Instructional Media Design Commons^™

Data Use By Middle And Secondary Students In The Digital Age: A Status Report And Future Prospects, Victor R. Lee, Michelle H. Wilkerson

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

What it means to work with data has changed significantly since the preparation and publication of America’s Lab Report(Singer, Hilton, & Schweingruber, 2006)in ways that are impacting students, educators, and the very practice of science. This change is expressing itself most obviously in the abundance of data that can be collected and accessed by students and teachers. There are also notable changes in the types of data (e.g., GPS data, network data, qualitative/verbal data) that are now readily available, and the purposes for which data are collected and analyzed. These shifts have both generated enthusiasm and raised a number …

A Bayesian Network Meta-Analysis To Synthesize The Influence Of Contexts Of Scaffolding Use On Cognitive Outcomes In Stem Education, Brian Robert Belland, Andrew Walker, Nam Ju Kim

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Computer-based scaffolding provides temporary support that enables students to participate in and become more proficient at complex skills like problem solving, argumentation, and evaluation. While meta-analyses have addressed between-subject differences on cognitive outcomes resulting from scaffolding, none has addressed within-subject gains. This leaves much quantitative scaffolding literature not covered by existing meta-analyses. To address this gap, this study used Bayesian network meta-analysis to synthesize within-subjects (pre–post) differences resulting from scaffolding in 56 studies. We generated the posterior distribution using 20,000 Markov Chain Monte Carlo samples. Scaffolding has a consistently strong effect across student populations, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) …

Testing The Effectiveness Of Two Natural Selection Simulations In The Context Of A Large‑Enrollment Undergraduate Laboratory Class, Denise S. Pope, Caleb M. Rounds, Jody Clarke-Midura

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Simulations can be an active and engaging way for students to learn about natural selection, and many have been developed, including both physical and virtual simulations. In this study we assessed the student experience of, and learning from, two natural selection simulations, one physical and one virtual, in a large enrollment introductory biology lab course. We assigned students to treatments (the physical or virtual simulation activity) by section and assessed their understanding of natural selection using a multiple-choice pre-/post-test and short-answer responses on a post-lab assignment. We assessed student experience of the activities through structured observations and an affective …

A Comparison Of Discovered Regularities In Blood Glucose Readings Across Two Data Collection Approaches Used With A Type 1 Diabetic Youth, Victor R. Lee, Travis Thurston, Chris Thurston

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Type 1 diabetes requires frequent testing and monitoring of blood glucose levels in order to determine appropriate type and dosage of insulin administration. This can lead to thousands of individual measurements over the course of a lifetime of a single individual, of which very few are retained as part of a permanent record. The third author, aged 9, and his family have maintained several years of written records since his diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes at age 20 months, and have also recently begun to obtain automated records from a continuous glucose monitor.

Objectives: This paper compares regularities identified …

Stitching Codeable Circuits: High School Students' Learning About Circuitry And Coding With Electronic Textiles, Breanne Krystine Litts, Yasmin B. Kafai, Debora A. Lui, Justice T. Walker, Sari A. Widman

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Learning about circuitry by connecting a battery, light bulb, and wires is a common activity in many science classrooms. In this paper, we expand students’ learning about circuitry with electronic textiles, which use conductive thread instead of wires and sewable LEDs instead of lightbulbs, by integrating programming sensor inputs and light outputs and examining how the two domains interact.We implemented an electronic textiles unit with 23 high school students ages 16–17 years who learned how to craft and code circuits with the LilyPad Arduino, an electronic textile construction kit. Our analyses not only confirm significant increases in students’ understanding of …

Time-To-Credit Gender Inequities Of First-Year Phd Students In The Biological Sciences, David F. Feldon, James Peugh, Michelle A. Maher, Josipa Roksa, Colby Tofel-Grehl

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Equitable gender representation is an important aspect of scientific workforce development to secure a sufficient number of individuals and a diversity of perspectives. Biology is the most gender equitable of all scientific fields by the marker of degree attainment, with 52.5% of PhDs awarded to women. However, equitable rates of degree completion do not translate into equitable attainment of faculty or postdoctoral positions, suggesting continued existence of gender inequalities. In a national cohort of 336 first-year PhD students in the biological sciences (i.e., microbiology, cellular biology, molecular biology, develop-mental biology, and genetics) from 53 research institutions, female participants logged significantly …

An Assessment Instrument Of Technological Literacies In Makerspaces And Fablabs, Paulo Blikstein, Zaza Kabayadondo, Andrew Martin, Deborah A. Fields

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

As the maker movement is increasingly adopted into K‐12 schools, students are developing new competences in exploration and fabrication technologies. This study assesses learning with these technologies in K‐12 makerspaces and FabLabs.

