Keisha Varma

Professional Development for Technology-Enhanced Inquiry Science

The knowledge integration framework is used to analyze studies on professional development in technology-enhanced science involving more than 2,350 teachers and 138,0000 students. The question of how professional development enhances teachers’ support for students’ inquiry science learning is the focus of the work. A literature search using the keywords technology, professional development, and science identified 360 studies from the past 25 years, 43 of which included multiple data sources and reported results for teachers and/or students. Findings suggest that professional development programs that engaged teachers in a comprehensive, constructivist-oriented learning process and were sustained beyond 1 year significantly improved students’ inquiry learning experiences in K–12 science classrooms. In professional development programs of 1 year or less, researchers encountered common technical and instructional obstacles related to classroom implementation that hindered success. Programs varied most considerably in terms of their support for teachers’ use of evidence to distinguish effective technology-enhanced practices.

A retrieval-based approach to eliminating hindsight bias

ABSTRACT Individuals exhibit hindsight bias when they are unable to recall their original responses to novel questions after correct answers are provided to them. Prior studies have eliminated hindsight bias by modifying the conditions under which original judgments or correct answers are encoded. Here, we explored whether hindsight bias can be eliminated by manipulating the conditions that hold at retrieval. Our retrieval-based approach predicts that if the conditions at retrieval enable sufficient discrimination of memory representations of original judgments from memory representations of correct answers, then hindsight bias will be reduced or eliminated. Experiment 1 used the standard memory design to replicate the hindsight bias effect in middle-school students. Experiments 2 and 3 modified the retrieval phase of this design, instructing participants beforehand that they would be recalling both their original judgments and the correct answers. As predicted, this enabled participants to form compound retrieval cues that discriminated original judgment traces from correct answer traces, and eliminated hindsight bias. Experiment 4 found that when participants were not instructed beforehand that they would be making both recalls, they did not form discriminating retrieval cues, and hindsight bias returned. These experiments delineate the retrieval conditions that produce—and fail to produce—hindsight bias.

Professional Development Programs for Teaching with Visualizations

Previous research suggests the value of technology-enhanced materials that guide learners to use dynamic, interactive visualizations of science phenomena. The power of these visualizations to improve student understanding depends on the teacher. In this chapter we provide two exemplars of professional development programs that focus on teaching with visualizations. The programs differ in intensity but follow the same basic philosophy. We show that the more intense professional development approach results in more effective teacher implementation of visualizations and greater student learning gains. We identify specific strategies that other educators can use to improve students’ knowledge integration with interactive visualizations.

Exploring Student Engagement in an Augmented Reality Learning Game

ThisarticleinvestigatesthebehaviorsofmiddleschoolstudentsduringtheirparticipationinanAR gamecalledPlaythePast.Thefindingsofthisstudyshowthatengagementdifferedduringdiscrete activitiesinthegameenvironmentandthattherewasarelationshipbetweentherolesthatstudents wereassignedandtheirengagement. KEywoRdS AR, Augmented Reality, Design, Digital, Engagement, Game, History, Situated, Telemetry