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ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2026 5-minute presentation Are We Working Together? Using Handhelds to Assess Student Collaboration Handheld devices have the potential to function as "equity computers" (Tinker, 1999) because of their low-cost and portability across a wide range of settings where students learn-schools, after-school programs, and home, for example. The affordances of handheld devices for field investigations in environmental science have been well-documented by CILT researchers (Soloway, et al, 1999, Staudt & Hsi, 1999). The current research explores the potential of handheld devices to be used to assess small-group collaboration in the context of inquiry-based or project-based learning. To develop these assessments, researchers reviewed educational and psychological research on the social and cognitive dimensions of collaborative learning. Assessment items and rubrics were developed based on this research, and teachers select items for assessment via a Web-based authoring environment. Questions are downloaded to a Palm-OS based device and imported into a commercially-available survey tool. Teachers and students then assess small group collaboration on the handheld device, upload results, and discuss similarities and differences between teachers' and students' ratings. Results of an initial pilot showed that students rated monitoring one another's understanding of the task at hand as more important after using the handheld assessment tool in class. The initial pilot also revealed important limitations to usability of the device and point to the importance of using teacher-friendly categories of student actions, such as "discussing text" or "analyzing data," rather than researcher-identified collaboration processes as beginning points for the assessment. Implications for a re-design are discussed, and an HTML mock-up of a new Palm-OS-based environment will be presented.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2040 5-minute presentation Causal Influence Diagrams as Pedagogical and Assessment Tool Advances in educational technology have led to interest in providing meaningful support for learning about complex domains (Alessi, 2000; Spector & Davidsen, 1997; Sterman, 1994). Complex domains are characterized as those with many interrelated components, with non-linear and fuzzy relationships that may change over time, with delayed effects, and with uncertainties due to dependency on human perceptions about some aspects of the system. Simple domains are less dynamic and have predominantly linear relationships among components and variables. It is well established that humans have difficulty in understanding complex systems (Dörner, 1996; Seel, 2000). There are no well-established methods to assess learning outcomes in complex domains. As a consequence, it is difficult to argue that one approach is more effective than another in supporting learning in and about complex domains. The purpose of this paper is to present a method based on causal influence diagrams that can be used to determine progress of learning for complex domains. The assumptions of the method are: (1) learning can be characterized in part as the acquisition of expertise; (2) those considered expert in a complex domain tend to produce similar causal influence diagrams for problem situations in that domain; (3) those new to a complex domain tend to produce varied causal influence diagrams for such problems that are noticeably different from those of experts; and, (4) different pedagogical methods will be more or less effective in producing desired learning outcomes. System dynamicists have used causal influence diagrams as a pedagogical tool to support the acquisition of a holistic view of a complex and dynamic system. We describe how such a tool can be used to determine how new learners think about problems in a domain and how their patterns of thinking change as they progress through a curriculum of instruction.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2072 5-minute presentation Equity Impacts from Formative Assessment Using a Classroom Communication System (CCS) in 3rd through 5th Grades Networked handheld wireless devices hold great potential for improving formative assessment in a remarkably wide range of educational settings. When operated in the context of a classroom communication system (CCS), they also tend to promote pedagogies that are more knowledge-centered, learner-centered, and community-centered. We briefly describe how these effects come about in classrooms, and their impact on increasing equity in learning opportunities for disadvantaged elementary school children.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2097 5-minute presentation Performance Based Assessment A model has been established to evaluate critical thinking and problem solving abilities of middle school students in the area of general science (life, earth, and physical). The model identifies 53 elements of critical thinking and problem solving skills and links subsets of these elements to each step in the solution of a problem. A bank of 55 problem sets have been developed that covers almost all of the concepts in general science for middle school. Each problem set requires between 15-45 minutes for students to complete, depending upon the skill of the student and the nature of the problem. The problems have between 10 and 30 steps required to complete the problem. Upon completing the problem, the student score is portrayed as a profile of proficiency for a subsdet of the critical thinking elements. This profile is used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. The diagnostic is then used to assign tutorial items to provide practice on areas of weakness. The cycle for gaining skill in critical thinking and problem solving is: 1. Assign a problem or a task; 2. Analyze the strength and weakness of the students; 3. Debrief with the students and provide guidance in terms of appropriate approaches to master skills that are identified as weak; and 4. Prescribe the appropriate problem to provide practice of needed skills. The system is available for delivery by CD-ROM or by the Internet. Video quality on Internet delivery can be a problem due to the capacity of the Internet. This is obviated by a hybrid system which uses a CD-ROM to deliver the video in the resident computer while the delivery of other information associated with the items is delivered online. The great advantage of the online system is the collection and distribution of aggregate test results to the designated site. This presentation will feature examples of test items, the teacher utility, and the diagnostic and prescriptive features of the system. Collaborators: WestEd; National Science Foundation; Rand; Dan Ochs; Doug Reynolds. Seeking Collaboration with State of Nevada and pilot testing collaborations.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2015 5-minute presentation Gauging Cooperative Learning in the Virtual School: Positive interdependence in Computer-Mediated Group Science Projects The shift in emphasis from rote learning and lecture in science classrooms to active-learning pedagogies such as cooperative learning entails a shift in evaluation strategies away from exclusive reliance on standardized outcome measures. Cooperative learning, for example, focuses attention on interaction-oriented processes. We are researching methods for judging and assessing student and group performance in cooperative learning. Behaviors that contribute to effective and high-achieving cooperative groups are well documented in the literature. Cooperative learning researchers have summarized many of these behaviors in terms of characteristics of a property known as positive interdependence. Computer-mediation also adds a number of challenges to classroom assessment and monitoring. The introduction of computers as collaboration tools in science classrooms can greatly impinge on traditional modes of monitoring and interacting with students. The Learning in Networked Communities (LiNC) project developed network collaborative learning software called the Virtual School and investigated cooperative learning in science projects involving the technology. Innovative methods of documenting distributed computer-mediated group work allowed easy and efficient compiling of comprehensive time-coded transcripts of collaborative group activity. Video observations were transcribed and collated with computer logs to form a rich and comprehensive script of the collaborative activity. Content analysis describing indicators of positive interdependence in the text revealed differences in cooperative interdependence among groups. Investigators related these differences most directly to variation in the structure of the tasks involved in the different projects and to implications of the structure of tasks on different types of students and group dynamics. This research suggests that computer logs and transcripts can help document indicators of positive interdependence and thus may be beneficial to teachers and researchers looking for signs and measures of cooperative learning in computer-mediated collaborative groups.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2018 5-minute presentation Engagement, Assessment & Epistemological Reconciliation in a Technology-Supported Learning Environment A new NSF-funded study builds on prior research of a genetics learning environment known as GenScope to consider how motivation and learning are impacted by new formative assessment practices and by the practices associated with accountability-oriented reforms. Secondary biology teachers in higher-achieving and lower-achieving schools will implement the GenScope computer software within a curricular context that is consistent with contemporary views of learning and instruction (such as outlined in the recent National Research Council report, How People Learn). Within this context, students in different classes will be presented with increasingly explicit learning standards and increasingly salient recognition and/or rewards for performance on a set of formative assessments. Following the framework advanced by Greeno, Collins and Resnick in the 1996 Handbook of Educational Psychology, engagement and learning in each class will be examined using three competing models of knowing & learning (behavioral/empiricist, cognitive/rationalist, and situative sociohistoric). This will be accomplished by having three different researchers (Laura Fredrick, Dan Hickey, and Ann Kruger, respectively) head up three parallel investigations. The results should provide comprehensive evidence regarding new and controversial assessment practices--when employed in contemporary curricular contexts. More broadly, the results will be used to compare different approaches for reconciling competing models of knowing and learning. This is expected to help clarify the relations between competing perspectives and practices, particularly concerning engagement and the motivation—a key prerequisite for developing models of motivation that are relatively consistent with contemporary instructional perspectives. A key aspect of our investigation is studying curricular manipulations that reflect the realistic instantiation of plausible assessment and accountability policies. Another key aspect is the use of research methods that reflect plausible instantiations of different and potentially competing epistemological perspectives. As such, we are particularly interested the input of other researchers regarding the plausibility of both aspects.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2085 5-minute presentation Assessment of Metacognitive Skill within a Scaffolded Learning Environment As part of an ongoing effort to explore new uses for assessment, we have developed a prototype embedded assessment module: a computer-based learning environment for AP Statistics. As with most learning environments, our ultimate goal is for the system to monitor student learning and provide feedback to students and instructors. Unlike most other systems, we seek to assess metacognitive performance - specifically studentsí success in monitoring their own learning - to gain additional insight into student progress and allow for more focused feedback. We are currently developing measures of ìon-lineî knowledge monitoring and comparing those measures to a more established measure, Everson and Tobiasís (1998) Knowledge Monitoring Assessment (KMA) approach. This approach consists of administering a specially designed test twice: first, students are asked to make a rapid judgment as to their ability to answer a question; second, students provide their solutions to each question. Knowledge monitoring success is a function of the consistency between a studentís predicted performance and his/her actual performance. We collaborated with Everson and Tobias in developing a KMA in the domain of statistics (referred to as Stat KMA). Fifteen students in an AP Statistics course completed the Stat KMA as well as several hypothesis-testing problems in our scaffolded learning environment. Our talk will focus on the relationship between knowledge monitoring ability as measured by the KMA with behaviors during problem solving that might reflect knowledge monitoring performance. Collaborators: Malcolm Bauer, Anandi Nagarajan We are interested in collaborating with educators and educational researchers who have observed students' knowledge monitoring. Such collaborations would lend further insights into how knowledge monitoring skill might be automatically detected and, how we might alter our scaffolded learning environment to elicit and detect knowledge monitoring behaviors. For equity, we hope this measure will help students who have traditionally needed more metacognitive support.