Purpose

Our study describes the iterative process of developing an assessment instrument for this new technological literacy, the Exploration and Fabrication Technologies Instrument, and presents findings from implementations at five schools in three countries. Our index is generalizable and psychometrically sound, and permits comparison between student confidence and performance.

Design/Method

Our evaluation of distinct technology skills separates general computing, information and communication technology (ICT), and exploration and …

From Wearing To Wondering: Treating Wearable Activity Trackers As Objects Of Inquiry, Joel R. Drake, Ryan Cain, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Wearable technologies represent a rapidly expanding category of consumer information and communications technologies. From smartwatches to activity tracking devices, wearables are finding their way into many aspects of our lives, changing the way we think about ourselves and the world around us. The rapid adoption of these tools in everyday life hints at the possibilities these devices may hold in school and other educational settings. Drawing on examples taken from a five-year study using wearable fitness tracking devices in elementary and middle school classrooms, this paper presents two examples of how wearable devices can be appropriated for use in school …

Appropriating Quantified Self Technologies To Support Elementary Statistical Teaching And Learning, Victor R. Lee, Joel R. Drake, Jeffrey L. Thayne

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Wearable activity tracking devices associated with the Quantified Self movement have potential benefit for educational settings because they produce authentic and granular data about activities and experiences already familiar to youth. This article explores how that potential could be realized through explicit acknowledgment of and response to tacit design assumptions about how such technologies will be used in practice and strategic design for use in a classroom. We argue that particular practical adaptations that we have identified serve to ensure that the classroom and educational use cases are appropriately considered. As an example of how those adaptations are realized in …

An Embodied Agent Helps Anxious Students In Mathematics Learning, Yanghee Kim, Jeffrey L. Thayne, Quan Wei

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Mathematics anxiety is known to be detrimental to mathematics learning. This study explored if an embodied agent could be used to help alleviate student anxiety in classrooms. To examine this potential, agent-guided algebra lessons were developed, in which an animated agent was equipped with prescriptive instructional guidance and anxiety treating messages. The lessons were deployed in regular mathematics classrooms, one lesson per day over a week, with 138 boys and girls in the 9th grade in the United States. After taking the weeklong agent-based lessons, students decreased in their mathematics anxiety (p = .042) and increased in mathematics learning …

Coding By Choice: A Transitional Analysis Of Social Participation Patterns And Programming Contributions In The Online Scratch Community, Deborah A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai, Michael T. Giang

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While massive online communities have drawn the attention of researchers and educators on their potential to support active collaborative work, knowledge sharing, and user-generated content, few studies examine participation in these communities at scale. The little research that does exist attends almost solely to adults rather than communities to support youths’ learning and identity development. In this chapter, we tackle two challenges related to understanding social practices that support learning in massive social networking forums where users engage in design. We examined a youth programmer community, called Scratch.mit.edu, that garners the voluntary participation of millions of young people worldwide. We …

A Knowledge Analytic Comparison Of Cued Primitives When Students Are Explaining Predicted And Enacted Motions, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

The Knowledge in Pieces theoretical perspective posits p-prims as an important knowledge element in intuitive reasoning. Because p-prims are a class of knowledge elements developed and abstracted from everyday physical experiences, it seems plausible that immediate physical experiences, both in terms of sensations and actual observations of motion, would cue knowledge in different ways than when those experiences are just discussed as hypotheticals. This paper presents two cases to show that immediate embodied experiences with everyday objects does change which p-prims are cued and how they are deployed by students to explain situations involving motion. These cases come from a …

Opportunistic Uses Of The Traditional School Day Through Student Examination Of Fitbit Activity Tracker Data, Victor R. Lee, Joel R. Drake, Ryan Cain, Jeffrey L. Thayne

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In large part due to the highly prescribed nature of the typical school day for children, efforts to design new interactions with technology have often focused on less-structured after-school clubs and other out-of-school environments. We argue that while the school day imposes serious restrictions, school routines can and should be opportunistically leveraged by designers and by youth. Specifically, wearable activity tracking devices open some new avenues for opportunistic collection of and reflection on data from the school day. To demonstrate this, we present two cases from an elementary statistics classroom unit we designed that intentionally integrated wearable activity trackers and …

Searching Smart With Standards: Using Curriculum Standards To Find Educational Resources In Digital Libraries, Anne R. Diekama, Sheri Haderlie

