New Perspectives in Science Education

This paper is discussing first outcomes of an ongoing research (2012-2015) about creative inquiry-based learning with tablet-cloud systems in elementary science education. The analysis is investigating the situated ways in which 8 to 12 year old students make sense of science phenomena through creative inquiry practices enhanced by tablets and cloud systems.

Inquiry can be defined as an active creation of knowledge through the pursuit of open-ended questions, data gathering and related explanations from evidence.

Inquiry-based school activities constitute a learner-centered context for students to acquire an understanding of scientific concepts, but also basic inquiry abilities as posing and refining research questions, planning and managing an investigation or analyzing and communicating results (Edelson et al., 1999).

From early childhood on, children explore their environments and actively build knowledge through inquiry. ICT offers “an accessible vehicle for extending the domain and range of this inquiry” (Wang et al., 2009). Especially, new tablet-computers feature a range of sensors, which allow to capture, collect, treat and visualize a span of multimodal data related to science phenomena under exploration. Applications enable students to merge data from their own inquiries with content they download from digital sources. This student-generated content can be easily shared with teachers and other groups through the school-based cloud system or disseminated as final outcomes to a private or public audience.

The paper discusses how tablet-computers support and facilitate the active exploration of science phenomena and the formation of scientific thinking in school-based inquiry activities. Evidence is based on different kind of data collected either by students on the internal cloud (multimodal classroom productions, self-recordings about their inquiry approaches) or by researchers (video data from science lessons, video-stimulated recall interviews with students).

Outcomes of our analysis reveal that mobile devices create extended opportunities for skill development in science classrooms. We evidence an increase of self-directed, inquiry-oriented and interest-driven learning skills. The tablet-cloud systems stimulate student engagement and self-expression, i.e., explanations from self-collected evidence, increased argumentation and evidence-based justification of own approaches.

References:

Edelson, D. C.; Gordin, D. N. & Pea, R. D. (1999). Addressing the Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning Through Technology and Curriculum Design. In: The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 8 (3&4): 391-450.

Wang, F. et al. (2009). Applying Technology to Inquiry-Based Learning in Early Childhood Education. In: Early Childhood Educ J (2010) 37: 381-389.