Participating in the Communication of Science: Identifying Relationships Between Laboratory Space Designs and Students’ Activities

Learning spaces can play a powerful role in shaping and supporting the activities of the students and teachers who use them: they can be agents for change when the success of new pedagogical approaches depends on shifting entrenched practices. The laboratory is a key site for science education. It is here that discipline knowledge and generic competences are fused and honed, in the very act of ‘doing science’. This paper focuses on communication of science. It looks at how students learn to participate in science communication, and acquire both scientific and more generic communication skills, while engaged in laboratory-based activities. This paper reports some findings of ethnographic research that involved observing student activity in laboratories. This opportunity to examine differences in patterns of communicative activity arose from a relocation to new purpose-designed laboratory spaces. Ethnographic research is appropriate for gathering data about space usage. It helps trace relations between student activity, characteristics of the spaces in which the activity is unfolding, the social organisation of the work being done, and the disciplinary practices that underpin the tasks that students are set. Our research identifies the importance of sightlines, communication tools and instructor behaviours in promoting students’ communicative activity. Addendum: Figure 2 has been replaced to ensure ethics requirements are followed

University teachers' conceptions of learning through online discussion

Online discussion is placed at the centre of many university courses nowadays whether delivered in online-, distance-, external- or internal-mode. There has been significant specialized research investigating students’ conceptions of learning through online discussion, however to the best of our knowledge no studies have been conducted which investigate teachers’ conceptions. This study adopts a phenomenographic approach to reveal teachers’ conceptions of ‘learning through online discussion’. To address the gap in the literature, teachers’ conceptions are reported based on the research question – What does learning through online discussion mean to university teachers? Fifteen teachers at a large research-intensive metropolitan Australian university were asked about their experiences with ‘learning through online discussion’ in semi-structured interviews. The interview transcripts were systematically analysed using a phenomenographic approach to reveal four qualitatively different categories of conception. 1. Learning through online discussion as a way to provide time and access 2. Learning through online discussion as a way to engage learners 3. Learning through online discussion as a way to foster a community of learners 4. Learning through online discussion as a way to enable higher-order cognition and learning The findings of this study contribute to knowledge by building on research into teachers’ conceptions of e-learning and learning technologies, and complementing research into students’ conceptions of learning through online discussion. There are implications for teachers, educational designers, academic developers and all those involved with the enhancement of student engagement, learning experiences and outcomes in higher education. Specifically, the findings will inform designers of professional development courses for university teachers to learn about effective use of online discussion for learning

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC): A small computer to serve a big cause

OLPC Australia2 (2013) is a branch of the worldwide OLPC Foundation that manages the implementation of the XO laptop program, open to all Australian schools with children between the ages of 4 and 15. The program involves the distribution of XO laptops and the provision of ongoing support to Australian teachers, as they implement and use the laptops in classroom activities. The XO laptops are designed within a tight budget to provide reliable Internet connectivity in a robust casing, and are preconfi gured with specialized software that enables social collaboration via the Internet and laptop to laptop. XO software consists of tools for exploring and expressing, rather than tools for instruction. Children and learning are at the heart of this network

Phases of design: Following idea development and patterns of collaborative discussion in a learning by design project

Learning by design (LBD) has a long association with learning about complex environmental systems. This investigation traces the development of ideas within a group of five students engaged in a collaborative design process. Tasked with the design of an online educational resource, about a waterway of local significance, this group was one of three for which multiple streams of data (audio and video) were collected. Ideas central to the progression of their design were identified and represented visually over time, showing the impact of each group member and the facilitator, and discourse was coded according to the content code of the CPACS scheme. Four phases of design were identified and Markov-transition diagrams of the content were interrogated. This paper makes a contribution to our knowledge of the phases of design evident during LBD tasks, which could have implications for the design and management of such projects in the future.</p

Identification of patterns of tool use and sketching practices in a learning by design task

The complex interaction of tool use (both physical and digital) in face-to-face collaborative learning situations, and the role that these tools play in facilitating group work is increasingly important as tools for learning become more sophisticated and specialized. In this paper, a group of five high school students is studied as they engage in a learning by design task to design an educational resource about a local waterway. They carried out this design work in The Design Studio at the University of Sydney, using an iPad projected onto a whiteboard wall. Multiple streams of data were collected, visualized and analyzed, which allowed the overall patterns of tool use for all members of the group to be identified in relation to the development of their design. Two patterns of tool use are identified and analyzed according to the practice of sketching identified in other fields of design.</p

Teaching Model Predictive Control:WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, WHO, AND HOW?

We conducted a survey on teaching MPC and received more than 120 answers from lecturers and students from the Systems and Control community around the world. We first summarize the responses as neutral as possible in the Section “Insights from the survey” and then derive best practices for undergraduate MPC teaching, which are biased by the authors’ unanimous opinion that MPC can and should be taught as early as possible. In fact, the survey outcomes reveal MPC is even the first control course in some curricula today, corroborating that MPC may indeed be an attractive option for an introductory control course. The section “Advanced topics for graduate MPC courses” proceeds with suggestions about topics and course layouts for students who already have a basic, intermediate or even expert knowledge on MPC. Finally, “Prospects and synergies for future MPC teaching” briefly states the authors’ view on some important future routes for MPC, among them new applications and the relation to machine learning and artificial intelligence

Learning about Collaborative Design for Learning in a Multi-Surface Design Studio

This paper fuses research on CSCL and collaborative design for learning. It reports a study located in a novel multi-surface environment, configured to support small teams who are designing for other people’s learning. Despite growing awareness in the CSCL community of the importance of design in teachers’ work, there has been very little empirical research on how such design is carried out, or how design for CSCL can be supported and improved through the provision of better design tools and design methods. The paper offers an analysis of the work of four pairs of designers in our Multi-Surface Design Studio. These four dyads were completing a design task we set them, while simultaneously learning how to make good use of the various personal and shared digital tools, display surfaces and other resources in the studio. From observational and interview data, we show how collaborative design for learning needs to be understood as a complex, multiply-situated activity, in which design problem-solving, tools and space usage depend on the fluent deployment of intuitive knowledge about mutual awareness, shared perception, information persistence and movement

Analysing the structural properties of learning networks: Architectural Insights into Buildable Forms

A good repertoire of methods for analysing and sharing ideas about existing designs can make a useful contribution to improving the quality and efficiency of educational design work. Just as architects can improve their practice by studying historic and contemporary buildings, so people who design to help people learn can get better at what they do by understanding the designs of others.</p