Douglas N. Gordin

Addressing the Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning through Technology and Curriculum Design.

Inquiry experiences can provide valuable opportunities for students to improve their understanding of both science content and scientific practices. However, the implementation of inquiry learning in classrooms presents a number of significant challenges. We have been exploring these challenges through a program of research on the use of scientific visualization technologies to support inquiry-based learning in the geosciences. In this article, we describe 5 significant challenges to implementing inquiry-based learning and present strategies for addressing them through the design of technology and curriculum. We present a design history covering 4 generations of software and curriculum to show how these challenges arise in classrooms and how the design strategies respond to them.

Visualization for learners: a framework for adapting scientists' tools

Abstract The use of scientific investigation tools for education is receiving considerable attention as a result of an increased emphasis in the educational community on open-ended inquiry. The scientific community possesses a treasure trove of tools that could be adapted for use by learners. Scientific visualization technologies, in particular, offer great promise for education because of the way they use visual representations to facilitate exploration of complex data. However, the tools that are used by scientists are inappropriate for learners because of their reliance on the tacit knowledge of expert users. Through a careful consideration of the differences between scientists and science students and the design of a series of scientific visualization environments for learners in grades 8–16, we have developed a design framework for the creation of scientific investigation tools based on those of scientists. The framework highlights five critical issues for the construction of tools to support inquiry-based learning: motivating context, learner-appropriate activities, data selection, scaffolding interfaces and support for learning. We have applied this framework to the design of ClimateWatcher, a scientific visualization environment for the investigation of issues related to global climate and climate change that is now in use in middle school, high school and university settings.

The Climate Visualizer: Sense-Making Through Scientific Visualization

This paper describes the design of a learning environment, called the Climate Visualizer, intended to facilitate scientific sense-making in high school classrooms by providing students the ability to craft, inspect, and annotate scientific visualizations. The theoretical back-ground for our design presents a view of learning as acquiring and critiquing cultural practices and stresses the need for students to appropriate the social and material aspects of practice when learning an area. This is followed by a description of the design of the Climate Visualizer, including detailed accounts of its provision of spatial and temporal context and the quantitative and visual representations it employs. A broader context is then explored by describing its integration into the high school science classroom. This discussion explores how visualizations can promote the creation of scientific theories, especially in conjunction with the Collaboratory Notebook, an embedded environment for creating and critiquing scientific theories and visualizations. Finally, we discuss the design trade-offs we have made in light of our theoretical orientation, and our hopes for further progress.

Science Education as Driver of Cyberspace Technology Development

Educational applications of networking technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent (National Center for Education Statistics, 1996; Riley et al., 1996). But “applications” are too often treated as infusions of technology into society, not drivers of new technological or research developments. One premise of the Learning through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) Project challenges that common belief (Pea, 1993). Extending media-rich and highly interactive learning and teaching activities beyond single classrooms makes demanding requirements for new applications. We set out to create “distributed multimedia learning environments” to serve the emerging needs of precollege science education, which highlight learning through guided inquiry and affiliated new roles for teachers (National Research Council, 1996).

Managing graph(ical) complexity with raisin and its category explorer

Graphs offer a powerful way to view the relationships between objects. Yet, as useful as small graphs are for seeing relationships, large graphs are frustrating because their complexity overwhelms our ability to trace through patterns of relationships. The Raisin system helps manage this complexity by giving the means to layout a graph well; index a graph using categories based on structure and other criteria; highlight and abstract via selection, hiding, and aggregation; and create new categories that distill the users conclusions for analysis and presentation.