Science education researchers typically face a trade-off between more quantitatively oriented confirmatory testing of hypotheses, or more qualitatively oriented exploration of novel hypotheses. More ...recently, open-ended, constructed response items were used to combine both approaches and advance assessment of complex science-related skills and competencies. For example, research in assessing science teachers’ noticing and attention to classroom events benefitted from more open-ended response formats because teachers can present their own accounts. Then, open-ended responses are typically analyzed with some form of content analysis. However, language is noisy, ambiguous, and unsegmented and thus open-ended, constructed responses are complex to analyze. Uncovering patterns in these responses would benefit from more principled and systematic analysis tools. Consequently, computer-based methods with the help of machine learning and natural language processing were argued to be promising means to enhance assessment of noticing skills with constructed response formats. In particular, pretrained language models recently advanced the study of linguistic phenomena and thus could well advance assessment of complex constructs through constructed response items. This study examines potentials and challenges of a pretrained language model-based clustering approach to assess preservice physics teachers’ attention to classroom events as elicited through open-ended written descriptions. It was examined to what extent the clustering approach could identify meaningful patterns in the constructed responses, and in what ways textual organization of the responses could be analyzed with the clusters. Preservice physics teachers (
N
= 75) were instructed to describe a standardized, video-recorded teaching situation in physics. The clustering approach was used to group related sentences. Results indicate that the pretrained language model-based clustering approach yields well-interpretable, specific, and robust clusters, which could be mapped to physics-specific and more general contents. Furthermore, the clusters facilitate advanced analysis of the textual organization of the constructed responses. Hence, we argue that machine learning and natural language processing provide science education researchers means to combine exploratory capabilities of qualitative research methods with the systematicity of quantitative methods.
There is extensive evidence that active learning works better than a completely passive lecture. Despite this evidence, adoption of these evidence-based teaching practices remains low. In this paper, ...we offer one tool to help faculty members implement active learning. This tool identifies 21 readily implemented elements that have been shown to increase student outcomes related to achievement, logic development, or other relevant learning goals with college-age students. Thus, this tool both clarifies the research-supported elements of best practices for instructor implementation of active learning in the classroom setting and measures instructors' alignment with these practices. We describe how we reviewed the discipline-based education research literature to identify best practices in active learning for adult learners in the classroom and used these results to develop an observation tool (Practical Observation Rubric To Assess Active Learning, or PORTAAL) that documents the extent to which instructors incorporate these practices into their classrooms. We then use PORTAAL to explore the classroom practices of 25 introductory biology instructors who employ some form of active learning. Overall, PORTAAL documents how well aligned classrooms are with research-supported best practices for active learning and provides specific feedback and guidance to instructors to allow them to identify what they do well and what could be improved.
This article describes a sensor-based physical computing system, called the Data Sensor Hub (DaSH), which enables students to process, analyze, and display data streams collected using a variety of ...sensors. The system is built around the portable and affordable BBC micro:bit microcontroller (expanded with the gator:bit), which students program using a visual, cloud-based programming environment intended for novices. Students connect a variety of sensors (measuring temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, sound, acceleration, magnetism, etc.) and write programs to analyze and visualize the collected sensor data streams. The article also describes two instructional units intended for middle grade science classes that use this sensor-based system. These inquiry-oriented units engage students in designing the system to collect data from the world around them to investigate scientific phenomena of interest. The units are designed to help students develop the ability to meaningfully integrate computing as they engage in place-based learning activities while using tools that more closely approximate the practices of contemporary scientists as well as other STEM workers. Finally, the article articulates how the DaSH and units have elicited different kinds of teacher practices using student drawn modeling activities, facilitating debugging practices, and developing place-based science practices.
For the last 28 years, one of the leading international science education organisations has regularly provided a week‐long summer school experience for doctoral students. In summer 2020, the COVID‐19 ...pandemic prevented international travel and close‐contact interactions between scholars. This required the transformation and relocation of learning interactions between mentors and doctoral students online through a virtual week‐long summer school. All doctoral participants, from across the five continents, were invited to reflectively comment on their educative experience after the online event. This paper consequently presents the perspectives of these science education PhD students who engaged with the transformed virtual summer school to consider how the range of varied online interactions maintained the learning opportunities for them and enabled their introduction to an established research community. The study indicates how the digital activities facilitated and maintained high‐quality learning exchanges through a varied array of intellectual activities involving both experienced and novice scholars. The findings demonstrate how successful academic outcomes can be achieved remotely while minimising international travel and significantly reducing financial outlay. This was achieved through creatively structuring a week‐long virtual experience and combining a series of synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities for different groupings of participants within the international summer school community.