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2032 5-minute presentation On-line Assessment in Teacher Certification Programs The CalStateTEACH Technology Enhancement Project is a federally funded program designed to infuse technology throughout the California State University System's on-line and field-based teacher credentialing program. A significant component of the project's work centers on using technology to assess intern teacher's proficiency as measured by the California Standards for the Teaching Profession. The project is currently developing on-line, performance-based assessment tools to evaluate and document intern teacher's progress toward reaching these standards.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2029 5-minute presentation Digital Portfolios: A Richer Picture of Student Achievement In many states, the standards movement has transformed into a high-stakes testing movement. In Rhode Island, a group of districts connected with the Rhode Island Skills Commission is attempting to create an alternative method of demonstrating student achievement against standards. A pilot project, begun in the 1999-2000 school year, allows high school students to earn a "certificate of initial mastery" by demonstrating standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and "Applied Learning." Students submit information from state-wide assessments, portfolios of class work, and performances on "on-demand" and "extended" tasks (adminstered across all of the pilot districts). This overall set of information is used to determine if the student has met all of the standards, and thus should receive a certificate. This presentation will describe how technology - specifically, web-based portfolios and data collection systems-- is supporting this assessment process. Additional information (at http://www.ideasconsulting.com after 7/31) will describe the issues involved in using such portfolios for large-scale assessment, and the implications for schools that want to use digital portfolios as a lever for school reform. We are looking for collaborators who can particularly help with the technical issues of assessment - such as establishing validity and reliability on performance assessments. We are also looking to learn from folks connecting assessment to changes in school culture. Finally, we might be interested in creating political alliances to demonstrate to policy makers that high standards does not inevitably mean high-stakes standardized testing. Equity: The districts involved with the Skills Commission are urban, suburban, and rural. However, the issue of equity most obviously addressed by the pilot was not demographic, but of educational experience. Students in a "general track" can still demonstrate work that is "on standard"; students who do not test well have other opportunities to demonstrate their abilities.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2060 5-minute presentation Assessing Multimedia-Supported Project-Based Learning: Exploring the Social Life of Rubrics The Challenge 2000: Multimedia Project has had as its goal the dissemination of an exemplary model of student-directed project-based learning that culminates in the development of a multimedia presentation shared with an authentic audience. Supported by funds from a five-year federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant, the Multimedia Project has been successful in transforming teaching and in improving students' design and communication skills (Penuel & Means, 2000). Part of what has made the project successful has been the role that ongoing assessment has played in the project. Early in the project, a rubric was developed that was initially used to score a small subset of student multimedia products for purposes of program accountability. This rubric has been transformed and re-used in different settings for different purposes in subsequent years. Among the purposes to which this rubric has been put have been: (1) bringing together a mentor-teacher learning community focused on helping peers implement high-quality projects and (2) serving as a document in the classroom that serves as the basis for negotiation between teachers and students about project quality. The use of this rubric in the Multimedia Project illustrates the ways that documents can serve as the means to make and maintain social groups and not just the means to determine and convey results (Brown & Duguid, 1995). Access to documents themselves is not enough to ensure that people can participate in their social life. Access to social practices and the networks in which these documents are used is also necessary. Students and teachers need access to networks and communities of learners where assessments are actively used to negotiate the quality of student work at frequent intervals.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2122 5-minute presentation Designing WISE Assessments that accommodate teacher customizations Collaborator: Marcia Linn How can we bridge the barrier between research innovations and their wide adoption in science classrooms while at the same time improving science instruction? We urge a refocusing of science education research, instructional design, and professional development to support customization in the complex settings where science instruction takes place. Too often, educational research demonstrates exciting learning gains for local students but never scales to schools outside the initial research partnership. We have designed a science learning environment that amplifies the effectiveness of teachers by enabling them to customize our curriculum to state standards, prior student experiences, time commitments, and available resources. We will describe how customization can bridge the gap between educational research and classroom practice using the Web-based Integrated Science Environment (WISE). We will focus on how our WISE assessments are designed to measure student learning gains while also reflecting differences in teacher practice. We designed WISE so that teachers can easily customize projects to help their students without compromising the careful instructional design that underlies its success in our research studies. To encourage students to integrate rather than isolate science ideas, WISE allows teachers and schools to add connections to prior instruction, incorporate personally-relevant problems, link to local science museums or environmental issues, and even customize guidance and assessments. We will present classroom research that contrasts several teachers who each customized the same WISE curriculum project. We describe the customizations and practices employed by these teachers, and evaluate how the WISE technology and curriculum was able to accommodated these different approaches. We then describe how the assessments used in this project were sensitive to teacher differences, but still reflected student learning. These findings will have implications for professional development research, where success of training should be measured according to students' conceptual understanding.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2101 5-minute presentation Supporting Assessment-Intensive Pedagogy: The Design of INFACT -- the Interactive Networked Facet-based Assessment Capture Tool First we describe a new style of pedagogy in which the instructor is primarily occupied with diagnostic assessment of students' understanding of conceptual material. In this method, students work in groups of 4-6 to solve problems, holding online discussions. Teachers and TAs use our software to mark up the students' writing, populating a database with assessment information. By using special visualization tools, teachers can spot trends in the data and apply appropriate interventions to improve their students' understanding. Then we present the design of INFACT, a software suite that supports this pedagogy. INFACT stands for "Interactive Networked Facet-based Assessment Capture Tool." INFACT includes a tool INFACT-FORUM for online student writing, an automated markup rule-editing tool, a manual markup editing tool INFACT-MARKUP, a visualization tool suite INFACT-VIS, and an intervention tool INFACT-ADVISE. INFACT supports the collection of relatively large amounts of assessment data about each student through an unobtrusive process. Students do not respond to "assessment questions" at all, unless a teacher or TA specifically requests that a student resolve some nagging ambiguity in one of her/his assessment records. The archive of student postings serves as the grist for INFACT, and each assessment record references a selection from a posting as evidence for the judgment made. Each record also references a particular "facet" or alternative understanding (or misunderstanding) of a concept, and there are additional fields in the record for assessor certainty, identity, and date and time of assessment. Our experience with INFACT to date, indicates that the new pedagogy that it supports is an important alternative to the traditional presentation-intensive form of teaching. Collaborators: Adam Carlson, David Madigan, Earl Hunt, James Minstrell, Jennifer Wright. Programmers: Adam Carlson, Jeff Phillips, Johann Ammerlahn, Josef Larsson, Justin Husted. Seeking Users. Implications for equity: The pedagogy will support both homogeneous and diverse groups. The text-based interaction can hide skin color, gender, and other superficial characteristics of students. The automated markup tools base their results purely on the inputs they are given.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2079 5-minute presentation Learning by Ambush The phrase "learning by ambush" is internal jargon (thankfully!) of the science center community, applied to a methodology by which a new exhibit or program is made so appealing and fun that a child doesn't realize they've learned the inherent concept, perhaps even when they're done. First question: if a child is having fun, do they need to know they're learning? The Internet offers a quantum leap in the potential of learning by ambush. First, essentially all children are fluent and friendly with computer- and television-based games and interactives, providing a more equitable and familiar medium for both learning and testing. Second, every keystroke and pause can be recorded to provide real-time input to an individual child's performance. Third, dynamic publishing allows a child's learning experience to be modified on the fly based on performance, preferences and curriculum objectives (for example: personalization, remedialization, translation to a more successful learning style, etc). And fourth, a learning profile can be integrated with online services to support and optimize a child's 24x7 education through the variety of media that increasingly connect their lives. These potentials can be realized unconsciously during a child's engaging, immersive experience. Question two: if a child is having fun, do they need to know that they've learned something and in the process thereof been assessed, reported, personally guided and advanced? The author, together with Brainium.com and corporate and institutional partners, has been developing such "embedded learning systems" (safer but less catchy than "learning by ambush"!) within online multimedia interactives for 8 years. Dr. David Vogt holds the David Robitaille Chair in Technology Applications for Mathematics and Science Education at the University of British Columbia and is actively pursuing applied research in the emerging fields of adaptive pedagogy, mass personalization, ubiquitous computing and online teacher training.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2089 5-minute presentation Different Approaches to Online Assessment of Students' Web Research Skills Co-presenter - Dan Zalles The World Wide Web is a tremendous information source for student research. For many students, school is the only place where they can learn how to do Web research. To teach Web research skills effectively, educators need a better understanding of students' searching strengths and weaknesses. We would like to describe two online assessment tools we developed and piloted to evaluate the quality of middle and high school students' Web research skills. We also would like to use CILT to pursue future collaborations to refine our online assessment of Web research skills. One effort focused on navigation of the Web information space and selection of pages relevant for a school report. We found that certain constructs underlie the search process: orientation, query formation, information selection, and attitude toward the Web. Students took an average of nearly five search steps per minute and they held generally uncritical views of Web information. They turned in average performances in the selection of relevant pages and tended to use keywords rather than complex Boolean queries. The other research effort focused on how well students could respond to the information needs of a specific audience in selecting, critiquing, comparing, and communicating information. Most students demonstrated that they could select relevant information, but fewer demonstrated high levels of skill in the other areas. As would be expected, variances were observed between the middle- and high school cohorts. Both studies suggest that students tend to do well at superficially navigating through the Web and finding at least some relevant information, but they need assistance to persist in critically filtering and synthesizing the information.