Andreas Redfors

Adapting Web-Based Inquiry Learning Environments from One Country to Another: The CoReflect Experience

This chapter discusses the process of adapting inquiry learning environments (LEs) from one national context to another, drawing from the collaboration of eight partners from Europe and Israel, all participating in the European project “Digital Support for Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reflection on Socio-scientific Debates” (CoReflect, http://www.coreflect.org). Each national Local Working Group (LWG), which was comprised of researchers, practicing teachers, and science experts, used a common theoretical framework to design, enact, and investigate web-based inquiry LEs on socio-scientific issues. Following design-based research and iterative improvements of the LEs through local enactments, the LWGs translated each learning environment in English and one other language. The LEs were adapted and used in authentic classroom environments in a different country. Four of the seven adaptations are reported here and implications for educational praxis are discussed.

CoReflect: Web-Based Inquiry Learning Environments on Socio-scientific Issues

This chapter describes the development of the web-based inquiry learning environments as part of CoReflect, a finalized 3-year EC project involving seven countries. In CoReflect, interactive web-based materials for data-driven inquiry using the web-based platform STOCHASMOS were developed. The learning environments (LEs) embrace the guided constructivist approach to learning and support collaborative and reflective work. Teachers were engaged in the design and implementation of the LEs so that a mechanism could be developed for subsequent scale-up within Europe. All LEs were implemented at least three times and in two different countries. The final versions are available from coreflect.org. This chapter focuses on experiences from the first two implementations and gives an overview of the implementations of four LEs, discussing findings and student outcomes. Results are related to earlier research on the use of socio-scientific issues in the teaching of science.

Children’s Collaborative Learning in Science Scaffolded by Tablets

This chapter discusses a project aiming to extend current understandings of how emerging technologies can be used in preschools to support collaborative learning of real-life science phenomena. Based on the theoretical framework of phenomenography and a mixed-methods approach, the study examined the potential of computer tablets to support collaborative inquiry-based science learning in preschools, with a special interest in explanatory models, active involvement, collaboration and reflective and critical thinking. The research specifically investigated the role of time-lapse and stop-motion animations in developing children’s understanding of science phenomena. In synthesising two domains of science learning, content (concepts, explanatory models) and investigations (hypotheses, problematising, questions, experiments), the study reported in this chapter shows how stop-motion animations help children to more consciously consider concepts and explanatory models. The reported analysis of the empirical data from the first phase of the project shows the potential for the use of stop-motion for teachers and children in preschools to jointly develop, enact and evaluate learning activities in science scaffolded by ubiquitous technologies.

A Framework to Explore the Role of Mathematics During Physics Lessons in Upper-Secondary School

This chapter discusses a framework for analysing the role of mathematics during physics lessons in upper-secondary school. It takes as a starting point that relations made during physics lessons be ...

Ideas about the Human Body among Secondary Students in South Africa

In this paper we focus on how South African students’ ideas about the human body are constituted in their descriptions of three different scenarios involving the pathway of a sandwich, a painkiller ...