Bridging contexts and interpretations: Mobile blogging on art museum field trips

In this study of art museum field trips by high school students, we investigate the ways in which features of different social and mobile technologies, specifically blogs and mobile phones, are able to bridge and support meaning making in young people’s encounters with contemporary art. Empirical material is presented from Gidder, a web-based learning environment with a mobile blogging feature. Through close examination of students’ use of contextual resources and the writing and editing of blog entries, this study contributes a deeper understanding of the ways in which digital technologies may be designed for pedagogical use on museum field trips

Learning in science education across school and science museums - Design and development work in a multi-professional group

In this article, we discuss challenges in design work in a multidisciplinary group. We analyse video data gathered from a start-up workshop in a project, the aim of which is to design and develop learning models in science that will be used in and across schools and museum settings. A combination of digital technologies plays a vital role to bridge these institutional situations by offering a rich amount of representations. As an analytical framework, we use concepts from Culture Historical Activity Theory both to study the orientations of the various group members to learning in science education and to scrutinize contradictions between these orientations. We conclude by identifying three main orientations to learning in science education, namely, memorable experiences, embodiment, and conceptual understandings, and we discuss the implications that these have for the design of the overall learning trajectory. The findings in this article have important consequences for intervention design of the future workshops. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy at idunn.no http://www.idunn.no/ts/d

Hvordan fremme kritisk tenkning i grunnskolen? Forskningsbaserte forslag

Til tross for fokus på kritisk tenkning som en nødvendig ferdighet, er det få som har kommet med tiltak for hvordan lærere kan støtte utvikling av denne typen tenkning blant elever i den norske skolen. Vi tar et grep om denne utfordringen. Først foreslår vi et teoretisk rammeverk for å forstå sentrale deler innen kritisk tenkning. Deretter presenterer vi nyere forskning som fremmer forslag til hvordan kritisk tenkning kan stimuleres i grunnskolen. Vårt fokus er på argumentasjon, kildevurderingsferdigheter og kunnskapssyn. Basert på vår gjennomgang av relevant litteratur identifiserer vi implikasjoner for læreres praksis

What happens when you push the button? Analyzing the functional dynamics of concept development in computer supported science inquiry

In this article we analyze how the joint cognitive system of teacher and student actions mediated by cultural tools develops sense making of science concepts, and the use of concepts as tools for explaining phenomena and processes related to energy and energy transformation. We take a sociocultural approach to the analysis of how material and digital learning resources become tools for thinking and reasoning. We combined ethnographic descriptions with analysis of video records of classroom interactions in a high school and examined how a teacher and a group of students engaged in a computer-supported collaborative inquiry. Our results show that students through inquiry are enabled to make sense of concepts and their experiences with resources and also to use science concepts as explanatory tools. However, this is mediated by the teachers’ practices for supporting students, such as providing relevant clues for them to continue their inquiry, eliciting their initial understanding of concepts thereby making them available for further development, pressing for explanations, and reformulating their explanations. The teacher is continuously alternating between withdrawing and making students inquire by themselves and supporting their inquiry. In and through such social interactions, materials and digital tools become tools for thinking. We argue that one of the practical implications of our study is that it is crucial that teachers explicitly draw students into their system of activity throughout the entire learning trajectory and that the teachers and students together make sense of science concepts for explaining energy transformation. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-016-9244-

Peers, teachers and guides: A study of three conditions for scaffolding conceptual learning in science centers.

acceptedVersio

Designing for play-based learning of scientific concepts: Digital tools for bridging school and science museum contexts.

Playing and schooling are usually considered as separate activities. In this article, we argue that these activities can be reconciled in order to design learning experiences that are more exploratory and engaging. Taking a socio-cultural perspective on playing and learning, we provide examples that bridge museum experiences with school-based activities in order to facilitate students’ learning of scientific concepts. In the project discussed, different technological devices are used as play-based tools for connecting science learning in the two institutional settings. In this article we discuss the implications of research in different fields of inquiry for designing play-based learning activities. We illustrate this complexity by analyzing how a multi-disciplinary professional group negotiated their understandings of how playing and learning could be combined, and we give a brief presentation of how the actual learning trajectory was operationalized into design. Originally published in: Children, Youth and Environments 21(2), 2011 http://colorado.edu/journals/cy

A Triple Challenge: Students’ Identification, Interpretation, and Use of Individualized Automated Feedback in Learning to Write English as a Foreign Language

The aim of this study was to investigate eighth-grade students’ assessment literacy and writing skills in English as a foreign language using an AI-based automated essay assessment tool (EAT). Data were gathered from a design-based research initiative where the EAT was designed, developed, and tested in naturalistic school settings. Fifty-six eighth-grade students wrote individual essays, for which they received automatic feedback. The feedback was discussed with their teachers and peers. Both the writing process and teacher and peer interactions were video recorded. The video data were analyzed using an interaction analysis. The improvements made on the essay based on the feedback logs registered by the EAT for each student’s writing trajectory and the different versions of the essay were examined using frequency analyses. The findings demonstrate that automated essay assessment might be useful for fostering students’ writing skills if teachers help students get started, identify errors, and share interpretations