Teaching students to reflect about complex datasets: Design approaches for curriculum

Introduction 1.1 Overview of the study I propose a program of design research to inform the process of creating curriculum units which develop students' dispositions necessary for conducting reflective inquiry in the classroom using complex datasets. In particular, I will study the processes of designing and enacting a 6-week earth science middle-school curriculum unit, which was designed with the purpose of helping students develop a reflective mode of inquiry with complex sets of geological data. The main intent of this study is to characterize changes in students' modes of activity over the weeks of the unit's enactment. Observed changes in students' actions and dispositions will be examined in light of our (myself and collaborating teachers) design intentions in creating the unit: to enculturate students into a reflective mode of inquiry using complex datasets, in which meaning is made of these datasets through the generation of questions, observations and explana

Developing technology-integrated field experience sites in urban schools: Approaches, assumptions, and lessons learned

he project has attempted to build a bridge between the university and the school communities, enhancing the work of both. Recent research has indicated that when technology is used as a tool within instruction, to support learning objectives in the instructional areas, student learning is enhanced (SivinKachala & Bialo, 1994; Valdez, McNabb, Foertsch, Anderson, Hawkes, & Raack, 1999; Wenglinski, 1998). Used in this way, technology facilitates students' abilities to retrieve, synthesize, and analyze information. Rather than creating learning environments in which students use technology to receive knowledge, or for technology's own sake, teachers must create environments in which students use technology to build their knowledge. To facilitate this type of technology-integrated learning environment, it becomes necessary to not only prepare teacher candidates to create technology-rich curriculum, but also to implement it in the classroom -- particularly in an everyday urban public schoo

Science Investigations with GIS SPECTRUM draft 7/3/2005 Page 1 of 13 Science Investigations with GIS: Helping Students Develop the

This article describes a school-university collaboration for innovative science teaching and learning. As collaborators, we worked together during the school year 2004-2005 to enact science inquiry projects in which 6 th graders learned to investigate the earth using a geographic information system (GIS). Our goals were not just for the students to learn the science concepts being studied, but also to develop the skills and habits of reflective inquiry. Our collaboration was supported by a National Science Foundation Research on Learning Environments grant (REC #0337598) to study ways to design curriculum t