Tina A. Grotzer

How Does Grasping the Underlying Causal Structures of Ecosystems Impact Students' Understanding?.

Students have difficulty understanding ecosystem concepts. This article argues that the difficulty stems partly from not grasping the underlying causality that structures the concepts. We report on an intervention study designed to teach eight- and nine-year-olds to reason about domino, cyclic, and mutual causality by infusing causally focused activities and explicit discussion about the nature of each type of causality into a teachertaught unit on ecosystems. The teacher-taught unit was typical of ecosystems units taught in many elementary schools. The students were third graders from a suburban middle class community and ranged from low to high achieving students. Three conditions were contrasted: 1) activities with discussion; 2) activities only; and 3) no infused activities. Students who participated in both the activities designed to reveal the underlying causal structure and the discussion of the nature of causality showed significantly deeper understanding of the connectedness within ecosystems and demonstrated a significantly better grasp of the process of decomposition and the mechanisms that cause it. The results suggest that it is important to teach students how to structure ecosystems concepts in addition to teaching ecosystems information.

Learning to Understand the Forms of Causality Implicit in Scientifically Accepted Explanations.

A 4-month-old accidentally brushes a stuffed bee with a bell in it. Surprised and delighted by the sound, he repeatedly bats at the bee making the bell ring again and again. A scientist analyzing certain ant behaviors contemplates what causes the behaviors. She contrasts competing models to explain what is going on. Are the ants controlled by a central, causal agent or are the behaviors of the group the result of the interactions of many individually-governed behaviors-an emergent form of causality?

Ecosystem Science Learning via Multi-User Virtual Environments

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Creating a Climate for Change: Educating for “intelligent environmental action” in an age of global warming

If you want to understand nature, you must be conversant with the language in which nature speaks to us. Richard Feynman What does it mean to be “conversant with the language in which nature speaks to us,” and how do we help others develop this capacity? From a pedagogical perspective, if we want to address climate change and help people become a part of the solution rather than the problem, we must answer this question. One of the authors watched as her two-year-old son took the hand of another little boy on the playground and brought him over to the fence to “see the pretty sunset.” His sense of wonder and enthusiasm for sharing it inspires hope for the future, and yet there is strong evidence that people of all ages understand little of the language or patterns of nature. Too often, as children grow up, they lose their appreciation for and sense of connection to the natural world. This is, in itself, a deep loss. But even if we retain an appreciation for the beauty of nature, few of us ever develop an understanding of the inherent complexities and dynamics of our environment. To solve environmental problems, an intuitive appreciation for nature is certainly necessary, but it is by no means sufficient. How do we learn the patterns of nature? How do we encourage the development of “environmental intelligence” and, more importantly, “intelligent environmental action”?

The Role of Metacognition in Students’ Understanding and Transfer of Explanatory Structures in Science

This chapter explores the power of metacognition in helping students to reflect upon and revise their underlying causal assumptions in service of deeper science learning and to transfer the concepts that they learn. In six eighth grade science classrooms, we introduced “metacognitive moves” into instruction about the nature of the causal patterns implicit in density and pressure-related concepts. Classes participated in a density unit followed by an air pressure unit making it possible to assess transfer, cognitive, and metacognitive statements, using pre- and post-assessment, interview data, writing samples, and key classroom conversations. Four categories of cognitive and metacognitive strategies emerged in students’ statements increasing in sophistication from explicit knowledge claims to engaging in reflective reasoning and examining the applicability and plausibility of concepts. There was a strong correlation between the number of metacognitive statements students made during their interviews and higher post-assessment scores. Students who made more metacognitive statements gave more relational causal responses on their posttests—reflecting greater ability to incorporate the complex causal concepts. Those students who made more metacognitive statements on their density posttest showed more transfer of understanding to air pressure. The notion of metacognition applied in this study consists of knowledge of persons (both interpersonal and intrapersonal), monitoring, and evaluation. Knowledge of persons invites awareness of students’ sense-making process. Monitoring and evaluation also occur in the context of students’ ideas, as students test their faith in a particular idea, assessing whether they really believe that idea and whether they should keep on doing so.

Teacher Perceptions of the Practicality and Effectiveness of Immersive Ecological Simulations as Classroom Curricula.

