or from in-house project data. All articles indicated that research fed (re-)design, but few specified how. Based on our findings, we call for increased research and reporting on the specific strategies employed by design research participants to facilitate the production of new theoretical understanding through design of instructional solution

Dealing with abstraction: Case study generalisation as a method for eliciting design patterns

Developing a pattern language is a non-trivial problem. A critical requirement is a method to support pattern writers with abstraction, so as they can produce generalised patterns. In this paper, we address this issue by developing a structured process of generalisation. It is important that this process is initiated through engaging participants in identifying initial patterns, i.e. directly dealing with the 'cold-start' problem. We have found that short case study descriptions provide a productive 'way into' the process for participants. We reflect on a 1-year interdisciplinary pan-European research project involving the development of almost 30 cases and over 150 patterns. We provide example cases, detailing the process by which their associated patterns emerged. This was based on a foundation for generalisation from cases with common attributes. We discuss the merits of this approach and its implications for pattern development

Collaborative action research for the governance of climate adaptation - foundations, conditions and pitfalls

This position paper serves as an introductory guide to designing and facilitating an action research process with stakeholders in the context of climate adaptation. Specifically, this is aimed at action researchers who are targeting at involving stakeholders and their expert knowledge in generating knowledge about their own condition and how it can be changed. The core philosophy of our research approach can be described as developing a powerful combination between practice-driven collaborative action research and theoretically-informed scientific research. Collaborative action research means that we take guidance from the hotspots as the primary source of questions, dilemmas and empirical data regarding the governance of adaptation, but also collaborate with them in testing insights and strategies, and evaluating their usefulness. The purpose is to develop effective, legitimate and resilient governance arrangements for climate adaptation. Scientific quality will be achieved by placing this co-production of knowledge in a well-founded and innovative theoretical framework, and through the involvement of the international consortium partners. This position paper provides a methodological starting point of the research program ‘Governance of Climate Adaptation’ and aims: · To clarify the theoretical foundation of collaborative action research and the underlying ontological and epistemological principles · To give an historical overview of the development of action research and its different forms · To enhance the theoretical foundation of collaborative action research in the specific context of governance of climate adaptation. · To translate the philosophy of collaborative action research into practical methods; · To give an overview of the main conditions and pitfalls for action research in complex governance settings Finally, this position paper provides three key instruminstruments developed to support Action Research in the hotspots: 1) Toolbox for AR in hotspots (chapter 6); 2) Set-up of a research design and action plan for AR in hotspots (chapter 7); 3) Quality checklist or guidance for AR in hotspots (chapter 8)