|
Article Excerpt
To what extent can computers be used to help teachers create a constructivist learning environment in the science classroom? In this study, data from 23 high school physics classes and 13 teachers were examined to determine the extent to which computers can alter pedagogy and student achievement. Three groups of teachers were examined: Experienced users of the new pedagogy and materials, beginning users of the new pedagogy and materials, and a group of comparison teachers who used traditional instructional methods. Results suggest computers can significantly alter both teaching methods and student achievement; however, there are costs and benefits to the reform. Implications for using computers in the classroom are discussed.
**********
The Constructing Physics Understanding Project (CPU) designed computer-based modular curricular activities, software, and pedagogy to help teachers implement the type of learning environment described in the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) and the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993). The purpose of this article is to describe the extent to which teachers integrated these curriculum materials into the classroom to create constructivist learning environments and to investigate the impact on student achievement. Science classes are complex learning environments, and as such, one should not expect new instructional tools to instantly and dramatically alter teachers' classrooms. As Cuban (1986) pointed out over a decade ago, the complexity of the classroom environment suggests that success in using new technology should be viewed as a gradual process of implementation and change. Hall and Hord (2001) also pointed out that change is a process, not an event. Their model for change emphasized the importance of taking a long-term view when implementing an innovation. In this light, the impact of the CPU technologies was investigated to better understand the impact on both new and experienced users of the curriculum materials. The Constructing Physics Understanding (CPU) in a Computer-Supported Learning Environment Project was both a materials development and teaching enhancement project supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This article focuses on the impact of the curricular materials in the classroom. For information on the design and development of curricular materials please see Goldberg and Bendall (1995) or the CPU website at http://cpuproject.sdsu.edu. The CPU materials themselves are grounded in a social constructivist view of learning (Gergen, 1985; Bruner, 1986; von Glaserfeld, 1995). The developers of CPU attempted to create materials that capitalized on the social views of learning inherent in a laboratory-based science classroom. Constructivists view learning as a process where students interpret information in light of existing knowledge, and actively construct and reconstruct understandings, rather than receive information from an authoritative source such as a teacher. One of the purposes of the CPU project was to begin to move teachers toward successful use of technology, rather than claim that CPU would dramatically and immediately alter the classroom. This is a process that rarely occurs over one summer for a typical classroom teacher, and can take years to fully realize. Teachers tend to work in extremely complex environments and are subject to many internal and external pressures that impact the classroom environment and teaching actions. Curriculum development and professional development projects should view success as placing teachers "on the road" to new ideas, not the sudden transformation of teaching. Such sudden transformation rarely lasts; it is the slow thoughtful transition that fundamentally alters teaching. With this in mind, this study was designed to examine the initial impacts of CPU on high school science teachers' pedagogy and the subsequent impact on students' understanding.
OVERVIEW OF THE CPU PROJECT
The CPU project produced modular content units and computer software, to support an environment where students, individually, in small groups, and as a whole class construct knowledge in physics. Content units were developed in the topical areas of Light and Color, Current Electricity, Static Electricity and Magnetism, Underpinnings (in Search of Patterns), Motion and Force, Waves, and the Small Particle Model of Matter. Each content unit was packaged with a set of computer activities, computer simulations, and an electronic journal. Students use the computer activities, simulations, and electronic journal along with critical small group and whole group discussion to construct an understanding of physics concepts. In the CPU classroom students develop, test, and modify their ideas through experimentation and discussion with peers, rather than depend upon the instructor as the source of knowledge. There is a carefully designed sequence of activities and pedagogy that promotes and values the extensive intra-group and whole class discussion, building towards class consensus of physics concepts. Each content unit is divided into several cycles of student idea construction, and each cycle has three phases: elicitation, development, and application:
The elicitation phase begins with the instructor posing a task to the students in which they are asked to predict the outcome of some experiment. Students offer predictions and reasons, while the instructor remains non-judgmental. Then the experiment is performed. Experiments are chosen so that the outcome is often surprising to students. In trying to make sense of this outcome, the class suggests some plausible ideas, which serve as initial class ideas. In the development phase students work in small groups at computer stations to test the initial class ideas in a wide variety of experiments, record their observations and reasoning, and use the simulators. The units are based on research in student understanding for a particular topic, and are designed so that the activities challenge common student ideas. As students go through the development phase, they modify some of their initial ideas, cast some aside as not being useful, and construct new ideas. At the end of this phase each group selects a set of ideas the group believes will account for the phenomena encountered thus far. The instructor then leads whole class discussion...
|
