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Effective/Active Learning Environment for Science A Training on Lecture-based Model, 3 rd GSST, 13 16 Dec. 2012, Univ. of Gondar Amdselassie A Amde Department of Physics & ADRC, University of Gondar, [email protected] Outline o Shift Has Happened! o 21 st Century Skills o Why Do Students Experience Difficulties in Learning? o Designing Effective Learning Environment(Factors to be Considered) o Examples of Effective Learning Environment o The Lecture-based Model o Future Training Shift Has Happened! Watch the clip “Do You Know?” 21 st C. Learning Tools ! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZegg_iVFDM ) Write down some important ideas & changes you noticed from the clip! Please include the relevant changes in Ethiopia & update the clip! (You can use video editing & share tools freely available on social-media). 21 st Century Skills … for Science & Technology Graduates (http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework & http://www.nationalacademies.org/nrc ) Mastery of core subject knowledge & 21 st C. themes Learning and Innovation Skills (Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Non-routine Problem Solving, and Communication and Collaboration); Complex Communication skills; Life and Career Skills (Adaptability, Self-management/Self-development, …); Systems Thinking; Constructing and Evaluating Evidence-based Arguments,

Active Learning Environments for Science

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Effective/Active Learning Environment for Science

A Training on Lecture-based Model, 3rd GSST, 13 – 16 Dec. 2012, Univ. of Gondar

Amdselassie A Amde

Department of Physics & ADRC, University of Gondar, [email protected]

Outline

o Shift Has Happened!

o 21st Century Skills

o Why Do Students Experience Difficulties in Learning?

o Designing Effective Learning Environment(Factors to be Considered)

o Examples of Effective Learning Environment

o The Lecture-based Model

o Future Training

Shift Has Happened!

Watch the clip “Do You Know?” 21st C. Learning Tools!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZegg_iVFDM)

Write down some important ideas & changes you noticed from the clip!

Please include the relevant changes in Ethiopia & update the clip! (You can use

video editing & share tools freely available on social-media).

21st Century Skills … for Science & Technology Graduates

(http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework & http://www.nationalacademies.org/nrc)

Mastery of core subject knowledge & 21st C. themes

Learning and Innovation Skills (Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and

Non-routine Problem Solving, and Communication and Collaboration);

Complex Communication skills;

Life and Career Skills (Adaptability, Self-management/Self-development, …);

Systems Thinking;

Constructing and Evaluating Evidence-based Arguments,

Why Do Students Experience Difficulties in Learning (Science)?

Let us investigate the traditional science education model!

Science Education Model 1, (Prof. C. Weizman)

Physical and Cognitive Architecture for Traditional Learning Environment

1. Imagine yourself as an undergraduate attending a lecture in classroom,

What you real hate about attending lectures and about the classrooms?

Think of a memorable positive & negative learning experience.

2. Compare architectures of the following learning spaces

(R. Beichner)

3. Which One is Participatory?

4. Compare the learning activities that happen in following classes.

Some of typical assumptions about traditional classrooms (Chism and Bickford)

Learning only happens in classrooms and at fixed times.

Learning is an individual activity.

What happens in classrooms is pretty much the same from class to class and day

to day.

A classroom always has a front.

Learning demands privacy and the removal of distractions.

Audio-Visual is need in large rooms only to make the lectures visible or audible.

Traditional learning environment and mode, used for many years,

is content oriented, teacher-centered, and encourages little or no student active

participation,

is limited in space & time, and

rewards memorization over conceptual thinking.

o Is traditional science learning model/environment therefore to be blamed …

and not adequate for 21st century education that requires expertise and

mastery of the multi-dimensional abilities?

o List Additional Challenges Relevant to our Education Systems!

So we need an innovative learning environment/model to achieve and measure

more complex learning (or mastery of 21st C. skills)

New Model: Scientific Approach to Science Education

Science Education Model 2: (Source: Prof. Weizman)

Factors to be Considered to Design Effective Learning Environment

1. Findings From Cognitive Science

New findings from cognitive sciences on how people learn effectively

The Cognitive Model

To understand learning, we must understand memory—how information is stored

in the brain.

Professor, May I be excused? My brain is full.

Reducing unnecessary demands on working

memory improves learning. (Avoid jargon, use

figures, analogies, avoid digressions)

Models of memory: (E. Redish)

Working memory - fast but limited. Used for problem solving, processing

information, and maintaining information in our consciousness. Handle a small

number of data blocks; content tends to fade after a few seconds.

Long-term memory - hold a huge amount of information—facts, data, and rules

for how to use and process them—and the information can be maintained for

long periods.

Using information from long-term memory requires that it be activated (brought

into working memory).