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2087 Demo Demonstration of a Scaffolded Learning Environment for AP Statistics The embedded assessment team at ETS is developing assessments to help teachers and students learn. We are currently developing an assessment module for hypothesis testing within the context of an AP statistics curriculum. We have worked through several prototypes with substantial involvement from AP teachers and students. Feedback has taken the form of interviews, demonstrations, pilot studies, usability tests, and field trials. Our current version is a web-delivered system that can be run on several different platforms, and has the following components: A scaffolded learning environment that supports learners of a domain. Learners solve problems and seek help (scaffolding) as needed. As learners improve, they naturally rely less on the scaffolding until they can solve problems on their own. Metacognitive prompts that encourage learners to reflect on strategies that they use to solve problems and explain their reasons for using those strategies. Self-assessment activities that allow learners to compare their solutions and explanations with those of experts, providing additional opportunities for self-explanation. This assessment activity encourages learners to internalize evaluation criteria (Lavigne & Lajoie, 1996). We expect this activity will help teachers to better diagnose and remediate student work via these assessments. Systems like the one we are developing can be used by students in either a classroom or distance learning environment or as a teacher training aid for preservice and beginning teachers. In terms of equity, these types of embedded assessments may help the AP program reach many new schools and students. Main Collaborator: Irv Katz. Additional collaborators currently include several AP statistics teachers and researchers in the field of statistics education. We are interested in collaborating with people with expertise in teacher training, metacognition in the service of learning, and scaffolded learning environments.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2126 Demo Online Assessment: Pushing the limits - Exploring and Exposing Conceptual Frameworks How can online interactions leverage learning by providing new assessment options? Through the INTEC Project, The International Network Teacher's Enhancement Coalition, an NSF funded project, highly innovative and effective forms of net-based assessment were designed and implemented. As part of INTEC's focus on inquiry, teachers, and then students after viewing a segment of a "Private Universe" video, took online assessments called "conceptual probes". These conceptual probes shared a similar structure to the protocols of the PU instruments. They were open ended and slightly unformed. This incompleteness invites, even demands, for any sense making response, that the student reveal his or her assumptions involved in their interpretation of the problem posed. All answers are submitted anonymously, encouraging the revealing of real reasons for responses and lessening any fear of embarassment. The format of the question consisted generally of a three or four option radio buttons followed by an open response in which the reason for the answer is requested. Responses are sorted by answer selected and printed out for study and comment by individual students, teams of students, and the teacher. Patterns in the responses are sought out. What assumptions are revealed? What do respondents take as the meaning of the terms in the question? How are right answers arrived at by faulty assumptions? From our data of several thousand entries on eight different conceptual probes, along with teacher commentary, we feel confident that this method of online formative assessment presents a new and powerful method of teaching and assessing learning.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2022 Demo Formative and Summative Assessment of Teachers' Technology Integration Skills Only about a third of all teachers feel confident in their ability to fully integrate the technology resources available to them with their instructional practices. Thus the need for adequate technology-related professional development is clear. Assessment serves as a key component of any such professional development. Working with an advisory committee of experts from national testing organizations and technology groups, Teacher Universe has developed a multi-tiered assessment system for teachers. First, teachers complete a Web-delivered, computer-adaptive diagnostic assessment that determines specific areas of weakness to be targeted by the professional development. Second, during their professional development training, teachers complete a portfolio that includes a technology-rich lesson plan and sample projects/activities. The portfolio thus provides an authentic performance measure of ability to integrate technology within instruction and ability to use various software applications in an educational setting. Third, upon completion of the training the teachers take the Web-delivered, computer-adaptive post assessment to quantify their learning gains and to determine possible areas for future growth. In this way, the Teacher Universe assessment system is designed to function as assessment in the service of learning, and to ensure that precious teacher professional development time and funds are wisely spent. Our goal in this session will be to share what we have learned in the assessment development process, and to seek input from others wrestling with the same challenges in using technology to deliver assessments to students and/or teachers. The session will include a brief demonstration of the assessment, as well as a description of future modifications that will be made.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2004 Demo Personal Learning Plan/Portfolio (PLP) The National Institute for Community Innovations (NICI) has been developing and piloting a web-based Personal Learning Plan/Portfolio (PLP) toolkit for inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, and teacher education faculty. The PLP guides educators in (1) identifying their priorities for professional development in response to (a) their institution's reform goals (e.g., "improving students' literacy results" or "implementing Everyday Mathematics"); (b) professional standards (preparation program graduation requirements, state licensure or recertification standards, National Board certification, etc.) and (c) personal learning aspirations. (2) using a "file bin" for each personal professional development priority to store multimedia (video, audio, text and graphic) files providing evidence of the user's growing mastery of each topic; and (3) inviting user-selected individuals (faculty, advisor, peer coach, mentor, recertification board member, school instructional leader, etc.) to participate in threaded conversation with the user to assess the user's learning goals and portfolio work samples. We seek partners interested in incorporating the PLP into the services they provide for educators.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2073 Demo Schools Around the World: Using Student Work to Support Changes in Teacher Assessment Practices This work is being done by CCT in collaboration with the Council for Basic Education (CBE) and nine countries, including the United States. Science teachers at the 4th, 8th and 10th grade levels from participating districts in these nine countries develop student cases and upload student work (digital images, audio or video)into an international database. The database is available on the web or on CD-ROM for use by teachers as part of online courses that look at assessment practices, student and teacher expectations, and curricula interactions. The work also highlights the capabilities of ICT to increase the scope of what artifacts or samples of student learning are available for assessment. In the coming year, this work will be extended to mathematics. The project grew out of the TIMSS work and the need to go beyond country-by-country ranking in looking at how science is learned and assessed in different countries. The database system allows comparisons in student work on the same topic between countries or between grade levels. It can be used by teachers to generate the discussions necessary to developing performance rubrics.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2116 Demo Adaptivity and Online Professional Development - Innovative Solutions for Time-Starved Teachers "Not enough time." A familiar statement to anyone who knows the life of a teacher. Today's time-starved teachers are expected to create curriculum that aligns to standards, integrate technology, increase student achievement, and improve their skills through professional development, in addition to managing a full classroom. Effective training, technology, and assessment systems can improve classroom practice, quality of life and student achievement. Yet, studies show that only one third of our nation's teachers feel prepared to integrate educational technology into classroom instruction. "Make learning efficient." Online courses allow teachers to access professional development virtually anytime, anywhere with an Internet connection. But just putting courses online is not enough to meet the needs of busy teachers. Teacher Universe believes that adaptivity and assessment are keys to efficient learning and that significant investments of time, talent and money in technology demand effective assessment and accountability. Efficient learning means curriculum customized to the needs of individual learners. It means identifying the skills and learning needs of each educator, engaging them with the right content at the right time, and providing feedback on individual progress. "Things I can use in the classroom tomorrow." Making learning efficient also means making it practical, immediately useful for teachers. We have found online professional development to be more successful when it is set in relevant classroom scenarios. Demystifying standards, building technology-rich lesson plans, viewing classroom tips - if learning occurs within this familiar context, it better meets the immediate needs of teachers. Our goal is to demonstrate the adaptive capabilities of our online professional development system, and seek input and experiences from others who are interested in adaptivity and personalized learning.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2078 Poster Using technology to embed assessments in inquiry learning opportunities This poster session describes the concept of technology-supported embedded assessments with Pedagogica, a prototype toolkit. Technology-supported assessment of student learning is neither a new idea nor a unique one. However, situating such assessments as integral, transparent components of studentsí technology-supported learning experiences is an idea whose time has come. Nationally, we have embraced inquiry and "learning to think" by all students, particularly in science. In effect, science education is becoming reconceptualized as a form of understanding and active knowledge construction, moving beyond the passive accumulation of facts or information. Although pedagogical and technological reforms have successfully promoted more active learning, they have not resulted in more active assessment. The science inquiry approach is particularly disconnected from traditional assessment practice because it does not support "teaching to the test." What results? Students of teachers who have adopted active learning practices are penalized when they are evaluated by a test they have not been "taught to." There appears to be a mismatch then, between innovations in science education and more traditional ways of measuring learning. Moreover, pedagogies that value learning to think also value associated processes and skills that students must develop in learning to thinkñprocesses that are not captured by traditional assessments. Our approach is to use technology to support both pedagogical and assessment reforms. Using Pedagogica, we have designed assessments in an effort to capture studentsí thinking and learning in situ i.e., as it occurs and in the modality in which it occurs. For both theoretical and practical reasons, which will be explained in the poster session, we believe this approach may serve much needed reform in science learning opportunities and assessment of studentsí science learning. In short, technology-supported embedded assessments can support measurement of student learning, particularly with respect to science inquiry, in ways that motivate students; produce further learning; and inform instructional design, teacher practice, and education research.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2037 Poster Using 'Knowledge Forum' to Develop Argumentation Skills The presentation reports results on 11 year old pupils’ argumentation patterns and epistemic reasoning. The context is a 2-week unit on “Exercise for a Healthy Heart” by the American Heart Association (AHA). Pupils participate in the taking of a pulse and gathering of pulse data and in “Knowledge Forum” (KF) conversations. KF is a computer program that supports knowledge building and revision activities. In a ‘chat room’ type environment, pupils can post, read, build-on, and make collections of notes. Scaffold tools in KF help guide pupil’s in the construction of arguments. In this study, KF engaged pupils in argumentation about what counts as good and accurate data. Students were directed to agree/disagree and give a reason for each of the statements: It matters: where you take a pulse; when you begin to take a pulse after exercising; how long you take a pulse (6, 10, 15, or 60 seconds); who takes a pulse. Next, pupils were directed to develop a position for the range of a normal heart rate. Finally, pupils were directed to make collections of notes that reported (1) similar arguments and (2) the best arguments. Again, pupils were directed to provide reasons and cite evidence. Using KF as a tool and context for conducting formative assessments of students scientific argumentation is novel. So, too, is the analysis of pupils arguments using presumptive reasoning schemes. Walton’s (1996) argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning guided the analysis of pupils’ argumentation discourse. We will present sample patterns of argumentation and evidence that emerge from our analysis of the data. We share implications for the design of learning environment that seek to develop pupils’ epistemic reasoning and enhance teachers’ abilities to engage in formative assessments on students argumentation. Collaborators: Kirsten Ellenbogen, King's College London; Susan Goldman and Susan Williams, Vanderbilt Seeking Collaborations with inquiry-based science programs Educational Equity - Teaching students how to construct and evaluate sound arguments is an important cognitive tool for reasoning.