Karen E. Irving

Impacts of Multi‐representational Instruction on High School Students’ Conceptual Understandings of the Particulate Nature of Matter

This quasi‐experimental study examined 42 high school introductory chemistry students’ conceptual understandings of the particulate nature of matter (PNM) before and immediately after instruction. Two groups of students, who were taught by the same teacher, received one of two possible instructional interventions: Reform‐Based Teaching (RBT) or Reform‐Based Teaching with Multiple Representations (RBTw/MR). The RBTw/MR instruction differed from the RBT instruction in terms of the frequency of using multiple representations (visual, textual, oral) in relationship to the macroscopic phenomenon and the likely actions occurring at the submicroscopic level. Qualitative research methods, including open‐ended questionnaires and interviews, were used to investigate and describe participants’ conceptual understandings of the PNM over time. The findings indicated that before instruction all participants held a range of alternative conceptions about the aspects of the PNM. Post‐instruction findings indicate that the RBTw/MR instruction was more efficacious in promoting a scientific understanding of the PNM than was the instruction without multiple representations.

Double Visions: Educational Technology in Standards and Assessments for Science and Mathematics

For educational technology integration in content disciplines to succeed, teachers and teacher educators need clear standards delineating why, how, where, and how much educational technology they should include in their teaching. This paper examines the visions offered by current science, mathematics, and educational technology standards for educational technology integration in K-12 schools. Since national assessments exert a profound influence on what teachers and students choose to teach and learn, the vision of educational technology use supported by national assessments is also examined. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards (NCTM, 2000. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Retrieved April 6, 2002 from http://standards.nctm.org), the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council (NRC) 1996. National Science Education Standards. Available at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/4962.html), and the National Educational Technology Standards (International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) 2000. National Educational Technology Standards for Students: Connecting Curriculum and Technology, ISTE, Eugene, Oregon) provide different visions of educational technology use in the classroom. In addition, the current technology use policies for national assessments in science and mathematics, in particular the college admission tests (ACT, SAT I and SAT II subject area tests), Advanced Placement (AP) course assessments, and the Praxis Series assessments indicate that while mathematics assessments often recommend or require the use of educational technology, few science assessments permit the use of educational technology by students. Recommendations are offered for science educators regarding teacher preparation for the technology-rich classrooms of the future.

Development of Two-Dimensional Classroom Discourse Analysis Tool (CDAT): Scientific Reasoning and Dialog Patterns in the Secondary Science Classes.

BackgroundIn a science classroom, students do not simply learn scientific ways of doing, knowing, and reasoning unless they find ways of appropriating scientific discourse. In the Next Generation Science Standards, major forms of scientific discourse are emphasized as a main part of the Science and Engineering Practices. To enhance student engagement in scientific discourse, teachers need to help students differentiate scientific ways of talking from everyday ways of talking. Thus, science teachers should be able to be aware of the differences to provide opportunities for students to engage in scientific discourse.ResultsIn this study, the classroom discourse analysis tool (CDAT) was developed to help science teachers and educators identify the patterns of their classroom discourse with the lens of scientific reasoning. The CDAT suggests a new way of discourse pattern finding with the two-dimensional graphic organizer and the quantitative data produced by the coding. To pilot the CDAT analysis, 13 videos and transcripts of two middle and one high school teachers’ physical science classes were viewed and analyzed. The results from CDAT coding show illustrative information that characterizes the classroom discourse patterns in relation to scientific reasoning and teachers’ questioning and feedback. A coded CDAT table shows what reasoning components used in the classroom dialogs between the teacher and students. It also shows how students engaged in the dialogs with the variations of their answers by the teacher’s question and feedback.ConclusionThe results show the patterns of students’ responses strongly depend on teacher’s question or feedback. In addition, this analysis also generates various quantitative data that represent certain characteristics of the classroom discourse, i.e., length of dialog and the number of reasoning components used. The possible implications of CDAT analysis are to explore the relationships between teachers’ discourse patterns and students’ achievement along with changes in their reasoning skills. Student attitudinal outcomes such as motivations, interests, or self-efficacy could also be compared by the classroom discourse patterns revealed by CDAT. CDAT analysis itself can also be used in a teacher professional development as an intervention to help teachers see their classroom discourse patterns.