Recent research with Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) in education has shown that these platforms can be effective and engaging for students; however, educators and administrators have practical concerns about the adoption of MUVE-based curricula. This study looks at implementations of EcoMUVE, a MUVEbased curriculum designed to support middle school learning of ecosystem concepts and processes. Research questions looked at teacher perceptions of the curriculum’s implementation feasibility, alignment with curricular objectives and standards, and perceived value. Results showed that EcoMUVE was very well-received, and technical issues were manageable. Teachers felt the curriculum was effective, aligned well with standards, and compared favorably with a non-MUVE alternative. Particular technological and curriculum features that contributed to EcoMUVE’s perceived value included student-directed learning, an inquiry, role-based pedagogy, immersion in the virtual environment, and the ease of collecting and comparing data with graphs. Teacher Perceptions of the Practicality and Effectiveness of Immersive Ecological Simulations as Classroom Curricula

Shifts in Student Motivation during Usage of a Multi-User Virtual Environment for Ecosystem Science

In incorporating technology in science education, some have expressed concern that the value added by technology is primarily due to the novelty or excitement about using the devices, resulting in no lasting effect on student motivation or learning in science. This research addresses this concern through evaluation of student motivation during a two-week, multi-user virtual environment MUVE-based curriculum for middle school ecosystems science. Analysis of multiple surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the curriculum found that students continued to find the activity engaging from beginning to end, while student value of its utility in helping them learn science increased significantly. Furthermore, while initial student engagement resided primarily at the technology interface level, with time and experience students became increasingly engaged in the student-led, collaborative inquiry experiences afforded by the embedded scientific investigation.

Improving the learning of clinical reasoning through computer-based cognitive representation

Objective Clinical reasoning is usually taught using a problem-solving approach, which is widely adopted in medical education. However, learning through problem solving is difficult as a result of the contextualization and dynamic aspects of actual problems. Moreover, knowledge acquired from problem-solving practice tends to be inert and fragmented. This study proposed a computer-based cognitive representation approach that externalizes and facilitates the complex processes in learning clinical reasoning. The approach is operationalized in a computer-based cognitive representation tool that involves argument mapping to externalize the problem-solving process and concept mapping to reveal the knowledge constructed from the problems. Methods Twenty-nine Year 3 or higher students from a medical school in east China participated in the study. Participants used the proposed approach implemented in an e-learning system to complete four learning cases in 4 weeks on an individual basis. For each case, students interacted with the problem to capture critical data, generate and justify hypotheses, make a diagnosis, recall relevant knowledge, and update their conceptual understanding of the problem domain. Meanwhile, students used the computer-based cognitive representation tool to articulate and represent the key elements and their interactions in the learning process. Results A significant improvement was found in students’ learning products from the beginning to the end of the study, consistent with students’ report of close-to-moderate progress in developing problem-solving and knowledge-construction abilities. No significant differences were found between the pretest and posttest scores with the 4-week period. The cognitive representation approach was found to provide more formative assessment. Conclusions The computer-based cognitive representation approach improved the learning of clinical reasoning in both problem solving and knowledge construction.

Leveraging Fourth and Sixth Graders' Experiences to Reveal Understanding of the Forms and Features of Distributed Causality.

ABSTRACT Research has focused on students’ difficulties understanding phenomena in which agency is distributed across actors whose individual-level behaviors converge to result in collective outcomes. Building on Levy and Wilensky (2008), this study identified features of distributed causality students understand and that may offer affordances for instruction. Students displayed more distributed reasoning than anticipated, used hybrid and flexible reasoning, and reasoned about additive effects of collections of agents and their interactions, even when intent was unaligned.

They Work Together to Roar: Kindergartners' Understanding of an Interactive Causal Task.

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to investigate kindergartners’ exploration of interactive causality during their play with a pair of toy sound blocks. Interactive causality refers to a type of causal pattern in which two entities interact to produce a causal force, as in particle attraction and symbiotic relationships. Despite being prevalent in nature, elementary through college students experience difficulties interpreting interactive causal patterns and tend to resort to simpler, unidirectional explanations of scientific phenomena. Less is known about younger students’ nascent conceptions of interactive causality, which can serve as a foundation for advanced science learning. A microgenetic study was conducted to investigate 12 kindergartners’ understanding of the interactive nature of the pair of sound blocks. Children’s manipulations and explanations of the blocks were analyzed for evidence of unidirectional or interactive reasoning. Ten children produced interactive actions and explanations throughout the study session. The remaining two students shifted from interactive to unidirectional explanations and actions during the session. Children’s causal interpretations varied as they focused on different features of the blocks, suggesting that they were attending to evidence of the blocks as they played. These findings inform how teachers may design instructional opportunities that highlight key features of interactive events.