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2016 Poster A Pragmatic Framework for Evaluating Innovative Science Learning Environments This presentation describes an assessment & evaluation framework that is consistent with contemporary views on learning and instruction that is being refined in collaboration with Janet Kolodner and colleagues within an evaluation of an innovative middle school science learning environment known as Learning by Design. Results from two prior implementation cycles will be used to illustrate the framework. It employs public domain assessment tools obtained from the WWW, and could be readily used by others. The framework organizes assessment tools around the three views of knowing and learning described by Greeno, Collins, & Resnick (1996). Specifically, lower-level associations concerning content knowledge are assessed with released TIMMS and NAEP items, while more general conceptual understanding is assessed with performance assessments obtained from SRI’s Performance Assessment Links in Science website. Finally, inquiry-oriented rituals are assessed by scoring the participatory activity captured in videotapes of groups of students completing additional PALS performance assessments. In order to reconcile the competing conclusions from the different types of evidence, results are interpreted within the “competitive” framework advanced by Greeno & Moore (1993). This framework views patterns of both behavior and information processing as special cases of a broader forms of human activity best explained within a situative/sociohistoric framework. Specifically, scores are interpreted through an ethnographic lens that views test-taking as participation in a form of situated human activity—albeit in a context featuring somewhat peculiar constraints and affordances. The broader program evaluation framework is akin to the pragmatic model advanced by Pogrow (1998), in that it focuses on differences across strong/full & weak/partial implementations, and acknowledges the limitations of experimental/control comparisons. Reflecting contemporary assessment perspectives, formative feedback is provided on the individual and group performance assessments. Subsequent concerns regarding evidential and systemic validity are addressed following the framework presented in Hickey, Wolfe, & Kindfield (2000).
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2106 Poster The Impact of Student Interactive Assessment on learning and teaching in secondary science classrooms This paper describes the results of a study which examined the impact of interactive assessment practices on science teaching and learning at the secondary level. Interactive assessment, in the context of this paper, consists of students taking quizzes/tests at a computer, and receiving immediate feedback and mastery information. Situated in a longitudinal (8 year), collaborative action research project, the Technology Enhanced Secondary Science Instruction (TESSI) project, the study examined the use of interactive assessment procedures and documented the impact of these procedures from both the studentsí point of view and the teachersí. Teachers from the classrooms currently participating in the TESSI project viewed the implementation of interactive assessment as an essential and enabling element of their student-centered, variable paced, instructional practices. Students viewed interactive testing procedures as a means for assessing their own learning, frequently commenting on the usefulness of the formative feedback they received. The studyís results indicate that the use of interactive assessment promotes student self-monitoring, goal setting, time management, responsibility and mastery learningóskills that will aid our graduates in being successful life-long-learners. Particularly noteworthy is that these results are gender neutral: both women and men students in these classrooms appear to benefiting equally from the use of interactive assessment. This study supports the notion that changes in student assessment should accompany, and be congruent with, changes in educational practice. It also demonstrates how such congruency can be achieved, and the benefits thereof. Presenters: Jolie Mayer-Smith, Associate Professor Janice Woodrow, Professor Emerita Department of Curriculum Studies Faculty of Education University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2019 Poster Bridging the Digital and Education Divides The Equity through Distributed Education Network (EDEN) is a project of the Center for Language Minority Education and Research (CLMER) at California State University, Long Beach. Project EDEN is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers initiative. The premise of EDEN is that we cannot simply integrate technology into teacher preparation as usual if we are to meaningfully address both the Digital AND Education Divides. Technology use must also support diversity-responsive teacher preparation. To support this goal, Project EDEN is developing "EDENStandards" - principles, support and guidance for integrating technology use into diversity-responsive teaching, learning and teacher preparation practices. Further, Project EDEN is helping to create a national network of equity-minded faculty and teacher preparation personnel to develop shared ideas, resources, assessment tools and strategies. Project EDEN builds upon the diversity-responsive focus of the Pacific Southwest Regional Technology in Education Consortium (PSRTEC) also funded by the U.S. Department of Education and for which CLMER also serves as lead agency. The director of both the PSRTEC and Project EDEN is Kevin Rocap. Other collaborators from the project include Dr. Maria Quezada, Dr. David Ramirez and Sheila Cassidy.
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING 2045 Poster Objectively Assessing Student Problem-Solving with Technology IMMEX (Interactive Multi-Media Exercises) is a dynamic, computer software-based assessment tool designed to strengthen content absorption, meta-cognitive thinking, and problem-solving strategies at all levels of education. IMMEX presents an authentic curriculum-based problem environment on stand-alone computers or over the worldwide web offering numerous educational stakeholders an inexpensive and unobtrusive way to assess student learning and problem solving strategies. Within this problem environment, students negotiate different menus items of information gathering enough data to reach an informed solution. The software records exactly what categories of information they sought and in what order the student applied it to solve the problem. From these records, a visual map, demonstrating student understanding (or lack thereof), of course concepts, is created. We have collected and analyzed the maps of thousands of students and this presentation details the results found by comparing a college introductory Chemistry class to high school AP and regular Chemistry students. Each cohort was taught by a different teacher allowing us to conduct within group analysis (to control teacher effect) and to analyze the differences in strategies between these groups. Using this approach we have been able to identify strategies that are common to students at all levels, strategies that are more context or ability dependent, strategies that seem to "trap" students, and strategies that students refine over time with relative ease. A comparison of different strategies also suggests instructional interventions that might help students become better problem solvers (formative assessment) and teachers, better instructors. Initial research suggests that, unlike data generated by many current assessment tools, these results are not biased by socio- economic status, parent educational level or gender. Researchers are seeking collaboration with primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators willing to develop and/or use IMMEX problems and the resulting data for authentic assessment in their courses.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2083 5-minute presentation Some observations about collaboration, communication and collaborative tools Raymond Hainer made the following relevant comments:: ÑCollaboration is not a prescriptive term; . . it does not exist prior to the development of an effective interdependent relationship. A collaborative relationship cannot be established on the basis of injunction; it involves closeness and trust and mutual confidence . . . One form of collaboration is the so-called community of practice, a concept developed at the Institute for Research on Learning described in the following comments by Etienne Wenger of IRL: It is through our membership in communities of practice that we come to know and to be empowered by what we know. . . The learning potential of information systems lies as much in the connections that they open up among people, and in the collaboration they support, as in the information they deliver. Many of the interactions among members of a community of practice arise through narrative -- the stories people tell about their adventures and misadventures. Boland has found that electronic communication suffers from limitations in the exchange of narrative and argument. These observations illuminate the prior need for building trusting interdependent relationships on the way toward designing or using information tools.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2035 5-minute presentation The Internet Learning Forum: Fostering and Sustaining Knowledge Networking To Support A Community Of Science And Mathematics Teachers This NSF-KDI funded research has involved the design and evaluation of the salient features of an electronic knowledge network, the Internet Learning Forum (ILF), to support a virtual community of pre-service and in-service mathematics and science teachers, allowing them to share and improve pedagogical practices (see http://ilf.indiana.edu). The ILF design centers around the vision of a community in which teachers can virtually visit each other's classrooms to observe and discuss approaches to teaching mathematics and science topics and to share artifacts. The ILF supports a distributed group of teachers in making the tacit knowledge involved in their teaching explicit so that it can be shared with others and, in turn, to aid teachers in using that explicit knowledge as a tacit part of their practice. The research goal of this project is to understand the principles for fostering, sustaining, and scaling communities of practice in which the value to participants of sharing their practice and entering in the dialogue outweighs the "costs" of participation (e.g., time, technology access; the concerns of letting others view one's teaching). While the effective use of technology in supporting a community of practice is a focus of this research, it is clear that technological environments are only one component of an overall community strategy. Thus, the research looks at the variety of variables that impact the dynamics of the social networks through which teachers seek to improve and share their pedagogical practices. The research issues, converging at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, social informatics, and learning theory, have important implications for each. In terms of partnerships we are looking for others also building online communities of practice. Current funding is Indiana based, we are looking for collaborators in other states to allow us expand and truly take advantage of the opportunities the internet provides. We are also looking for others with experience in videotaping K-12 classrooms, especially supporting teachers as they try to videotape their own classrooms in a manner that will provide video and audio that can then be shared over the web. Last, we are looking for partners with experience in developing collaborative spaces for building curriculum. Currently, this feature is not available and we hope to have some support tools in place by the end of the year.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2107 5-minute presentation Community and Collaboration: Internet Environments that Connect Classrooms The mission of Classroom Connect is to bring the resources and tools of the Internet to teachers and students. We attempt to wrap the context of curriculum around the content and community of the Internet to create engaging classroom environments for integrated learning. We look forward to these discussions to further our thinking about new ways to use the Internet to enhance learning for all students. Two product highlights: With Quest Expeditions, students become "virtual" explorers as they use the Internet to travel great distances, make discoveries and share their findings. We send a team of experts to remote locations, where, through the Internet, students guide the journey, read daily reports from the team, and debate on-going dilemmas. Each Quest is easily about connecting communities: classrooms connected to remote communities and expert scientists. American students connected to their own heritage as they follow the team through a foreign culture. Next, we seek to improve the collaboration aspects of this experience and we hope ideas from this group will be applied to future development. ClassroomToday provides dynamic, current content that naturally links the Internet to classroom curriculum topicsótopics such as Ancient Egypt and Endangered Species. Engaging questions provide the framework for student research using the ClassroomToday Library of web sites and moderated forums for sharing ideas. We create ìpartner topicsî for ClassroomToday, such as Launching the Shuttle, developed with NASA. We look forward to other such partnerships. All students need to acquire 21st century skills. The national goal to provide connectivity is a major effort. Classroom Connect hopes to support that effort by designing experiences that engage all learners and connect them to the world community. This is a great challenge and we look to communities such as this conference for support.