Activation of information in long-term memory is productive (created on the spot

from small, stable parts) and associative (activating an element leads to

activation of other elements).

Implications of the Cognitive Model for Instruction: (E. Redish)

Five general principles that help us understand what happens in classroom:

The constructivism principle

Individuals build their knowledge by making connections to existing knowledge; they

use this knowledge by productively creating a response to the information they

receive.

The context principle

What people construct depends on the context—including their mental states.

The change principle

It is reasonably easy to learn something that matches or extends an existing schema,

but changing a well-established schema substantially is difficult

The individuality principle

Since each individual constructs his or her own mental structures, different students

have different mental responses and different approaches to learning. Any

population of students will show a significant variation in a large number of cognitive

variables.

The social learning principle

For most individuals, learning is most effectively carried out via social interactions.

2. New Role of Technology

brings more interaction & insight gaining through

o personal response system (PRS), videoconferencing & web forum

o modeling & simulation, interactive lecture demonstration (ILD) and CADA;

Expanding Access to Education, overcome the space-time barrier

o Anytime & Anywhere Learning

o Access to Remote Learning & Research Resources

Transform Learning to Learner-Centered

o Active Learning

o Cooperative Learning

o PBL

Help Improve Academic Management

o Library Management System

o Learning Management System (CMS & SIS)

o Digital Asset Management

Help Prepare Individual for the 21st C. Workplace

o Digital Age Literacy

o Inventive Thinking

o Higher-Order Thinking

o Effective Communication

3. Changes in Today’s Students/Learners

Net-gen: e-mailing, chatting, browsing, content publishing …

Socializing,…

Learner’s Demography

Is the traditional science teaching environment/model suitable to today’s learners

(the net-gen)?

Hence effective/active learning environments

are developed by integrating education research results with technological tools

incorporate new and improved learning models

transform learning from teacher-centered to student-centered

It requires new physical (temporal/spatial) and cognitive architecture

Can we use technology to introduce Active Learning in the traditional learning

environment (i.e. without changing its architecture)?

Replace one or more elements of the traditional structure by a student-centered

activity!?

Some Examples of Effective/Active Learning Environment

Effective Learning Environment– there is more … than a Built Pedagogy (architectural

embodiments of educational philosophies, or the ways in which a space is designed

to shape the learning that happens in that space, D. Oblinger).

1. Technology-enabled active learning (TEAL), http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/teal/

TEAL is a leaching format that merges lectures, simulations, and hands-on desktop

experiments to create a rich collaborative learning experience. TEAL classes feature:

Collaborative learning—students working during class in small groups with

shared laptop computers

Desktop experiments with data acquisition links to laptops

Media-rich visualizations and simulations delivered via laptops and the Internet

PRS response systems that stimulate interaction between students and lecturers

2. Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies

(SCALE-UP), http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/

SCALE-UP is a learning environment specifically created to facilitate active,

collaborative learning in a studio-like setting for 100 or more students. The spaces are

carefully designed to facilitate interactions between teams of students who work on

short, interesting tasks. SCALE-UP features:

Students work in teams on these "tangibles" (hands-on measurements or

observations) and "ponderables" (interesting, complex problems).

Instructors circulate and work with teams and individuals, engaging them in

Socratic-like dialogues.

There is no separate lab class and most of the "lectures" are actually class-wide

discussions.

Lecture-based Model (E. Redish)

1. Traditional Lecture

Can be modified to include student

interaction

o set the context

o chunk material

o ask authentic questions

o vote on a choice of answers ….

Do not have much effect

2. A More Structured Interaction

2.1. Peer Instruction/ ConcepTest http://galileo.harvard.edu/

Key Activities

o web-based reading assignment (JiTT)

o concept tests

o conceptual exam questions

Facilities

o PCs (none or 1 with LCD), CMS, Internet/Intranet access, colored card

or Personal Response System,

o text with concept tests Resource Sites

o recent textbooks, related courseware sites

Examples, Demos & Practical

o Details to be provided at practical sessions!

1. Web-based Reading Assignment

o A web-based reading assignment is given

before the beginning of the class

2. ConcepTest

Challenging multiple-choice questions are

given during lecture in 5 – 7 min segment.

(Questions: concept oriented & distractors

based on common student difficulties as shown by research)

Think! Students answer the question using clickers

What can we use if we do not have PRS?

Pair! Students discuss the problem with their

neighbors for 2 min.

Share! Students answer the question again

o Does the discussion produce a significant improvement? If not additional

materials will be presented.

2.2. Interactive Lecture Demonstrations/Simulation

(http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/demonstrations/index.html)

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations engage students in activities that confront

their prior understanding of a core concept. Its Key features are: predict,

experience & reflect.

Key Activities

o Predict!

