Incorporating Affordable Learning Solutions

From my experience as an undergraduate, I was unable to afford college textbooks.  I had to hope I could get access to textbooks in the university library, but that was not always possible as other students may have already borrowed the books.  Not to mention the additional time and effort it would take to simply go to the library, and yet you could still come back empty-handed.  As a result, a major part of my success in some college courses was dependent on how well the instructor covered the required material, the resources that the instructor provided, and how much the instructor aligned their instructional materials with their assessments.  It was not an ideal learning situation, but my finances dictated such an approach for several of my college classes.

As part the DISCOVERe tablet initiative at Fresno State, I have learned about California State University (CSU)'s Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) program.  The purpose of CSU's AL$ is to reduce course costs through a variety of Open Educational Resources (OERs), so that more students can access the materials they need to be successful in their college courses.  Given my experience as an undergraduate, I knew AL$ was something I definitely wanted to take advantage of for the college courses I currently teach.

I was initially apprehensive about finding anything relevant for my courses, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the open-source, freely available resources for science courses.  For example, in my initial searches I found an Introductory Chemistry text that covers all the material in my General Chemistry course.  For my Physical Science class, I also found two Introductory Physics texts.  More recently, I was directed to the OER commons website that also includes many terrific resources for introductory science courses.

Now that I have found such resources, the question is how to incorporate them into my courses?  It is not an automatic transition, because there are already prescribed texts for the larger science courses I teach. These prescribed texts have been agreed on through previous instructor and department meetings, and book orders have already been placed for the academic year.  As a starter, I have provided the aforementioned OER resources to my students, but I have still noted the department prescribed text in my syllabus.  I have also moved my homework activities from a publisher website that comes with the prescribed text to Blackboard instead, which is free for students.  As such, students are not tied to the prescribed text unless they prefer to buy it. Therefore, each of my 200+ students can now save themselves $100-250 each semester.  As for the long-term, broader discussions are needed across instructors and the department to see how AL$ can be embedded more so that all students can benefit.

Integrating Student Tablets Into Lectures

Over the spring semester and a week in the summer I completed a professional development course at Fresno State for an initiative known as DISCOVERe.  The purpose of the DISCOVERe program is to support faculty in redesigning their courses to leverage the benefits of tablets, so that students can improve their conceptual knowledge while also developing their technology skill-set.  I will be teaching my tablet-supported General Chemistry class starting next week with over 100 students.  I hope to share some of the things I learn over the course of the semester through blog posts and to gain insight from others.

Before taking the DISCOVERe course I was a little skeptical about students using tablets within a lecture-based approach.  From my research, I know many ways that educational technology benefits students' learning.  However, using tablets in lectures presented me with a mismatch of what is typically a teacher-centered approach and the student-centered approach that using tablets would require.  I realized that DISCOVERe was asking me much more than to simply use tablets.  DISCOVERe was asking me to question my role and my students' role within my classes in order to effectively leverage the benefit of tablets.

In terms of Chemistry Education, there are great and open-source simulations that help explain many microscopic concepts such as the atom, concentration or pH.  Such concepts are difficult for students to grasp given that such phenomena cannot be seen with the naked eye.  Some examples of helpful simulations to support students include PhET simulations, Molecular Workbench, and Chemcollective. Before the DISCOVERe program, I was using these resources in a mostly didactic manner through demonstrations, despite a Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) approach.  Students would make predictions about a phenomenon through iClickers, I would demo the simulation, and then I would call on individual students to offer explanations. 

The prediction part of my POE approach was fine, but the advantage of using tablets this semester is that my students can now simply follow a link to observe and explore the simulations, as opposed to being bored by observing me do a demonstration.  My role can now switch from demonstrating to ensuring all students are able to use the simulation on their own.  Further, through the DISCOVERe program, I had the opportunity to trial Socrative, which allows for students to submit open-ended responses.  I previously had obvious difficulty in getting a response from all students in a large lecture class given time constraints, but through Socrative all students have an opportunity to participate and share their ideas on the simulations.  I will be able to view student responses in real time to get a much broader sense of their understanding than before and know what conceptual challenges to target.

I am looking forward to thinking about other ways to take advantage of tablets in my course throughout the semester.  I can already see from the activities I am developing that there will be better opportunities for student engagement.  I think what might be challenging is if students are ready to see their role as taking more ownership.  Much of this responsibility can reside with individual students, but I can help this process by setting clear expectations of students' role at the beginning of the semester and by consistently using activities that align with such expectations.

Automated Guidance in the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) Video

The National Science Foundation (NSF) are having an online Teaching and Learning Video Showcase all this week, featuring over 100 videos from various STEM-based projects across the US.  The videos are between 2-3 minutes and give a brief overview of each project.  Members of the public are encouraged to watch and vote for their favorite video. There are some really great projects worth exploring!

Below is a link to one of NSF videos I helped develop with my colleagues from the WISE research group at UC Berkeley.  We research automated guidance for a range of science activities to support middle and high school students.  Check it out here!

Research Brief on Power Relations in Inquiry-Oriented Classrooms

Relating Research to Practice is a website that contains a set of research briefs summarizing recent peer-reviewed educational research. James Forrest from the Exploratorium in San Francisco recently wrote a research brief on an article from my PhD research about power dynamics in inquiry-oriented classrooms.  Relating Research to Practice is a National Science Foundation funded project that is led by the Exploratorium through collaboration with researchers affiliated with the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) at the Exploratorium, the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center at the University of Washington, King’s College London, and the Afterschool Alliance.  Follow the link below to check out the research brief!