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2053 5-minute presentation Video Cases: Designing Constellations, a Perspectivity Digital Video Data Analysis Tool According to Tim Koschmann (1999), a new form of research, computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) focuses “on participants’ talk, the artifacts that support and are produced by a team of learners, and the particpants’ own accounts of their work” (p. 15.) One could say that digital video technology on the desktop is the consummate CSCL environment as it encourages the participation of learners engaged in making new video artifacts and discussing their works to build deeper interpretations. Digital video cases have currently tweaked the excitement of researchers, educators, and learners (Goldman-Segall, 1989; Kosma, 1991; Stigler et al, 1999) because traditional boundaries are crossed between research practices when new media representations are made, and this seems to coincide with the shift from moderity to postmodernity that has filtered through academia. No longer does the line between fact and story (or, quantitative and qualitiative methods) seem as impenetrable as before. Suddenly, a reseacher, a teacher, and a student learner is confronted with empirical evidence for a theory that also seems to be open to many interpretations and points of viewing (Goldman-Segall, 1998). The notion of finding the truth, the master story, or the best answer becomes much less interesting than interacting with others about the data to collaboratively create artifacts and new theories. What role does perspectivity play in our reaching conclusions about video cases? In this presentation, I will discuss the development of a revised generic digital video analysis tool, Constellations (aka WebConstellations), for online video case analysis. Constellations is a what I am calling a new generation of perspectivity technologies, technologies which encourage users to add their views and construct their stories. Perspectivity technologies promote a fundamentally different way of teaching, learning or conducting research—one which is socially constructionist in nature and which honors the learning of each member of the community as she invents and reconfigures new cultural and personal knowledge. In the process of defining the perspectivity theory (see Goldman-Segall, 1998; and, Stahl, 2000), I show how distinctions between researchers, educators, and learners are reduced. A community of practice is established where the community works as a design team, creating new and useable knowledges for others to explore. My thesis is that these communities develop more quickly with digital video. People like to see each other and discuss each other’s practices. Digital video has become not just a luxury item but a learning tool for group processes. Goldman-Segall, R., (1989). Thick description: A tool for designing ethnographic interactive video discs. SIGCHI Bulletin, 21( 2), 118-122. Goldman-Segall, R. (1998). Points of viewing children’s thinking: A digital ethnographer’s journey. Mahwah, New Jersey: LEA. with interactive web site Koschmann, T. (1996). Paradigm shifts and instructional technology: An introduction. In T. Koschman (Ed.),CSCL: Theory and practice. Mahwah, New Jersey: LEA. Kozma, R. (1991). Learning with media, Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-211. Stahl, G. (2000). A model of collaborative knowledge building. Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, LEA, 70–77. Stigler, J.W., Gonzales, P, Kawanaka, T., Knoll, S. and Serranao, A. (1999). Research and development report: The TIMSS videotape classroom study. National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 1999-074.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2150 5-minute presentation Student-Centered Collaborative Learning: Experience with Web-based TEAMthink This presentation will highlight 2 recent applications in courses at Duke University School of Engineering and Stanford University School of Engineering of the inquiry-based learning system, TEAMthink. TEAMThink is a collaborative learning platform that includes a structured, question-based learning and assessment process. Students learn by creating, discussing, refining, and answering questions as members of learning teams. This web-based asynchronous process, currently being used by universities, corporations, and government organizations, can readily be applied to 9 through 14 learning environments. With TEAMthink students are enabled to: take responsibility for their own learning and for others in the community; actively participate in and nurture collaborative learning; demand and display respect for the diverse ideas and skills of others; develop communication skills through structured on-line discussions; construct explanations; create and defend argumentation; develop chains of evidence of content comprehension and context; build new content based on understanding of existing content; draw relationships between lab experimentation and theoretical investigation; expand risk-taking and creative and critical thought processes. This presentation will focus on learning process issues and is organized as follows: Review of the Structure for Student-Centered Learning How Peer to Peer Learnng is Promoted Assessment of Learning Defining the instructor's role Re-use of student generated content Scaling the process to large groups Future developments in web-based collaboration learning methods. Media Used: Power point slides plus web demonstration from actual courses. Require data projector for PC laptop, Internet connection, & screen.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2055 5-minute presentation Design-based research methodologies for education and technology Research on educational technology poses difficult methodological questions related to representativeness, replicability, generalizeability, and usefulness. Design methods transcend some of these difficulties. Can principled design be merged with research to yield valid, applicable, and empirically based research findings on educational technology that are fair to the student populations as well as the technologies? I am seeking collaborators to explore these issues, especially in the area of collaborative learning and socio-technical systems. This builds on prior work on using technology to shift group behavior through changes in affordances for individual action in a distributed cognition framework.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2061 5-minute presentation Coordinative Structures My focus of late has been on: What it means for a workplace to be well organized for workflow. How agents dynamically restructure their workspace to minimize cognitive effort How individuals and groups use coordinative structures to improve their distributed cognition and help reduce their metacognitive burdens. To research these issues I have been working with my colleagues at UCSD, Ed Hutchins, Jim Hollan, Aaron Cicourel and Saadi Lahlou of EDF in France, and Christian Licoppe of France Telecom, to design a set of ethnographic and experimental studies. We have been concerned with how people react to interruptions, how they cope with cognitive overload, how they try to coordinate their activity between themselves and others by using annotations, and how they create external representations that serve to coordinate activity. All these topics bear on learning because individuals learn through interacting with their environments. They do not live in a single workspace, but rather create and move through many different ones, each with its own constraints, affordances and opportunities. The common thread through these environments is that learners create external representations, they create external structures and they attempt to manage their environments by a variety of methods that are found outside the learning context as well. Students annotate; they make schedules and lists, they use their notebooks to take notes and to mark down assignments and requirements. When they take an exam they rely on metacognitive strategies, such as monitoring evaluating, planning and preparing. Since our conception of metacognition needs to be revised in a more interactive manner, our understanding of how students mange their learning activities also needs reevaluation.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2005 5-minute presentation Networked Notetaking: Instant Success for ESL Students Project InTime's Collaborative Networked Notetaking System has just finished its third pilot-year of a federally funded grant to adapt and test this computer-based system for providing portable realtime and wireless bi-lingual notetaking assistance for migrant students who are in regular content-area classes at the secondary level. Students in Oregon secondary schools have laptop computers with an infra-red networking device on their desks. The student's computer is wirelessly connected a computer on the desk of a bilingual notetaker, who is sitting in the back of the room in classes where information (lectures, films, and discussion) are delivered in English. Via this network, the student is unobtrusively connected to a knowledgeable and supportive bilingual-notetaking partner, who is able to type keyword information in Spanish, conversational English or Spanglish in order to link meaning to the classroom lectures as well as to provide notes for later studying. Synchronous, groupware software provides an electronic environment in which both the notetaker and the student can see the other's writing simultaneously in the case where students take their own notes. A chat box window provides an optional third question-and-answer window for additional communication between the notetaker and student. In this way collaborative, student support services are provided within the context of the regular classroom in a way that is minimally disruptive and models good academic notetaking behavior in real time. OBJECTIVES The primary objective of this paper is to discuss case studies from Project InTime as they illuminate: (a) results that indicate the usedfulness of this approach to achieve equity in education; (b) network, hardware, and software implementations; and (c) collaborative notetaking strategies appropriate for different students and different classes.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2038 5-minute presentation The Shadow netWorkspace' Learning Systems Project The Shadow netWorkspace‘ Learning Systems Project brings a vision of Open Source development and the powers of internet based technology to bear on the work of school reform and improvement. Specifically the project has developed a netWorkspace software system and is building a community of developers committed to open source licensing and the Shadow netWorkspace‘ Learning system. Shadow netWorkspace‘ is a system for enabling a learning community and is designed to be installed and operated within the local school setting. In this way the school or community "owns" the Shadow implementation. They create the rules and policies, establish membership, add software applications, customize the implementation, and make it their own. Shadow is being developed as an Open Source application. This means that users will not have to pay to use Shadow. The Shadow networkspace‘ operates on a Linux-based server and utilizes the Apache web server, MySQL, and Sendmail. The server-side application programming interfaces and applications are written in Perl. The hardware requirements for setting up and running this server will cost schools less than $1000 and most schools may simply repurpose an older pentium-class computer. Our development model is to create a substantial and sufficient implementation of Shadow for schools and to build a community of developers who will extend Shadow, probably in ways that we cannot even envision today. Since Shadow is being developed as an Open Source application, developers who adhere to the Open Source agreement can freely add components to Shadow or develop new implementations. Open Source is a way of developing and licensing software that has great power for making computing both expansive and inexpensive. If we are successful in initiating a developer community around open source software for education we may well change the framework for using technology in schools.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2028 5-minute presentation BRIDGING THE DISCONNECT: AN E-LEARNING MANIFESTO This presentation is a product of a collaborative grant from CILT99.Our purpose of our work this past year was to create an E-Learner's Manifesto that asserts learners' needs, calls for equitable access and guides developers toward the development of an ethical, nurturing, learning environment via the Internet. BRIDGING THE DISCONNECT: AN E-LEARNING MANIFESTO is a collaborative effort among educators, private sector high-tech leaders, and policy makers to comprehend how the Internet is changing the way people communicate and learn and to promote uses of the Internet that enhance personal learning as well as community and societal growth. Our goals are pragmatic: to describe how technologies are impacting information-sharing and knowledge-building and to propose new practices for maximizing the value of the Internet for supporting learning and growth. The Manifesto establishes a vision for the future, enumerates guiding principles and culminates in a list of best practices to be used by those who develop learning opportunities for the Internet. It is hoped that the document will be used in a variety of forums for discussion, adaptation and distribution. During the presentation, our presentation team (Janine Boire, Kirsten Hanson, Melodee Landis, David Niguidula, Kallen Tsikalas, Arthur VanderVeen) will briefly overview the tenets and best practices proposed in the draft document, then seek input from the group on how the document can be improved, disseminated and applied. Follow-up interaction during the conference could occur during a poster session. The document will be provided to CILT in HTML format for posting on the CILT Web site, thus allowing for ongoing input from conference attendees and others who visit the CILT site.