Florence R. Sullivan

Ozone: Depression of Frond Multiplication and Floral Production in Duckweed

Plants of Lemna perpusilla #6746 grown in an environment charged daily with a low concentration of ozone over 2 weeks were slower to begin multiplying, had a significantly lower rate of frond doubling, and required longer to produce fewer flowers than control plants. Treated plants produced smaller, slightly yellow fronds but had no symptoms of acute injury. Control plants produced four times as many fronds and six times as many flowers as plants continuously exposed to ozone (0.1 part per million).

Playful Talk: Negotiating Opportunities to Learn in Collaborative Groups.

This case study examines the role of playful talk in negotiating the “how” of collaborative group work in a 6th-grade science classroom. Here we develop and test a Vygotsky-derived hypothesis that postulates playful talk as a mechanism for identity exploration and group status negotiation. Our findings indicate that students utilized the playful talk genre as a means to (a) position themselves and others as more or less competent within the group in order to create or foreclose opportunities to learn, (b) maintain and strengthen bonds that were developing within the group toward the goal of achieving higher levels of coordination and opportunities to learn, and (c) pivot toward a self-selected identity aimed sometimes at affecting one’s status within the group. Taken together, these 3 playful talk functions allowed the group to manage tensions that arose as a result of periods of low coordination and to open opportunities to learn for lower status group members. This study contributes to researchers’ understanding of affective aspects of collaborative learning, which are theorized as foundational to success in such endeavors. Video abstract Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo

Robotic Construction Kits as Computational Manipulatives for Learning in the STEM Disciplines

Abstract This article presents a systematic review of research related to the use of robotics construction kits (RCKs) in P–12 learning in the STEM disciplines for typically developing children. The purpose of this review is to configure primarily qualitative and mixed methods findings from studies meeting our selection and quality criterion to answer the review question: How do robotic construction kits function as computational manipulatives in P–12 STEM education? Our synthesis of the literature has resulted in four key insights that are new to the field. First, RCKs have a unique double application: They may be used for direct instruction in robotics (first-order uses) or as analogical tools for learning in other domains (second-order uses). Second, RCKs make possible additional routes to learning through the provision of immediate feedback and the dual modes of representation unique to RCKs. Third, RCKs support a computational thinking learning progression beginning with a lower anchor of sequencing and finishing with a high anchor of systems thinking. And fourth, RCKs support evolving problem-solving abilities along a continuum, ranging from trial and error to heuristic methods associated with robotics study. Furthermore, our synthesis provides insight into the second-order (analogical) uses of RCKs as computational manipulatives in the disciplines of physics and biology. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed. (Keywords: computational manipulatives, constructionism, computational thinking, problem solving, robotics, STEM)

Computer Contexts for Supporting Metacognitive Learning

A major challenge for both educational researchers and practitioners is to understand why some people seem to learn more effectively than others and to design tools that can help less successful people improve their abilities to learn. In this chapter, we describe the most frequently documented metacognitive learning outcomes including: recall/memory; content learning/problem solving; and social interactions as knowledge acquisition. We then use each of these metacognitive learning outcomes to examine how today’s computer tools have or have not reached their fullest potential to support these learning outcomes and we suggest ways that computers tools can be designed to achieve these outcomes.

Ella Me Ayudó (She Helped Me): Supporting Hispanic and English Language Learners in a Math ITS

Many intelligent tutors are not designed with English language learners (ELL) in mind. As a result, Hispanic ELL students, a large and underserved population in U.S. classrooms, may experience difficulty accessing the relevant tutor content. This research investigates how Hispanic and ELL students perceive the utility of and relate to animated pedagogical agents based on evaluating two theories of learning: students will be more attracted to a learning companion (LC) avatars that matches their personality and will regard a LC as a substitute self-construction. Results indicate that ELL students find LCs more useful and helpful than do Caucasian students and ELL students purposely design LCs that look more like themselves than do the non-ELL students.

Cross Referencing to Co-construct Knowledge About Global Heat Transfer in an Online Learning Environment: Learning with Multiple Visualizations

The purpose of this study was to investigate student learning of physics principles related to the phenomena of global heat transport through the use of a virtual interactive textbook (VIT) that featured multiple representations including video, animations and a virtual experiment. We sought, through the design and development of a primarily visual and visually interactive online environment, to examine how students make sense of the physics principles underlying global heat transfer. Four middle school science teachers worked closely with the researchers to co-design the VIT for their students. Forty-three, typically underrepresented eighth grade students worked with the VIT and took part in the study. Pre-post tests of content knowledge revealed a statistically significant gain related to convection and rotation t(42) = −7.10, p = .000. Analysis of videotaped, collaborative student dyadic interactions and whole class discussions revealed how both students and teachers guided student interactions with the representations through the provision of conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive scaffolds and prompts to student thinking and learning activity. Analysis of student researcher journals indicated that students interpreted the representations primarily at the level of description reflecting a beginning ability to interpret visualizations.

The Creative Nature of Robotics Activity: Design and Problem Solving

Learning with robotics through open-ended design challenges enables the development of creativity in children. Such robotics learning environments encourage three creative activities that are closely identified with problem solving and design activity, including problem finding, idea generation, and invented strategies. In this chapter, I present the theoretical grounding for the relationship of creativity to robotics, with a special emphasis on the role of play in robotics learning. I provide examples, drawn from my research, to demonstrate how children engage in play and creativity with robotics, and I discuss how these activities relate to learning. In addition, I provide curricular and pedagogical recommendations to teachers interested in supporting student creativity through a robotics learning unit. Curricular recommendations focus on the types of open-ended challenges teachers may enact across the STEM disciplines. Pedagogical recommendations detail a progressive approach to teaching that emphasizes the facilitating role of students’ interest, students’ experience, and students’ collaborative interactions in learning.

Learning from the Periphery in a Collaborative Robotics Workshop for Girls

This study investigates how students who are peripherally positioned in computer science-based, collaborative group work meaningfully engage with the group activity in order to learn. Our research took place in the context of a one-day, all-girl robotics workshop, in which the participants were learning to program robotic devices. A total of 17 girls, ages 8 - 13 (M = 11.725) participated in the workshop. Participants were recruited from local middle schools, through the technology teacher. Data collection consisted of video and audiotaping all group interactions over the daylong workshop. The group discussions were then fully transcribed. In this study, we focus on two students from different groups who had less direct contact with the materials, and were thus positioned peripherally. We used microgenetic learning analytic techniques to analyze discourse patterns in order to characterize the engagement of both the two groups of which the students were a part, as well as the two students themselves. One of the groups demonstrated stronger coordination from a discourse perspective and the focal student in that group exhibited meaningful engagement, while the other group demonstrated weaker coordination from a discourse perspective and the focal student exhibited marginal engagement. This contrast allows us to begin to build a picture of the factors that support learning from the periphery. Our results indicate that agency exhibited in well-coordinated group discussions is a key aspect of meaningful engagement.