Forrest, J. (2014). Obstacles or opportunities? Identifying power dynamics surrounding inquiry in the classroom: An ISE research brief discussing Donnelly, McGarr, & O’Reilly, “’Just be quiet and listen to exactly what he's saying': Conceptualising power relations in inquiry-oriented classrooms.” Retrieved from http://relatingresearchtopractice.org/article/369

Simple Ideas for Scientific Discoveries

Adam Savage discusses how simple ideas throughout history can lead to important scientific discoveries...

10 Reasons to Use WISE as a Science Teacher

The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) is an inquiry learning environment that encourages student exploration in scientific investigations.  WISE is the product of over 20 years of international research and has an ever-expanding community of students, teachers, researchers, and software developers across the world.  If you are unfamiliar with WISE, here are 10 reasons you should consider using it as a science teacher!

1. Inquiry-based learning. WISE units engage students in the methods of real scientists. Through various activities and scaffolding tools, students collaborate to explore issues of social importance; they pose relevant questions and make predictions; they experiment with computational models; they work to evaluate and distinguish discrepant information; and they construct evidence-based explanations through reflection and discussion.  
2. Free and open source. WISE subsists on generous support from the National Science Foundation, which means it is available for anyone with a computer and internet connection to use.
3. A growing library of classroom-tested units. The WISE library offers a collection of units that address key conceptual difficulties students encounter in biology, chemistry, earth sciences, and physics. These units are designed to supplement teachers’ core curricular scope and sequence, and each has been iteratively refined through classroom-based research, and demonstrated improvements in students’ understanding. So whether teachers decide to use all the units or just one, WISE's library offers a rich and reliable resource that is being continually expanded and improved with modern and up-to-date technologies.
4. Standards-based science. WISE library units have been carefully crafted to fulfill core US national standards in reading, writing, math, and science at the middle and high school levels. What is more is that units can be easily adapted to address local standards. Units take a multidisciplinary approach to science so that even as students learn inquiry by interacting with simulations and visualizations, and by interpreting and articulating scientific evidence, they do so through activities that emphasize essential skills in reading, writing, and multimedia literacy.
   
5. Comprehensive instructional support. A WISE teacher account offers a suite of integrated tools for teachers to monitor students’ real-time progress, to facilitate grading and giving feedback, and to automatically score embedded assessments. These tools are continually refined through collaborations with practicing teachers, who understand the real challenges of managing modern classrooms. By facilitating these necessary but time-consuming tasks, teachers are free to focus on what makes them indispensable: Providing quality instruction to individual students.
6. Based on research, refined through practice. Through collaborations with teachers, technology designers, and education researchers, WISE has refined a set of principles, which guide the design of all WISE curriculum materials and tools.  These principles ensure the most effective use of technology, as they are advised by real teacher and student experiences.
7. Powerful learning technologies. WISE researchers collaborate with software design experts to create innovative curriculum-integrated technologies. Interactive visualizations and simulations; applications for drawing, diagramming and animating; and tools for collaborative brainstorming, discussion, and idea management, are each designed to develop in students the inquiry skills important for lifelong learning. Teachers can find them in the existing classroom-tested WISE library units, or they can add and customize their own through the easy-to-use WISE authoring tool.
8. Makes science meaningful. WISE units introduce students to complex science concepts through personally and socially relevant topics. Students determine the structure of detergent molecules by helping to clean the Gulf oil spill; they come to understand mitosis by investigating candidate cures for cancer; and they explore orbital and projectile motion by optimizing a path for deorbiting a space shuttle. Each unit uses a classroom-tested pattern of instruction that values the ideas students bring with them, helps them connect new information to their personal experiences, and integrates their various ideas into a coherent understanding of science.
9. Supports diverse learners. Individual students differ in their experiences, their interests, and their abilities. Some may excel at writing, while others may have a penchant for drawing. Some may speak multiple languages fluently, while others may be learning English as a second or third language. That is why WISE provides a variety of tools, activity patterns, and instructional scaffolds that afford multiple ways for expressing and assessing understanding. That way, no students’ abilities go unrecognized, and all have the chance to succeed.
10. Increases participation in science. WISE gives more teachers and students the opportunity to do inquiry-based science. Units often put students in the roles of scientists, and make difficult concepts accessible both for teachers to teach, and for students to learn. With tools and activities to support inquiry, WISE helps students see themselves as capable of doing science. It allows students to realize that no matter their backgrounds and abilities, science can be a potential future career.

Follow WISE updates on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

Educational Technology Websites

If you are wondering of some useful educational technology websites and blogs to follow, I make some suggestions below.  There are plenty of technology oriented websites and blogs, but the websites I list below are predominantly education and technology focused.  If you know of other good educational technology websites, please let me know (Thanks to @johnmayo).  I will update this post as I hear of other websites.

If you fancy writing a blogpost on educational technology, some of these websites encourage guest blog posts!

Websites

• Digital Learning Now
• Edreach
• Edsurge
• Edudemic
• Edugeek
• Edutopia
• FreeTech4Teachers
• ICT in education
• MindShift
• TeachThought

Blogs

• Ask a Teacher
• Cool Cat Teacher
• Cyber-Kap
• Edorigami
• Educational Technology Guy