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2115 5-minute presentation Outward Bound: Preparing students for active investigations through rivers The Interactive Communications & Simulations (ICS) Group is embarking on an interdisciplinary project with the city of Izumo, Japan, to develop, implement, and research on-line activities centered on the theme of "rivers." The project will involve activities and materials that connect students around the world with their peers as they study history, culture, ecology, geography, politics, and art related to rivers. Prototype activities will be implemented this fall for various grade levels. In this project students will be challenged to explore and explain the significance of rivers in their home area to peers around the world. Student explorations will take on many different forms, from water quality studies to explanations of cultural myths. Student discussions will center on the participant-created exploration artifacts to be posted on the Rivers Project website, supplemented by material created by content experts, teachers, and university student mentors. These mentors will provide content and strategy expertise, as well as bilingual language abilities to participating classes. Anticipated outcomes of these activities include students identifying and articulating a diverse set of connections between rivers around the world and negotiating common understandings of the significance of these rivers. Educational equity is an important part of the Rivers Project. We are actively exploring three facets of the program that will attend to equity: the use of multiple representations, mentor moderation and the global view. Students will be challenged to explore the rivers in personally motivating ways, which allows for diverse learning styles. Mentor moderating of student explorations can be used to engage students to encourage all to be active participants. Finally, the global emphasis of the project will ensure that language is not a barrier to student learning. Collaborations that would be especially beneficial to our research would be discussions with other groups who use and research mentor moderation as a means to effect equal representation and ongoing engagement and challenge in student participation and discussions.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2021 5-minute presentation Creating a K-12 Internet Portal: The Miami-Dade Experience This presentation will provide an overview of Miami-Dade County Public Schools' efforts to create a K-12 educational portal. Topics covered will include the use of web-based technologies to support the educational process in the 4th largest urban school district in the United States.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2071 5-minute presentation CSCL Tools for Teacher Education: Affordances and Constraints in the Context of Practice The last decade has witnessed phenomenal growth in network technologies for teaching and learning. Despite the invention of highly innovative tools that support representation and enhanced visualization, communication, collaboration, and scaffolding of cognition, many educators seem to be using new computer supported tools to support traditional teacher-centric pedagogies. My current study focuses on the use of two computer-supported collaborative learning tools by preservice teachers within the context of a larger NSF-supported study of the technology appropriation of preservice teachers. The secondary science education majors used a tool originally developed specifically for the teacher education program -- the Interactive Shared Journaling System. The secondary English and language arts majors used a web-board that is part of a commercially-developed tool widely used across many campuses--BlackBoard's CourseInfo. My analysis of case studies of students in these two cohorts is based on field observations, interviews, and logs of their online communications over the past three years in the teacher development program. Preliminary analysis suggests that it is not so much the features of the tools themselves, but the demands and incentives presented in the context of actual practice that make the greatest difference in students' appropriation of these technologies and their ability to use them for communication, collaboration, and community building. In sharing this work, I am seeking collaboration with others who are studying the use of CSCL tools to support communication, collaboration, and community building among preservice and inservice teachers. What patterns of communication are necessary for building and supporting an online learning community? Are there differences in the ways these tools are used by teachers in different disciplines? What can we learn from these cases to help us more effectively implement tools that support communication and collaboration and provide opportunities for teachers to engage in ongoing communities of practice?
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2043 5-minute presentation Using a Multimedia Digital Library for Community Building in The Maryland Electronic Learning Community The Maryland Electronic Learning Community (MELC) is being developed around a multimedia digital library. For instance, there are weekly video conferences and an email chat group that combine discussions about the digital library with other technology-related discussions. The multimedia digital library (www.learn.umd.edu) offers a collection of educational resources for middle school teachers in Baltimore to use as they develop their interactive lesson plans. Currently, it has approximately 6,200 titles of text documents, audio files, video segments, still images, and Web sites covering social studies, science areas, mathematics and language arts. We are experimenting with new tools to promote a closer cooperation among teachers and eventually among students. In particular we will report on the Quick Indexing Tool, the Lesson-Plan Workbench, and Open Bookshelves. While the Digital Library contains many high-quality materials, the teachers have been particularly enthusiastic about using materials of local relevance such as digital pictures of a local sugar refinery. The Quick Indexing Tool (QIT) allowed teachers to add new resources to the Digital Library. The tool, which takes the form of a web-based indexing template, is derived from the indexing scheme that has been refined to capture of the teachers’ aspects of concern when they assess educational materials. This specially designed template includes description fields that encourage teachers to provide the information on how they envision the use of submitted materials. Because the QIT allows teachers to post content of mixed quality to the Library, we are building a Lesson-Plan Workbench that will, among other features, identify the sourceof materials when the teachers are developing lesson plans. The third feature we will discuss is the Teacher Bookshelf. This provides functionality by which a teacher can store and organize the items that he/she has selected from the digital collection for his/her own teaching purposes. With this feature, a teacher will be able to add remarks or suggestions about the use of the learning materials based on his/her experiences. We have also found that teachers are enthusiastic about materials used by their colleagues. Therefore, the bookshelves will be public and other library users can browse them.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2014 5-minute presentation Stone Soup:A Distributed Collaboratory Using Software Agents A collaboratory is an online community where members share ideas, information and digital resources. It is a type of digital library where community members build the collection. Because of this, a collaboratory has three advantages over a digital library: The interests of the community determine the content of the collection. The collection can be built faster by the collective actions of members. The cost of the building and maintaining a collection is distributed among the community members. The central challenge in building a collaboratory is achieving a critical mass of participating members. Studies have found Computer Supported Cooperative Work systems, such as a collaboratory, that reach a state of critical mass are likely to succeed. Critical mass is defined as threshold of individual actions that must be reached in order to produce a public good. For the collaboratory to become a public good it must reach a state where its value increases with use while the cost of its operation does not. In order to accomplish this, I propose two strategies: 1.Encourage pro-social behaviors within the collaboratory community. 2.Add value to the collaboratory every time members use it. Twenty-three activities providing methods for implementing the two strategies are suggested herein. The capabilities needed to support one of the activities is explored in depth matching these capabilities with the functionality socially intelligent software agents provide. Using software agents to automate activities is a way to keep the cost of the collaboratory constant as usage increases. Many of the strategies addressed in this paper are currently being implemented on the Inquiry Page, a collaboratory for K12 teachers. The Inquiry Page exists to draw together teachers interested in exploring inquiry-based learning. Visit the Inquiry Page at: http://inquiry.uiuc.edu.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2092 5-minute presentation Seeing Math Telecommunications Demonstration Project: Video Case Studies for Teacher Professional Development The Seeing Math Telecommunications Demonstration Project is the first step in a coordinated, large-scale national effort to improve mathematics teaching through innovative, standards-based professional development. The project will be developed and disseminated by an outstanding public-private consortium. Seeing Math was created by The Concord Consortium, a nonprofit telecommunications entity, on behalf of a consortium of three private and public partners who have extensive experience in telecommunications and mathematics education. In cooperation with state educational agencies, local educational agencies, and the NCTM, the project will use the Internet, a publicly funded telecommunications infrastructure, to deliver integrated video, voice, and data to prepare teachers in the use of new standards-based curricula materials and learning technologies. Our key innovation will be six highly interactive online digital video case studies available free to teachers and parents. The case studies will provide vivid mathematics teaching exemplars linked to resources related to Standards 2000 content and process standards. To stimulate productive and intense dialog among teachers about improved mathematics teaching, the case studies will be used in two moderated online, graduate credit mini-courses and linked to moderated online teacher learning communities of discourse. To ensure that Seeing Math resources are well-utilized and integrated into local teacher professional development programs, the project will offer a staff developer program based on online courses. This strategy will enable the project to provide personalized teacher professional development opportunities to a large number of teachers.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2093 5-minute presentation Issues in Development of an Online Education Teaching Certification There has been a tremendous increase in online education courses and programs. There are however only a small number of instructors who have experience and understanding of the differences between face-to-face instruction and online education. As a result, some of the more progressive schools of education are developing programs that will provide a certification for online instructors. The presenters are in the process of developing an online certification program at the University of Virginia. They will report on the program design, and the institutional issues that they have addressed as well as the issues that have been identified, but not yet resolved. This session should be helpful for anyone charged with developing an online certification program or considering enrolling in one. Co-presenter: Zahrl Schoeny, Curry School, University of Virginia