- Describe the demo/sim & perform it without collecting data, and

write individual predictions

- discuss with neighbors and write consensus predictions

- hold a class discussion based on the various discussion

o Experience!

- perform demo collecting data & display result/output, and students

write results

o Reflect!

- hold a brief class discussion – why the answer obtained makes sense

& the others have problems

Facilities

o Personal Computing Devices, LCD, CADA devices (and/or simulations),

software for data acquisition-analysis and simulation-visualization

o worksheets for predictions and results

o open and free courseware and software, digital libraries, laboratories

(including virtual & remotely accessible)

Examples, Demos & Practical

o Details to be provided at practical sessions!

2.3. Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) http://galileo.harvard.edu/

JiTT blends Active Learning with Web Technology. It focuses on improving student

learning through the use of brief web-based questions delivered before a class

meeting. Students' responses to the exercises are reviewed by the instructor a few

hours before class and are used to develop classroom activities addressing

learning gaps revealed in the responses.

Goals :

o Improve conceptual understanding.

o Improve problem-solving skills.

o Develop critical thinking abilities.

o Build teamwork and communication skills.

o Learn to connect classroom learning with real-world experience.

Focuses on two critical cognitive principles:

o Students learn more effectively if they are intellectually engaged.

o Instructors teach more effectively if they understand what their students

think and know.

Key Activities

o warm up questions on the web

o provide answers

o class discussion and activities

o puzzle on the web

Facilities

o PCs with CMS & Internet-Intranet access, LCD, Simulation

o open and free courseware and software, digital libraries,

Examples, Demos & Practical

o Details to be provided at practical sessions!

1. Warm up questions on the web

o Before each lecture, specific, carefully chosen WarmUp questions are assigned

on the web.

o Students provide their best answers a few hours before class.

o The instructor looks at the student responses before lecture, estimates the

frequency of different responses, and selects certain responses to include as

part of the in-class discussion and activities.

2. Class discussion and activities

o The class discussion and activities are built around the WarmUp questions and

student responses.

(R. Beichner)

3. Puzzles on the Web

o At the end of a topic, a tricky

question (puzzles) is put on the

web for students to answer.

o Most students attempting

puzzles get bogged down in the

detail; spend a full hour

discussing the problem, using it

as an opportunity to thoroughly

review everything that had

been covered to that point and

to discuss and build problem-

solving skills. (Novak and et.al.)

Please enjoy the clip: “3 Steps for 21st Century Learning!”

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gauIikwAwLM)

Future Training Focus!

Effective/Active Learning Environment for Science: Recitation-based

Model & Lab-based Model

References

1. E. Mazur, Peer Instruction: A User's Manual (Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, 1997)

2. Derek Bruff, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning

Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009)

3. D. Sokoloff and R. Thornton, “Using interactive lecture demonstrations to create an

active learning environment,” Phys. Teach. 35, 340 (1997).

4. Gregor Novak, et.al., Just-In-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web

Technology (Addison-Wesley, 1999)

5. E. Redish, Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite (Wiley, 2003)

6. Carl Weizman, Scientific Approach for Science Education (Change, Sept/Oct 2007)

7. Scott Smikins, et.al, Just in Time Teaching: Across the Disciplines, and Across the

Academy (Stylus Publishing, 2009)

8. C. Carmean and J. Haefner, “Mind over matter: Transforming course management

systems into effective learning environments,” Educause Rev. 37 (6), 26 (2002).

9. J. Bransford, A. Brown, and R. Cocking, How People Learn (National Academy Press,

Washington DC, 1999), p. 346.

10. R. Beichner, Technology for Teaching Physics, http://www.ncsu.edu/PER

11. F. Reif, Applying Cognitive Science to Education (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008).

12. James Bellanca & Ron Brandt, 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students (Learn

Solution Tree, 2010)

13. Dian G. Oblinger & James L. Oblinger, Educating the Net Generation (Educause,

2005)

14. Dian G. Oblinger, Learning Spaces (Educause, 2005)

15. Nancy V. Chism and Deborah J. Bickford, eds., The Importance of Physical Space in

Creating Supportive Learning Environments: New Directions in Teaching and

Learning, no. 92 (Winter 2002) (Jossey-Bass, 2003)

16. Ken Fisher, Technology-enabled active learning environments: an appraisal (CELE

Exchange 2010/7)

17. Victoria L. Tinio, ICT in Education (UNDP-APDIP, 2002)

18. Amdeselassie A., et.al, Using e-Resources & Technology for Active Learning: Training

Manual (ADRC-EQUIP, 2009)

19. Amdeselassie A., et.al, Put Your Course Online with Moodle: Training Manual (ADRC-

EQUIP, 2009)