WISE Project - My Melody

Assignment 2 – Option 2 – Design a TELE

Alice (Ka Wai) Wong

ETEC 533 Spring 2018
Professor Rozitis

Word Count
Assignment Outline: 2683
 Table of Contents

Introduction p.3
Problem Area p.3-5
Pedagogical Premise & Digital Technology p.5-7
Pedagogical Goals p.7-8
Artifact & Pedagogical Design p.8-12
Conclusion p.12-13
Bibliography p.13-14

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Introduction

As part of Assignment 2 for UBC ETEC 533 master’s course, this paper is
developed to outline a technology-enhanced learning experience (TELE). Altering
existing WISE projects appear to be a suitable solution to find suitable TELEs. The
assignment includes two online components – a modified WISE and a webpage (i.e.
Weebly) to support the use of the WISE project. The website is intended to guide
educators as their Grade 4-6 students embark on the inquiry project. Students can
complete the WISE after 7-8 lessons. Users can navigate various parts of the Weebly
to help scaffold learning during the WISE inquiry. Academic sources have been
consulted and additional teaching materials are designed to support learning about
sound. When teaching, educators should use both the WISE project and the website to
support student learning.

Body of the Assignment

Problem Area

Jonassen’s (1998) assumes that technology can make learning easier for
students because the digital tools help carry cognitive loads. Computers and other
tools can perform simple computation tasks and document important information.
Learner can then engage in more cognitive exhuasting tasks such as critically
analyszing a phenomona. Specifically, “technology-enhanced scaffolding can
facilitate evidence exploration by supplanting lower-order tasks such as simple
calculations and typing thereby allowing students to allocate cognitive resources to
higher-order tasks, such as generating hypotheses, seeking and identifying variables.”
(Kim & Hannafin, 2011, p.409) Digital tools often allows for hassle-free exploration.

This definition also has many implications on science and mathamatical

learning. Specifically, given the conceptual complexity of science and math
phenomenas, digital tools can make it easier for students explore abstract concepts, to
organize their thoughts and to form or accurate conceptual understandings. For
example, interactive simulators can provide first hand experience with learning
concepts. Since learners approach new concepts with existing assumptions about a

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topic, misconceptions can easily form (Fosnot, 2013). Learning then happen when
these preconceptions fail to explain first hand experience. More specifically, “[i]f the
dissatisfaction with the existing conception created by its inability to make sense of
experience is followed by learning of an intelligible alternative which resolves or
promises to resolve some of the anomalies of its predecessor, then the new conception
may be plausible” (Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog, 1982, p.221). Like simulators,
visualizers also provide other plausible conceptual relationships. Thus, any digital
tool that allows for exploration and conceptual modification would serve as a solution
to learning challenges.

Beyond cognitive benefits, digital tools bring many social affordances. Most
prominently, it enhances communicative methods and opportunities. First, there are
many digital platforms to share ideas. Users may communicate with a myraid of
synchronous or asychronous tools such as messenger, emails or conferencing
applications. These have direct implications in learning about science and math as
students can easily find information and solutions. Moreover, digital tools also allow
for distributed knowledge. As communicaiton can be centralized, participants around
the world can be invited to answer a question or solve a problem.

Hence, it is important for educators to identify suitable technology enhanced

learning environments that can assuage many of these challenges. An appropriate
solution is to modify existing TELEs. With close inspection, Web-based Inquiry
Science Environment(WISE) is a one-stop application that can help assuage these
learning needs. First, WISE projects are easy to modify. Teachers can insert
technological tools such as simulators and visualizers to ease learning load and embed
more opportunities for social learning. Given this definition, a customized WISE
project appears to be a fitting choice as this virtual space is flexible to accomondate
digital tools to document and support learning.
The selected inquiry project is intended to support students’ learning about
sound. Students use WISE to design a musical instrument that appropriately reflects
the properties of sound. Since these physical science concepts are invisible, it can be
difficult for students to accurately grasp knowledge about sound. More specifically,
students use simulators to learn about vibration, the movement of sound and the

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effects of sound waves. The following sections describe the WISE pedagogical theory
more fully and provide a rationale of using WISE to approach learning about sound.