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Blended Professional Development Program To Help A Teacher Learn To Provide One-To-One Scaffolding, Brian Robert Belland, Ryan Burdo, Jiangyue Gu

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Argumentation is central to instruction centered on socio-scientific issues (Sadler & Donnelly in International Journal of Science Education, 28(12), 1463–1488, 2006. doi:10.1080/09500690600708717). Teachers can play a big role in helping students engage in argumentation and solve authentic scientific problems. To do so, they need to learn one-to-one scaffolding—dynamic support to help students accomplish tasks that they could not complete unaided. This study explores a middle school science teacher’s provision of one-to-one scaffolding during a problem-based learning unit, in which students argued about how to optimize the water quality of their local river. The blended professional development program incorporated three 1.5-h …

Children's Media Making, But Not Sharing: The Potential And Limitations Of Child-Specific Diy Media Websites, Sara Grimes, Deborah A. Fields

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

From drawing pictures to making home movies, children have long produced their own, do-it-yourself (DIY) media at the individual and local scales. Today, children's DIY media creation increasingly takes place online, using digital technologies and tools that allow them to not only produce but also share their ideas with the world. This article relays findings from the first stages of a three-year inquiry project into the opportunities and challenges associated with the rise of children's online DIY media: an extensive media scan to identify websites and an in-depth content analysis of the terms and conditions, privacy policies and overall site …

Understanding The Opportunities And Challenges Of Introducing Computational Crafts To Alternative High School Students, Maneksha Dumont, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In recent years, the integration of computation with crafting has garnered increased attention. Partly spurred by the growth of the “maker movement” and also by recognition of the importance of broadening computational interest and proficiency, computational crafts have become more familiar to educational technologists and designers. For example, computation has been combined with textile design in summer camps for young people (Buechley, Eisenberg, Catchen & Crockett, 2008) and integrated into media as pervasive as paper (Eisenberg, Elumeze, MacFerrin & Buechley, 2009). Additionally, maker spaces are being established in major metropolitan areas, Maker Faires are becoming increasingly ubiquitous (Dougherty, 2012), university …

Looking At How Technology Is Used With The Bodies Over There To Figure Out What Could Be Done With The Technology And Bodies Right Here, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Grassroots Or Returning To One’S Roots? Unpacking The Inception Of A Youth-Focused Community Makerspace, Victor R. Lee, Whitney L. King, Ryan Cain

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe the individuals and factors contributing to the emergence of a community makerspace in a small city in the United States. As research into how makerspaces have come into existence is still in a nascent stage, this single case study is intended to describe and highlight some of the complexities involved in creating such a facility. Based on analysis of onsite observations, interviews of adults connected with the space, and electronic communications, we present a story of how two co-founders of a youth-focused makerspace went from having initial interest in extracurricular activities for their own children …

An Examination Of The Changes In Science Teaching Orientations And Technology-Enhanced Tools For Student Learning In The Context Of Professional Development, Todd Campbell, Rebecca Zuwallak, Max Longhurst, Brett E. Shelton, Paul G. Wolf

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This research examines how science teaching orientations and beliefs about technology-enhanced tools change over time in professional development (PD). The primary data sources for this study came from learning journals of 8 eighth grade science teachers at the beginning and conclusion of a year of PD. Based on the analysis completed, Information Transmission (IT) and Struggling with Standards-Based Reform (SSBR) profiles were found at the beginning of the PD, while SSBR and Standards-Based Reform (SBR) profiles were identified at the conclusion of PD. All profiles exhibited Vision I beliefs about the goals and purposes for science education, while only the …

Students’ Digital Photography Behaviors During A Multiday Environmental Science Field Trip And Their Recollections Of Photographed Science Content, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Taking photographs to document the experiences of an educational field trip is becoming a common activity for teachers and students alike. Considering the regular creation of photographic artifacts, our goal in this paper is to explore students’ picture taking behavior and their recollections of science content associated with their photographs. In this study, we partnered with a class of fifth-grade students in the United States and provided each student with a digital camera to document their experiences during an environmental science field trip at a national park. We report the frequency of photography behaviors according to which activities were most …

Teaching Information Synthesis, Anne R. Diekama, Kacy Lundstrom, Connie Woxland

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Building On Background Knowledge To Formulate Researchable Questions, Anne R. Diekama, Sheri Haderlie

