DISCIPLINE
Science

DURATION
One learning session

ICT USED
Interactive Multimedia CD-ROM

DELIVERY CONTEXT
The intended delivery context is face-to-face in a computer-based learning environment. The sixteen POE tasks took approximately 120 minutes to complete. Students could also use the CD-ROM outside of class time, although the presence of a teacher is highly recommended.

TARGET AUDIENCE
First year undergraduate science students. The program is also useful for Science Education students.

COHORT
The learning design was originally designed for 25-30 students working collaboratively in pairs at the computer.

BROADER CONTEXT
The program could be used before formal instruction as a diagnostic probe of students’ pre-instructional science conceptions. Follow up activities (tutorials, practical exercises, etc.) informed by the students’ responses to these tasks are necessary for further conceptual development. The design could also be used as a summative assessment tool or simply as part of a planned series of learning activities midway through a unit of study.

The collaborative use of the POE computer tasks is designed to facilitate peer discussions and promote conceptual development and consensual meaning-making in the domain of science by one or more of the following:

• Articulation and justification of a student’s own ideas.
• Reflection on the viability of other students’ ideas.
• Critical reflection on a student’s own ideas.
• Construction and negotiation of new ideas.

The program also:

• Assists students to articulate, justify and critically reflect on their own and their partner’s science conceptions, providing the opportunity for consensual meaning-making and to become aware of their own alternative conceptions.
• Facilitates development of students’ science discourse skills and provides students with an opportunity to engage in ‘science talk’ (Lemke, 1990; Pea, 1993)
• Facilitates development of students’ science process skills (predicting, observing, etc.)
• Stimulates student interest and fosters awareness and appreciation of the integral relationship between science and the students’ everyday lives (especially through the challenging, real-world contexts presented in the video demonstrations).

  References:

  Lemke, J. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
  Pea R. (1993). Learning scientific concepts through material and social activities: Conversational analysis meets conceptual change. Educational Psychologist, 28(3), 265–277.

IMPLEMENTATION OF ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
Multiple choice tests, other POE tasks (same domain but different scenarios), concept maps or reflective journals could be used to assess learning outcomes.

IMPORTANCE OF ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES USED
It must be noted that these tasks can actually be used as a formative or summative assessment tool. Indeed, in the tradition of student drawings, concept maps, student interviews etc., these tasks were initially designed as a formative assessment tool and were used in the doctoral study (Kearney, 2002) as an instrument to probe students’ pre-instructional science conceptions.

Reference:

Kearney, M. (2002). Classroom Use of multimedia-supported predict-observe-explain tasks to elicit and promote discussion about students’ physics conceptions. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Perth: Curtin University of Technology.

WHY ICT IS USED

1. The computer environment encourages small group use of the POE tasks, moving away from the traditional whole-class, teacher-led POE tasks. This has associated benefits such as the increase in user control over the pacing through the tasks, their viewing of the demonstrations, etc.
2. The computer program effectively scaffolds the POE strategy for the user. For example, students cannot view the demonstration on the "observation page" without committing themselves to a prediction and reason in preceding pages. However, before viewing the demonstration, the program does allow students to go back, review and if necessary edit their predictions and reasons.
3. All responses can be automatically saved, collated and coded by the computer as a user-friendly document for subsequent teacher analysis.
4. The computer environment facilitates use of the digital video medium and associated affordances. For example, the medium can provide rich, real world contexts for students to consider; it facilitates clinical, detailed user observations through the use of the video tools (such as slow motion, step-frame etc.); and it allows users to replay exact replicas of demonstrations, viewed as many times as they like.
5. Although not used in the current design, other digital media such as sound and graphics could be used to present interesting demonstrations as part of a POE strategy.

MOST IMPORTANT ICT CONTRIBUTION TO LEARNING DESIGN
The technology-mediated environment scaffolds the POE strategy (supporting learner autonomy) and enables use of the digital video medium.