Practitioner notes
What is already known about this topic
Doctoral students often feel that studying for their research degree is a very solitary experience.
Supporting doctoral students to discuss their research with peers and more experienced others can address the feelings of isolation.
The pandemic restricting face‐to‐face interaction constrains how learning can unfold in online contexts.
It is possible to provide doctoral support through online means, however, the exact nature of such is not clearly defined.
What this paper adds
Clear evidence that doctoral learning communities involving university students and tutors can be successfully developed through online virtual environments.
That online working can afford and extend doctoral learning, develop beginning researcher identities and provide students the opportunity to become part of an international research community whatever their geographical setting and prior socio‐cultural experiences.
Clarity about the nature of online activities that ensure an appropriate blend of the kind of synchronous and asynchronous interactions that effectively support virtual online doctoral learning.
The Community of Practice COP theoretical framework can offer a useful way of looking at different dimensions of higher degree learning.
Implications for practice and/or policy
This paper provides advice for those who would like to develop their own virtual learning networks that bring together learners from universities and wider organisations to develop a community of learning.
That an appropriate blend of synchronous and asynchronous interactions can mediate and support doctoral students, aiding them to effectively become more knowledgeable members of an international research community within a short space of time.
That international virtual events can successfully achieve learning outcomes while also minimising overseas travel, significantly reducing financial expenditure and individual carbon footprints.
Many studies have used the potential of computer games to promote students’ attitudes toward learning and increase their learning performance. A few studies have transformed scientific content into ...computer games or developed games with scientific content. In this paper, we employed students’ common misconceptions of chemistry regarding the properties of liquid to develop a computer game. Daily life situations and everyday phenomena related to the chemical understanding of the properties of liquid were also taken into account. Afterward, we applied a process-oriented, inquiry-based active learning approach to implement the game in a Thai high school chemistry course. We studied the implementation of a game-transformed inquiry-based learning class by comparing it to a conventional inquiry-based learning class. The results of this study include aspects of students’ conceptual understanding of chemistry and their motivation to learn chemistry. We found that students in both the game-transformed inquiry-based learning class and conventional inquiry-based learning class had a significantly increased conceptual understanding of chemistry. There was also a significant difference between the gains of both classes between the pre- and post-conceptual understanding scores. Moreover, the post-conceptual understanding scores of students in the two classes were significantly different. These findings support the notion that students can better comprehend chemistry concepts through a computer game, especially when integrated with the process-oriented, inquiry-based learning approach. The findings of this study also highlight the game-transformed inquiry-based learning approach’s support of students’ motivation to learn chemistry.
Enrollment in courses taught remotely in higher education has been on the rise, with a recent surge in response to a global pandemic. While adapting this form of teaching, instructors familiar with ...traditional face‐to‐face methods are now met with a new set of challenges, including students not turning on their cameras during synchronous class meetings held via videoconferencing. After transitioning to emergency remote instruction in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, our introductory biology course shifted all in‐person laboratory sections into synchronous class meetings held via the Zoom videoconferencing program. Out of consideration for students, we established a policy that video camera use during class was optional, but encouraged. However, by the end of the semester, several of our instructors and students reported lower than desired camera use that diminished the educational experience. We surveyed students to better understand why they did not turn on their cameras. We confirmed several predicted reasons including the most frequently reported: being concerned about personal appearance. Other reasons included being concerned about other people and the physical location being seen in the background and having a weak internet connection, all of which our exploratory analyses suggest may disproportionately influence underrepresented minorities. Additionally, some students revealed to us that social norms also play a role in camera use. This information was used to develop strategies to encourage—without requiring—camera use while promoting equity and inclusion. Broadly, these strategies are to not require camera use, explicitly encourage usage while establishing norms, address potential distractions, engage students with active learning, and understand your students’ challenges through surveys. While the demographics and needs of students vary by course and institution, our recommendations will likely be directly helpful to many instructors and also serve as a model for gathering data to develop strategies more tailored for other student populations.
Students were asked why they chose not to turn on their cameras during synchronous class meetings held via Zoom. Their responses influenced a strategy for encouraging them to do so.
Neuroscience courses, largely relegated to advanced undergraduate or graduate universities, are now being offered in high schools and middle schools. Low-tech versions of advanced neuroscience ...research tools are being used in hands-on labs. In this NeuroView, I will argue the need for and provide an overview of neuroscience research beyond academia.
Neuroscience courses, largely relegated to advanced undergraduate or graduate universities, are now being offered in high schools and middle schools. Low-tech versions of advanced neuroscience research tools are being used in hands-on labs. In this NeuroView, Gage argues the need for and provides an overview of neuroscience research beyond academia.
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