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2033 5-minute presentation Technology and Equity in Mathematics Education This work is part of a project called "Weaving Gender Equity into Mathematics Reform," whose overall goal is to assist teachers in recognizing and dealing with equity concerns while they are learning new ways to teach mathematics – instead of as two different topics. One of the project’s approaches has been to develop 2-hour workshop sessions that are available to any math professional development organization that weave these two together. In designing these sessions, we realized that the use of technology in math education both poses an additional equity challenge and provides a possible way to address equity issues. In particular, the use of technology for data analysis can actually be a force for equity in mathematics since data-focused activities are an opportunity for students to choose the subject and content of their work. In fact, boys and girls tend to be interested in different data sets, especially as they reach the end of elementary school, and appropriate data analysis activities can allow them the structure and flexibility to make such choices. The presentation will include an overview of a 2-hour session we developed that investigates the relationships among technology, mathematical thinking (data analysis) and equity. It poses the following three questions: ß What kinds of technology effectively support mathematical thinking? ß How can data analysis activities support equity in a math classroom? ß What are the important issues to consider around technology and equity with respect to gender? Ethnicity? Socioeconomic status? We will briefly summarize the data activity and the technology used in the workshop session as an illustration of the ways these interactions play out. This presentation would be an important consideration at the role of relatively simple technology into widespread mathematics curriculum and its relationship to equity.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2008 5-minute presentation Sharing discussions from different platforms There are a number of knowledge-building environments currently under development or refinement - each with its own data structure that is incompatible with the other systems. To promote collaboration among researchers in educational technology, we decided to address the problem of sharing data from student discussions in the various environments. This is a first step toward comparing successes, gradually introducing standards into the research community, and eventually being able to trade software components that could work together. In the past year, under a CILT seed grant, we have developed an approach to capturing data from several discussion forum technologies into a standard format. We have written algorithms that work either within a given application or that parse html output from the application and export the data as XML. We have defined two versions of an XML DTD capable of encoding the data from various discussion forum technologies -- a recursive encoding of notes and a non-recursive linking of notes. A conversion routine translates between the two versions. This work aims at promoting the sharing of data among different research groups. We would like to work with other researchers in adapting this software to export from and import into their knowledge-building software systems. Ultimately, the proliferation of discussion and knowledge-building media that can exchange data will allow all people to express their ideas within communities of their choosing and combine ideas from different sources with which they interact.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2082 5-minute presentation Creating and sharing representations of scientific phenomena: A Proposal for a video-based meta-exhibit to connect informal learning centers and schools We* propose to discuss an extension to a study conducted in a science museum involving the production of video clips that facilitated reflection by visitors on their experience with exhibits (Stevens & Hall, 1997). In this study, we videotaped interactions between visitors and an exhibit and then had conversations with these visitors about puzzling aspects of the phenomenon represented in their taped interaction. The conversations were conducted while watching the recording of the initial visit and, as we argued in the paper, the capacity to freeze, slow, and rewind images provided unique affordances for reflection. The extended design we propose now involves building a stand-alone version of this "meta-exhibit" in which visitors themselves video tape an interaction and then overlay this clip with an audio annotation. Clips can then be collected for activities both within and outside the museum. Within the museum, a library of annotated clips could reside on a museum floor and provide a novel collection of peopleís representations of and questions about scientific phenomena from which others could learn. Outside the museum, collections of annotated clips could be used in schools to bring representations of scientific phenomena into classrooms where expensive equipment is unavailable. The core idea is to enable the creation and sharing of representations of phenomena, because this is critical to how people learn together. Also, the experiment requires only inexpensive VCRs in schools and therefore arguably represents a way to achieve objectives usually associated with expensive computers and network infrastructure. The collaborators we seek are of two kinds: technically-adept designers to help us to build the stand-alone meta-exhibit and informal learning centers (in addition to the Exploratorium) where the meta-exhibit can be used and studied. The practices we currently wish to support involve inquiry and science, but the system also may be more general. Stevens, R. & Hall, R. (1997). Seeing Tornado: How Video Traces mediate visitor understandings of (natural?) spectacles in a science museum, Science Education, 18(6), 735 * with Rogers Hall, University of California, Berkeley
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2048 Demo Museum-Related Virtual Environments for Teaching and Learning Middle School Science Our NSF-funded research project is creating and evaluating multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) that use digitized museum resources to enhance middle school students’ motivation and learning about science. Graphical MUVEs enable multiple simultaneous participants to access virtual architectures configured for learning, to interact with manipulable digital artifacts, to represent themselves through visual "avatars," to communicate with other participants and computer-based agents, and to enact collaborative activities of various types. This extends current MUVE capabilities in order to study the science learning potential of interactive virtual museum exhibits and participatory historical situations. Harvard University’s Technology in Education program, George Mason University’s Virtual Environments Lab, the Division of Information Technology and Society in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), the NSF-funded Multimedia and Thinking Skills project, and teachers from participating school districts are co-designing these MUVEs. In its first year, this study centers students’ learning experiences on curriculum standards for seventh grade life sciences. Learners can collaboratively help a simulated city throughout its history to aid with various environmental and health challenges. In addition to science content, the experiences emphasize learning complex investigative skills. Our research on how MUVEs extend students’ science knowledge may provide insights into new ways museums and schools can collaborate to foster formal and informal learning. Also, this project is studying how the design characteristics of these learning experiences affect students’ motivation and education outcomes, as well as ways to enable strong learning outcomes across a wide range of individual student characteristics. Our initial, culturally diverse student population has many ESL students (mostly Spanish speakers); many are at-risk for science and math, coming from poor families that have a relatively low parent-education level. We are interested in collaborations with content experts, researchers interested in MUVEs, museum personnel, and vendors developing virtual environments for learning.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2102 Demo Knowledge Forum Knowledge Forum, a second-generation version of CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments), is a collaborative, knowledge-building facility that operates over local area and wide area networks. Students of all ages (grade 1 through post-secondary) use the software to explore a wide variety of different subject areas. Learners interact with one another by constructing multimedia notes and linking them to other peopleís notes in a shared, central database. To fully exploit the potential of Knowledge Forum, teachers must work to foster a climate of intentional learning and collaboration in their classrooms. Learners begin by posting problems of understanding in the Knowledge Forum database, and then work with their peers to make intellectual advances. Knowledge Forum provides a wide range of supports for high-level cognitive operations including multiple ways to link notes, a flexible scaffolding system, supports for summarizing, advanced note searching, and a graphical View facility that allows notes to simultaneously exist in many different knowledge building structures, and against different backdrops. The demonstration will highlight some of the more innovative knowledge-building supports that have been added to the software over the past year. Knowledge Forum is being developed by Marlene Scardamalia, Carl Bereiter, and a team of researchers at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education / University of Toronto.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2030 Demo Scaffolded use of a simulation to support the development of inquiry skills This work, in collaboration with Roger Day, involves the use of a professonal modeling tool to help medical students learn inquiry skills.The Oncology Thinking Cap (OncoTCap) provides a comprehensive modeling workbench for cancer researchers. This tool is versatile and can be used to model clinical trials, but its functions and operation may impose excessive cognitive load for the novice user. Moreover, novices may have little knowledge of the kinds of experimental designs used in the cancer domain. There are well-defined sets of designs for clinical trials of new drugs, used at different stages of testing and for different purposes. As Baker and Dunbar (1996) note, the expert scientist often has a schema for the slots of an experimental design that need to be filled. Work on software-realized scaffolding suggests that communicating the design process is one way that learners can begin to construct these schemas. In this demo, we will show how the scaffolding was implemented in the form of the Clinical Trial Wizard. As well, we will demonstrate how multiple representations are used to allow learners to see effects at the level of individual cell, patient, or population levels. At the present time, this system has only been used with medical students, but I would be interested in taking this to other levels of education and to add tools to support reflection.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2075 Demo The Knowledge Loom: What Works in Teaching & Learning Web Resource for Professional Development and School-based Decision-making Learn about The Knowledge Loom (http://knowledgeloom.org), a free web-based resource that provides a large searchable collection of best practices resources on educational topics that align with national goals for improving education. From this collection, The Knowledge Loom "spotlights" selected topics of particular importance to K-12 educators (e.g., professional development, early literacy, mathematics, and technology leadership). While the larger database provides a one-stop portal to help educators find best practices resources developed and tested by researchers, technical assistance organizations, and schools, the spotlights provide in-depth content where educators can: --Review research that identifies best practices related to a theme. --View success stories about these practices in actual schools/districts. --Discover supporting organizations and resources. --Learn to replicate the success of these practices in their own organizations. The site offers innovative opportunities for teachers to collaborate and participate in professional development as a routine school-year activity. Interactive tools provide ways to add stories/tips, respond to questions about pedagogy, "Ask An Expert", and participate in online discussions. An interactive module for how to use the site for local professional development will launch in the fall. Regional labs are using this resource to provide ongoing technical assistance to underserved populations. The site is being developed by the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) at Brown University for the U.S. Department of Education. Content is provided by nationally-recognized partner organizations with selected expertise, including: Appalachia Educational Laboratory, Blue Ribbon Schools, National Institute for Literacy, National Model Professional Development Awards Program, National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching, National Staff Development Council, and the Equity Assistance Center at the Education Alliance. The LAB seeks other content-providing partners such as universities, technical assistance organizations, and individual schools and districts interested in disseminating their work as part of a collaborative teaching and learning community.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2042 Demo KidCode: A community tool to support collaborative learning among diverse learners Babette Moeller, Education Development Center; Judith Cohen; Michelle Baker & Beau Morley, Umbanet, Inc. KidCode is an innovative interactive software system designed to facilitate collaborative learning activities for young children (age 5 to12). As such, it is among the first software offerings for young children that takes advantage of emerging networking technology. A prototype of the KidCode software, developed with funding from NSF, consists of a sequence of two-person learning activities that are set within the context of an electronic mail system. The purpose of these activities is to help young children develop an understanding of symbolic representation in its many manifestations, an important prerequisite for developing competence in reading and mathematics. Ideas for the development of KidCode activities grew out of research studies on symbolic representation and math understanding in young children, and are based on national standards. Formative research has accompanied the development of the KidCode software from the initial design phases. A major focus in our research was to insure the feasibility of conducting collaborative learning activities among diverse learners—learners who differ in their backgrounds, experiences, learning styles, and developmental levels. