I respond to Pike and Dunne by exploring the utilization of citizen science in science education. Their results indicate that students fail to pursue science beyond the secondary level, in part, because of prior educational experiences with science education. Students lack motivation to pursue degrees and careers in science because they feel science is not relevant to their lives or they are simply not good at science. With this understanding, the science education community now needs to move beyond a discussion of the problem and move forward with continued discourse on possible solutions
This implementation study explores middle school, high school and community college student experiences in Globaloria, an educational pilot program of game design offered in schools within the U.S. state of West Virginia, supported by a non-profit organization based in New York City called the World Wide Workshop Foundation. This study reports on student engagement, meaning making and critique of the program, in their own words. The study's data source was a mid-program student feedback survey implemented in Pilot Year 2 (2008/2009) of the 5 year design-based research initiative, in which the
As hypermedia, online teacher professional development (TPD) should ideally support diverse learners to work with online content effectively because it involves multiple representations and a nonlinear format. Differences among participants in motivation and learning provide challenges for design. The present study is a use-inspired, mixed-method study of 164 teachers' motivation and learning in an unmoderated online workshop. It addresses participants' demographic and motivational profiles, participation in this type of workshop (e.g., the frequency, duration, and focus, as well as their work
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
K. RenningerMing CaiMark LewisMargot AdamsKatherine Ernst
Successful online students must learn and maintain motivation to learn. The Self-regulation of Motivation (SRM) model (Sansone and Thoman ) suggests two kinds of motivation are essential: Goals-defined (i.e., value and expectancy of learning), and experience-defined (i.e., whether interesting). The Regulating Motivation and Performance Online (RMAPO) project examines implications using online HTML lessons. Initial project results suggested that adding usefulness information (enhancing goals-defined motivation) predicted higher engagement levels (enhancing experience), which in turn predicted
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Carol SansoneTamra FraughtonJoseph ZacharyJonathan ButnerCecily Heiner
This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today's pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new media technology-pervasive learning environments is advanced, taking into consideration personal, situational and contextual factors as influencing variables. While the path associated with curiosity, interest, and engagement during learning and research
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Marilyn ArnoneRuth SmallSarah ChaunceyH. McKenna
In his writings, David Orr claims that the US is in an 'ecological crisis' and that this stems from a crisis of education. He outlines a theory of ecological literacy, a mode by which we better learn the ecology of the Earth and live in a sustainable manner. While emphasizing a shock doctrine, the diagnosis of 'crisis' may be correct, but it is short-lived for children and adults of the world. In this philosophical analysis of Orr's theory, it is argued that we move beyond the perspective of crisis. By extending Orr's ecological literacy with biophilia and ecojustice and by recognizing the
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Debra MitchellMichael Mueller
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In this paper, we examined data collected as part of a 5-year project designed to foster reform-based urban science teaching through teachers' communities of inquiry. Drawing upon a distributed leadership framework, we analyzed teacher 'talk' during professional learning community (PLC) meetings. This analysis yielded five elements: teacher learning and collaboration, community formation, confidence in knowledge of content and guided inquiry, concerns about the impact of accountability measures on teaching and learning, and sustainability of reform. Follow-up interviews with participants
The article discusses the outcomes of the Mathematics Improvement That Ensures Excellence (MITEE), an after-school mathematics tutoring program in the U.S. which aims at improving the mathematics conceptual understanding and level of procedural skills of second and fifth graders and encouraging ninth graders to pursue teaching careers. It offers an overview of the inception of the program through the collaborative effort between an urban school district and a midwestern university, along with teacher education students and community volunteers, and describes the different participants and
Bringing Up Girls in Science (BUGS) was an afterschool program for 4th and 5th grade girls that provided authentic learning experiences in environmental science as well as valuable female mentoring opportunities in an effort to increase participants' academic achievement in science. BUGS participants demonstrated significantly greater amounts of gain in science knowledge as measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in Science (ITBS-S). The original BUGS participants and contrasts have now completed high school and entered college, allowing researchers to assess the long-term impact of the BUGS
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Tandra Tyler-WoodAmber EllisonOkyoung LimSita Periathiruvadi
We examine the research conducted by Kang, Anderson and Wu by discussing it in a larger context of science museum-school partnerships. We review how the disconnect that exists between stakeholders, the historical and cultural contexts in which formal and informal institutions are situated, and ideas of globalization, mediate the success for formal-informal partnerships to be created and sustained.
In this metalogue we build on the arguments presented by Puvirajah, Verma and Webb to discuss the nature of authentic science learning experiences in context of collaborations between schools and out-of-school time settings. We discuss the role of stakeholders in creating collaborative science learning practices and affordances of out of school time and formal science learning contexts. We contend that authentic science learning experiences are those where science learning happens within a social milieu and advocate for true collaborations between schools and informal settings in ways that