Inquiry Learning in Science Education
Orchestration of Help Processes in the Classroom
Orchestration of Help Processes in the Classroom
Help seeking and applying help received are seen as some of the most important activities in individual learning situations. The learners’ help seeking behaviour mirrors their meta-cognitive, domain-specific skills and knowledge, but also reflects attitudes towards learning, achievement goals and epistemological beliefs. However, there is need to explore productive and less productive ways of help seeking activities and their connection to learning in collaborative learning situations. The computer, the peer learners and the teachers can be seen as a productive “division of labour” in the classroom, where all these elements can influence on students’ learning processes as well as students’ help seeking activities. Computer-supported collaborative learning technologies can be regarded as potential tools to support students’ engagement in productive and meaningful activities which foster learning. The computer-supported learning environments might have a positive influence on help seeking, because students can seek help in a more anonymous way than in the classroom situations. Small-group activity is designed to promote students’ interaction and collaboration with each other. Students, who are working in small groups, are more likely to seek help from the fellow students than those who are working individually or in whole-class activity. In collaborative learning communities, students who formulate and evaluate questions, hypotheses, evidence and conclusions and summarise on-going discussions, should learn different skills of asking questions and monitoring themselves and others. However, not only seeking information is enough but receiving the relevant respond and elaborating the giving answers are important in mediating learning processes. Earlier research shows that students’ behaviour is passive with regarding to seeking help in the classroom. This might be the result of the classroom system and how teachers themselves are behaving and shaping dialogues. Therefore, we should pay attention not only to the role of peers but also the role of teachers on how they monitor someone’s need for help and offer support when they perceive someone needs it.
In this project we investigate help seeking and follow-up behaviour emerging in small groups that influence learning in settings, such as with more and less degree of teacher instructions in authentic classrooms where students are using the online learning environments.
Collaborators:
Carmen Kohnle, Kaufmännische Schule Hechingen
Developing Concepts for an Improved Use of Furniture and Digital Technologies in Schools, Universities and Further Education
Future-oriented teaching and learning scenarios do not only require innovative pedagogical methods, but also the use of innovative technologies. By innovative technologies, we do not only mean digital media, but also furniture that can flexibly be used to realize a number of different pedagogical scenarios such as plenary work, small group work and individual work. Also, it should allow for quick changes between different pedagogical scenarios in order not to loose to much time during a lesson. In a collaboration with Steelcase, we conduct a series of empirical studies concerning the effects of different furniture arrangements on individual and collaborative learning and decision-making. top
Elk-Math: Fostering the acquisition of mathematical argumentation competence with heuristic worked examples and collaboration scripts
The focus of mathematical curricula recently shifted from the description of mathematical content to the use of this content and likewise the process of mathematical operations, e.g. mathematical argumentation. Research has shown that learners have tremendous problems with the development of adequate mathematical argumentation.
In this project, a CSCL environment will be developed that supports learners in the acquisition of mathematical argumentation competence. Based on approaches from mathematic education on the one hand and educational psychology on the other, different kinds of instructional support will be integrated into this environment to foster the acquisition of different components of mathematical argumentation competence. Heuristic worked examples should help learners with the domain specific, individual cognitive component of argumentation competence by combining the traditional approach of worked examples with the idea of heuristic strategies. To support the acquisition of a more general, social-discursive component of argumentation competence, a CSCL script will be provided. CSCL scripts structure collaborative learning in a way that learners are supported in the appliance of argumentation.
The effects of heuristic worked examples and of CSCL scripts as well as their combination on the acquisition of mathematical argumentation competence will be analyzed in a 2X2 designed experiment. Further studies will investigate if effects could be optimized by allowing students to adapt the amount of instructional support according to their subjective needs.
Project team
Frank Fischer, Prof. Dr.
Ingo Kollar, Dr.
Freydis Vogel
Contact person:
Collaborators
Kristina Reiss, Prof. Dr., TUM
Stefan Ufer, Dr., LMU
Elisabeth Lorenz,TUMtop