Shaaron Ainsworth

Drawing to learn in science

Emerging research suggests drawing should be explicitly recognized as a key element in science education. Should science learners be challenged to draw more? Certainly making visualizations is integral to scientific thinking. Scientists do not use words only but rely on diagrams, graphs, videos, photographs, and other images to make discoveries, explain findings, and excite public interest. From the notebooks of Faraday and Maxwell (1) to current professional practices of chemists (2), scientists imagine new relations, test ideas, and elaborate knowledge through visual representations (3–5).

Motivating Children to Learn Effectively: Exploring the Value of Intrinsic Integration in Educational Games

The concept of intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of the user engagement created by digital games. Yet despite this, educational software has traditionally attempted to harness games as extrinsic motivation by using them as a sugar coating for learning content. This article tests the concept of intrinsic integration as a way of creating a more productive relationship between educational games and their learning content. Two studies assessed this approach by designing and evaluating an educational game called Zombie Division to teach mathematics to 7- to 11-year-olds. Study 1 examined the learning gains of 58 children who played either the intrinsic, extrinsic, or control variants of Zombie Division for 2 hr, supported by their classroom teacher. Study 2 compared time on task for the intrinsic and extrinsic variants of the game when 16 children had free choice of which game to play. The results showed that children learned more from the intrinsic version of the game under fixed time limits and spent 7 times longer playing it in free-time situations. Together, these studies offer evidence for the genuine value of an intrinsic approach for creating effective educational games. The theoretical and commercial implications of these findings are discussed.

Authoring Tools for Advanced Technology Learning Environments

This edited book gives a comprehensive picture of the state of the art in authoring systems and authoring tools for advanced technology instructional systems. I in recent years issues of authoring, cost-effectiveness, interoperability, and re-usability have been at the forefront in educational software design, particularly in the areas of advanced, adaptive, and intelligent educational software. This book includes descriptions of fifteen systems and research projects from almost every significant effort in the field of advanced technology authoring systems. Included is a chapter comprising of an extensive overview of the field, summarizing the work of dozens of systems and projects, and providing an analytical framework for comparing them.

Endogenous fantasy and learning in digital games

Many people believe that educational games are effective because they motivate children to actively engage in a learning activity as part of playing the game. However, seminal work by Malone, exploring the motivational aspects of digital games, concluded that the educational effectiveness of a digital game depends on the way in which learning content is integrated into the fantasy context of the game. In particular, he claimed that content that is intrinsically related to the fantasy will produce better learning than that which is merely extrinsically related. However, this distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic (or endogenous and exogenous) fantasy is a concept that has developed a confused standing over the following years. This article will address this confusion by providing a review and critique of the empirical and theoretical foundations of endogenous fantasy and its relevance to creating educational digital games. Substantial concerns are raised about the empirical basis of this work and a theoretical critique of endogenous fantasy is offered, concluding that endogenous fantasy is a misnomer, insofar as the “integral and continuing relationship” of fantasy cannot be justified as a critical means of improving the effectiveness of educational digital games. An alternative perspective on the intrinsic integration of learning content is described, incorporating game mechanics, flow, and representations.

The Educational Value of Multiple-representations when Learning Complex Scientific Concepts

When people are learning complicated scientific concepts, interacting with multiple forms of representation such as diagrams, graphs and equations can bring unique benefits. Unfortunately, there is considerable evidence to show that learners often fail to exploit these advantages, and in the worse cases inappropriate combinations of representations can completely inhibit learning. In other words, multiple representations are powerful tools but like all powerful tools they need careful handling if learners are to use them successfully. In this chapter, I will review the evidence that suggests that multiple representations serve a number of important roles in science education. I will also consider why the research on the effectiveness of multiple representations shows that all too often they do not achieve their desired educational goals and I consider what can be done to overcome these problems.

Creating Personal Meaning through Technology-Supported Science Inquiry Learning across Formal and Informal Settings

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or outdoors. We report on a case study of personal inquiry learning with 28 high school students on the topic of healthy eating. An analysis of how the personal inquiry was enacted in the classroom and at home, based on issues identified from a study of interviews with the students and their teacher, is provided. The outcomes showed that students were alerted to challenges associated with fieldwork and how they responded to the uncertainty and challenge of an open investigation. The study, moreover, raised an unexpected difficulty for researchers of finding the ‘sweet spot’ between scientifically objective but unengaging inquiry topics, and ones that are personally meaningful but potentially embarrassing. Implications for further research are shaped around ways of overcoming this difficulty.

Information technology and multiple representations: new opportunities – new problems

Abstract Computer environments that employ multiple representations have become commonplace in the classroom. This article reviews the arguments and evidence for the benefits of such software and describe what the associated learning demands are likely to be. By describing the results of two evaluation studies in primary mathematics, the authors show that children as young as six can, in the right circumstances, benefit from multi- representational software. The authors discuss the features of the learning environments that influenced performance and consider how teachers could support learning with these types of environments.

There Is More than One Way To Solve a Problem: Evaluating a Learning Environment that Supports the Development of Children's Multiplication Skills

Abstract Interpretation of the nature of mathematical understanding has changed recently. These changes have prompted calls for different instructional methods in the primary classroom. COPPERS is a mathematical learning environment which explores how such goals should be implemented computationally. Two experiments have examined how system components have advanced childrens understanding that multiplication problems can have many different correct solutions. Different numbers of decompositions, learners choice of strategy and feedback in either tabular or place value representations were all found to significantly affect learning. Theoretical interpretations of these results are considered in terms of Vygotskian approaches to scaffolding learning and current research on external representations.

Personal inquiry : orchestrating science investigations within and beyond the classroom.

A central challenge for science educators is to enable young people to act as scientists by gathering and assessing evidence, conducting experiments, and engaging in informed debate. We report the design of the nQuire toolkit, a system to support scripted personal inquiry learning, and a study of its use with school students ages 11–14. This differs from previous work on inquiry learning by its emphasis on learners investigating topics of personal significance supported by a computer-based toolkit to guide school pupils through an entire inquiry process that connects structured learning in the classroom with discovery and data collection at home or outdoors. Findings from the studies indicate that the toolkit was successfully adopted by teachers and pupils in contexts that included teacher-directed lessons, an after-school club, field trips, and learner-managed homework. It effectively supported the transition between individual, group, and whole-class activities and supported learning across formal and informal settings. We discuss issues raised by the intervention studies, including how the combination of technology and pedagogy provided support for the teacher despite difficulties in managing the technology and integrating field data into a classroom lesson. We also discuss the difficulty of altering young people’s attitudes to science.

REDEEM: Simple Intelligent Tutoring Systems from Usable Tools

REDEEM allows teachers and instructors with little technological knowledge to create simple Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Unlike the other authoring tools described in this book, REDEEM does not support the construction of domain material. Instead, authors import existing computer-based material as a domain model and then use the REDEEM tools to overlay their teaching expertise. The REDEEM shell uses this knowledge, together with its own default teaching knowledge, to deliver the courseware adaptively to meet the needs of different learners. In this chapter, we first explain how the REDEEM tools capture this knowledge and how the REDEEM Shell uses it. Then, we describe four different studies with REDEEM aimed at answering questions concerning the effectiveness of this approach to ITS development. We conclude by reflecting on the experiences of the last six years and the lessons that we have learned by using REDEEM in a variety of real world contexts.