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

At the recent ALA Midwinter Conference in Seattle, I moderated the AASL-sponsored Hot Topics discussion on “Genre-fying” the collection. Six panelists presented a variety of viewpoints on how to handle an issue that is being widely discussed. A number of librarians have implemented the change, reclassifying their nonfiction titles using letters identifying the genre. Some have used EBSCO’s NoveList as a source for the categories they chose, others have used their own ideas. A few have integrated fiction within the nonfiction. A more limited approach is to “genre-fy” the fiction collection. Those who have made the change point to increased …

More Than Just Plain Old Technology Adoption: Understanding Variations In Teachers' Use Of An Online Planning Tool, Heather Leary, Victor R. Lee, Mimi Recker

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper examines variability in teachers’ usage patterns as they interacted with an online teacher support tool, the Curriculum Customization Service (CCS), as part of their professional work. The CCS is a web application that supports teachers in planning, adapting, sequencing, and enacting differentiated instruction in Earth science education. By mining the usage log files of over 40 teachers who used the CCS over a yearlong period, we analyzed for variability using a framework developed in marketing research to characterize appropriation of technology. This analysis helped reveal different kinds of teachers’ patterns along two dimensions: frequency and variability of use. …

Becoming Reflective: Designing For Reflection On Physical Performances, Tom Moher, Cynthia Carter Ching, Sara Schaefer, Victor R. Lee, Noel Enyedy, Joshua Danish, Paulo Guerra, Alessandro Gnoli, Priscilla Jimenez, Brenda Lopez-Silva, Leilah Lyons, Anthony Perritano, Brian Slattery, Mike Tissenbaum, James Slotta, Rebecca Cober, Cresencia Fong

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Learners’ physical performances can serve as focal objects for reflection and insight across a variety of contexts and content areas. This session brings together a set of projects that leverage the physical performances of learners, construct concrete and abstract representations of those performances, and investigate how learners reflect on and understand the relationships between their performances and target content—physics, health and fitness, data literacy and navigation, animal foraging, and climate change. The session will share findings and design principles from each of the studies around constructing technological scaffolds for physical performance reflections. The symposium highlights the various ways performance can …

What's Happening In The "Quantified Self" Movement?, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Rapid adoption of wearable tracking devices and motion sensitive apps has led to the development of the “Quantified Self” movement (QS). Some in the learning sciences community have begun to take notice and incorporate ideas from QS into the research and design of new learning environments. Yet the QS movement is still new enough that very little is known about it, and there are many open questions about how QS might be of value to the learning sciences. This paper provides some history of the movement and through a qualitative analysis of a public video corpus of QS presentations, identifies …

Keeping Up: Shifting Access To Gateway Resources In A Cycling Community Of Practice, Joel Drake, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While learning involves changes in one’s participation within a community of practice, changes in participants can also change access to resources key to newcomer participation. This poster presents a case study of a recreational cycling community illustrating how community changes diminished newcomers’ access to resources for drafting.

Examining How Students Make Sense Of Slow-Motion Video, Min Yuan, Nam Ju Kim, Joel Drake, Scott Smith, Victor R. Lee

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Slow-motion video is starting to appear in science classrooms as a source of data for students to examine. However, seeing important features in such video requires a particular kind of student engagement and supported acts of noticing. This poster reports on an exploratory study of what students noticed and talked about when viewing slow-motion video during a classroom design experiment focused on bodily activity as it relates to motion and animation.

Cognitive Task Analysis-Based Training: A Metaanalysisof Studies, Colby Tofel-Grehl, David F. Feldon

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is enjoying growing popularity in both research and practice as a foundational element of instructional design. However, there exists relatively little research exploring its value as a foundation for training through controlled studies. Furthermore, highly individualized approaches to conducting CTA do not permit broadly generalizable conclusions to be drawn from the findings of individual studies. Thus, examining the magnitude of observed effects across studies from various domains and CTA practitioners is essential for assessing replicable effects. This study reports the findings from a meta-analysis that examines the overall effectiveness of CTA across practitioners and settings in …

Quantified Recess: Design Of An Activity For Elementary Students Involving Analyses Of Their Own Movement Data, Victor R. Lee, Joel R. Drake

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Recess is often a time for children in school to engage recreationally in physically demanding and highly interactive activities with their peers. This paper describes a design effort to encourage fifth-grade students to examine sensitivities associated with different measures of center by having them analyze activities during recess using over the course of a week using Fitbit activity trackers and TinkerPlots data visualization software. We describe the activity structure some observed student behaviors during the activity. We also provide a descriptive account, based on video records and transcripts, of two students who engaged thoughtfully with their recess data and developed …