Pedagogical Premise & Digital Technology

Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE)

“Learning environments that concentrate on conveying to students what scientists

already know do not promote inquiry. Rather, an emphasis on inquiry asks that we
think about what we know, why we know, and how we have come to know.”
(National Research Council, 2000, p.5-6)

Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) are online inquiry projects

where students can engage in a pre-designed technology-enhanced research
experience. First, educators select an inquiry project. Currently, the WISE library has
various projects about various science and mathematical topics. Then, teachers help
scaffold learning experience and track student progress. Ideally, students actively
embark on these inquiry projects (Linn et al., 2002). WISE projects have been widely
adapted by educators as they allow for many cognitive and social affordances. For
example, through WISE, students are practicing as scientists who pose and answers
scientific questions. Also, WISE provides design flexibility where educators can
modify projects in order to fit students’ learning needs and styles. Educator can freely
choose and insert multimodal components into a specific WISE project. Hence,
visualizers and interactive simulations can be used to represent complex scientific
concepts. Students can also engage with other learners via the discussion module.

Beyond editing flexibility, the ubiquitous use of WISE is contingent on its

pedagogical premise. Based on the knowledge integration perspective, the WISE
teaching and learning model has four specific pedagogical goals. WISE designers aim
to use digital tools to make learning accessible, make thinking explicit and make
learning a social experience.

 Making learning accessible

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 WISE designers believe that learning should be made accessible for students.
Since all WISE projects can be found online, students can access their research
project at any time. More recently, WISE projects are made more accessible because
now available on handheld device (Linn et al., 2002). Enhancing accessible also has
implication about the learning concepts. This also materializes as “[engaging]
students in problems that they find personally relevant, and [supporting] students at an
appropriate level of analysis and explanation” (Gobert, Snyder, & Houghton, 2002).
For example, most of the WISE projects feature authentic situations and scenarios.
WISE allows designers to differentiate learning by inserting multimedia components
and embedding external resource links.

 Making thinking explicit

WISE theorists strongly believe that these tools should help make thinking
explicit. Visual and interactive representations should be available and accessible for
students. There should also be space for students to document and to reflect upon
personal thoughts and beliefs. This strategy promotes learning because it may expose
misconception. Within the WISE, there should also be opportunities for students to
assess and organize ideas as they inquire more about the topic. Consequently,
educators can better support students’ learning since they can review student notes
and revisions (Linn et al. 2002).

 Making learning a social process

Social learning is another key priority in WISE. Theorists share insights with
Vygotsky and believe that learning is a socially constructed. Thus, WISE inquiry
models should have a strong social component where students can learn from each
other. Designers can make use of “[o]nline asynchronous discussions [that] enable
students to make their ideas visible and inspectable by their teachers and peers and
give students sufficient time to reflect before making contributions.” (Linn, et al.,
2002, p.531) Thus, designers should embed class-wide discussion opportunities.
 Promoting life-long learning

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 WISE inquiry maps invite students to practice as scientists. Similar patterns of
inquiry make it easy for learners to adapt it in order to solve their own problems (Linn
et al., 2002). Learners who complete many of the WISE projects will recognize
familiar components of inquiry that are employed to solve a broad range of topics.
More specifically, “in every project, students look at evidence, write notes, reflect on
the connections among the pieces of evidence, and form a cohesive argument.” (Linn
et al., 2002, p.531)

PHET

Beyond representing information visually, simulators help learning by

allowing users to inspect specific elements involved in a phenomenon. “By exploring
the relationship between the agents’ rules of behavior and the patterns that emerge as
a result of these rules, students are able to eliminate many misconceptions that are
generated by confusing their understandings of micro- and macro-level interactions.”
(Stieff & Wilensky, 2003, p.287) Simulators have interactive components where users
can manipulate to explore the relationship about abstract concepts. Hence, visualizers
can provide new directions and or suggestions. They “provided opportunities to
validate and justify answers by exploring alternative paths of reasoning.” (Stieff &
Wilensky, 2003, p.295)
Pedagogical Goals of TELE