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate the KidCode prototype and teacher resource materials, and to highlight features of the design and uses of the online learning activities that help to insure their accessibility to diverse learners. Umbanet, Inc. and EDC are interested in new collaborations with content developers to develop additional activities that utilize the KidCode software platform to broaden the types of communication activities that are available for young children online and to learn more about how to effectively create such activities. Our long-term goal is to develop design guidelines and software tools that support designers and content developers in creating further KidCode games and activities. Technology, if well designed, has great potential to provide access to high quality education all students. Our work contributes to the knowledge base about how online learning environments need to be designed to make it possible for diverse learners to collaborate with each other in the pursuit of standards-based learning outcomes.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2007 Demo TAPPED IN Online Community Workplace for Education Professionals TAPPED IN (www.tappedin.org) is an on-line teacher professional development community designed to meet the needs of a large and diverse community of education professionals. The online venue that supports the community is a Web-based multi-user virtual environment that enables synchronous and asynchronous collaboration online. The environment is designed around the familiar metaphor of a conference center with private rooms for individual groups and open areas for public gatherings and events. TAPPED IN is a fully extensible and customizable environment with webpage and text document sharing capabilities that facilitate dialogue and sharing of information. Since the virtual doors of TAPPED IN opened, it has become the online home to a rapidly growing community of over 8,000 K-12 teachers, librarians, teacher education faculty, professional development staff, researchers, and other education professionals. TAPPED IN also supports the online activities of more than 20 professional development programs, pre-service and master's degree programs, and state and local education agencies, and scores of small groups. We invite both organizations that work with educators and individual educators to join the community. We are also interested in content and technology partners.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2119 Poster Communities of interpretation within the Telelearning Professional Development Schools In our fourth year of TeleLearning Professional Development Schools we are tackling increasingly substantive issues about both technologies and pedagogies, and about how we can build understandings of their inter-relations. We posit that the TL-PDS community can develop as a community of interpreters, engaging in activities that will provide joint definitions of what constitutes the center and what constitutes the periphery in a classroom renewed by digital networks and reformed by advanced pedagogies. As communities of interpretation, we will elaborate on such epistemological issues as: the nature of our inquiry, the scope of our data sources, the definition of analysis procedures and methods, what constitutes evidence, and how to define and explain results obtained in the TL-PDS as a research project. Within the TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (TL-NCE) Canada led by Linda Harasim, Therese Laferriere is Theme Leader of the research strand, entitled Educating Educators, and Alain Breuleux is Director of Integration. We are taking advantage of network technologies to accelerate capacity-building in university-school partnerships (access and scaling up issues), and to reach across scholars, research teams, school-based educators, classrooms, institutions, and cultures. As co-chairs of the Theme Els mitjans de comunicacio i les noves tecnologies en líambit educatiu for the Education Program of the Universal Forum of Cultures to be held in Barcelona (2004), we are seeking collaborators that would help instrument participating classrooms to become interconnected learning communities. With SchoolNet as our key partner in Canada (1996), the vision of interconnected learning communities was put forward, and as classrooms get connected we face the pedagogical challenges of reconceptualizing the classroom as a networked learning community. Whereas we look for tools that a Gabon or a Peru classroom could access, the ìtechneî we want to help build are tools that primarily addresses pedagogical challenges. We will point to specifics at the poster session.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2081 Poster Building Sustainable Online Networks The purpose of this presentation is to share our collaborative design work in which a corporation (ActiveInk) and an university (Indiana University) collaborated to build an online e-learning environment. We begin with defining the theoretical and pedagogical commitments that guided our design work, both in terms of our e-learning curriculum and the technical portal that we developed to support our curricular experiences. Building an online environment that was collaborative and project-based, and that supports a use scenario with over 300 different classrooms and 40,000 students across the nation has been a challenging, educational, and rewarding process. This environment takes advantage of new and emerging technologies to provide engaging formats that immerse students within contexts that challenge, ground, and, ultimately, extend their understandings. Students can come together to investigate real-world, environmental science issues and develop solutions that are grounded in actual data and in local conditions, not simply commonsense hunches. We have developed a technological interface to ensure that learners can easily share and reflect on their own and their peersí work in the network. We have developed problems and scenarios that engage and motivate students, and that contextualize the science skills and concepts they are learning. We view this collaboration as indicative of the potential of university-corporate partnerships to build educationally rich contexts for learning that are grounded in educational theory, that are nationally disseminable to large numbers of users, and that have long-term sustainability. We are looking for corporate partners interested in using the technology portal that we have developed, for K-12 teachers interested in integrating the curriculum units in their classrooms, for university teachers interested in using the units in their pre-service preparation classes, and for university researchers interested in taking their projects porting them into the ActiveInk portal so that they can impact large numbers of users.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2063 Poster TOPOS: A space for joint reflective practice and inquiry inquiry into K-14 design activities Co-Authors: Janet Blatter, McGill University, Faculty of Education; Alain Breuleux, McGill University ^^ TeleLearning NCE We observe increasing interest in classroom activities involving students engaged in Web design. We also notice a lack of tools and processes for practitioners and researchers to co-construct interpretations of these rich activities and their outcomes. We are presenting a shared "space", TOPOS, for a community of interpreters of K-14 videotaped activities of students constructing Web-based projects. The space is a socio-technical arrangement of tools and processes supporting the collaboratorsî joint construction of interpretations of objects of interest in their inquiry into classroom-based practices. One focus of the collaboration is an XML project that has teachers and researchers co-develop the meta-data needed to define the document structure for annotating video analysis. Supporting this activity are a socio-cognitive model of collaborative visual design and a networked database of video and multimedia resources built around the model. The model, based on authentic classroom activities, provides the orientation for the participants investigating classroom design activities. The database co-evolves with the model as both are continuously regenerated through the participantsí declared and annotated topics of interest. TOPOS is based on two TeleLearning NCE and FCAR- funded, on-going projects in constructionist classroom activities and teacher professional development. We are building evidence concerning two issues: 1) the original model and database provides a principled yet flexible scaffold to on-going interpretations of participatory design; 2) XML document structuring provides an opportunity for both reflective and shared practices in a co-evolving community of interpreters and producers of knowledge. Our research is situated at the junction of collaborative representation and network improvement. A workspace as developed in TOPOS is considered critical in ensuring real equity: 1) its participatory design involves the authentic input of its stakeholders and is founded on the principles of equal participation of diverse K-14 practices, inquiry, and reflection; 2) it provides a mechanism for the continual renewal of the lexicon of issues and topics of inquiry into classroom practices. These characteristics augment possibilities for more meaningful - deeper and wider - access to networked knowledge construction.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2070 Poster Trust development via computer-mediated communications When is technology an acceptable replacement for 'being there'? This is a problem currently facing both education and business institutions. At the same time that poor and rural school districts are deciding whether to buy distance-education access to advanced or specialized courses, giant multi-national corporations struggle to manage work teams separated by distance and time. A fairly extensive line of research has sought to examine experimentally what kinds of tasks can be effectively done via different forms of computer-mediated communication. One key difficult is development of trust between distant collaborators. and sometimes even impossible Previous experimental research has demonstrated the potential difficulties of developing trust via communication channels such as email. But what about intermediate communication channels such as text chat, phone conferencing, and video conferencing? The Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work at the University of Michigan is currently running a series of experiments to test trust development in new conditions. We are also examining related issues such as, can participants detect lying over a video conference? Does knowing biographical information about collaborators affect trust development? And are there inter-cultural differences between American and Chinese students in trust and negotiation online? Preliminary results from at least two of these studies will be ready by CILT 2000, and I would enjoy having the chance to discuss these results, and particularly try to examine their educational implications, with CILT attendees. Reference Olson, G.M. & Olson, J.S. (in press). Distance Matters. Human-Computer Interaction.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2124 Poster Creating A Dynamic Set Of Interconnected Learning Communities: Strategies For Using Online Discussions To Achieve Different Pedagogical Goals This poster exhibits the work of the CILT seed grant "Establishing A Shared Set Of Criteria & Dimensions For Analyzing Online Discussions." The seed grant identified five types of activities where online discussions are used to achieve different pedagogical goals: 1. Brain-storming & Peer Review 2. Collaborative Knowledge Building Activities 3. Professional Development 4. Science Inquiry 5. Theory Debate Summaries were developed for each of these discussions to answer the questions: (a) Why is this type of activity hard for students? (b) How can discussions help students succeed in this type of activity? (c) What types of challenges do teachers and students face when discussing topics related to the activity? (d) How can a teacher assess discussions from an individual and a group perspective? The poster provides examples of the different discussions along with an overall framework for designing and assessing learning communities. We define learning communities as networks of personal relationships that enable the exchange of resources and the development of a common framework for critique. Our approach has four goals for progressively involving people in communities: (a) support the actual practices and daily tasks of the participants (b) collect experiences and represent them in an accessible and equitable manner (c) provide a framework to guide the learning process (see Linn & Hsi, 2000) (d) represent the identities of the community members. How can we structure relationships and resources within electronic communities to elicit ideas, develop shared understanding, and promote the integration of a diverse set of ideas? And how can we encourage community members to share their ideas, build on each other's views, and gain more sophisticated understanding? To answer these questions, we study how the relationships between community members and the available resources influence ways in which communities exchange and develop resources.
COMMUNITY TOOLS 2121 Poster Designing Instructional Web Sites to Support Inclusive Problem-Based Learning Converting large, impersonal undergraduate lecture courses into problemñbased learning (PBL) communities that include al