The goal of this TELE is to support students’ inquiry about sound. They are to
explicitly share their thoughts about sound and share their design of an instrument.
Students also assess, validate and revise their thinking models as they work through
simulators. Ultimately, students reflect upon their new understandings and revise their
model to represent accurate conceptual understandings about sound.

In general, students are to use the WISE program to:

- explore and practice knowledge about sound
- use simulations to visualize and extend thinking about sound
- document understanding and ideas
- share and reflect on personal understanding of sound

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 - design an instrument that reflects the understanding of sound

Educators are to:

- scaffold student learning with content, operational, communicative and
reflective prompts
- troubleshoot technical questions
- encourage social opportunities between students

Artifact

This is a science based technology assisted unit designed for grade 4-6 learners.
Students should have a sounded level of English with previous experience using a
device for learning. Students who have inquiry experience will benefit more fully
from this revised WISE project.

There are two major components to support the usage of this TELE. First, a guideline
has been developed for educators to use the modify WISE project about sound. The
public link can be found here: http://wiseprojectmymelody.weebly.com/

Second, students will embark on this WISE project. Depending on the speed of
completion, the unit is intended for a span of 6-8 lessons. The modified WISE can be
publically accessed via this website: http://wise.berkeley.edu/project/23785#/

Design of a Learning Experience

“The children applied their knowledge to formulate several explanations and new
questions before undertaking further investigations. The scientist, knowing of
investigations by other scientists, used their findings to confirm the validity of his
original explanation.” – (National Research Council, 2000, p.11)

This project-based WISE (#19975) require students to explore properties of

sound and design an instrument that reflects their understanding. The original WISE
composed of mainly of multiple-choice questions, one-way responses and simple
simulators. Each segment is short and has limited content or reflective prompts. This

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serves as an adequate start, however, the WISE insufficient to fully represent current
academic understanding of a high quality TELE. Some features can be accentuated to
better align with the WISE pedagogy. Thus, the original WISE lesson has been
modified in order to help students reach the outlined goals.

Modified Design

The latter part of this text details the ways in which the original WISE
(#19975) was altered. It describes the modifications that help enhance WISE
pedagogy. It will be appropriate to refer to the revised WISE project (#23785) to fully
understand each modification.

Making Learning Accessible

Prompts
In the revised WISE, there are more prompts. Some of these prompts are
exploration, communication and reflective scaffolds. Exploration prompts include
highlighting focus in a video and external links. During discussions and open
responses, students are guided with operational, communicative and reflective
prompts. Kim & Hannafin (2011) suggest that these scaffolds are necessary to help
students “challenge their thinking, consider alternative evidence, and
evaluate alternate solutions.” (p.410)

Hyperlinks
Originally, the WISE frontloads simple definition of explored concepts. In the
new wise, there are hyperlinks and external links. This is helpful since adding “hints
and glossary annotations to WISE evidence pages [may help] overcome obstacles that
appear to derail knowledge integration.” (Linn et al., 2001, p.526). Additionally, these
external resources can help diffieniate learning. Students can independently decide to
click about their learning.

New Simulation
As mentioned before, information visualizers are important learning tools that
help users organize and explore abstract concepts. They are also key tools to expose

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misconception and extend thinking. In the revised WISE, a new simulator is added to
make concepts (i.e. frequency and amplitude) more prominent. By manipulating
interactive components in the simulator, they are providing “opportunities to validate
and justify answers by exploring alternative paths of reasoning.” (Stieff & Wilensky,
2003, p.295) Moreover, more time has been designated for students to explore the
simulation. Embedded extended playtime can help direct students to new thinking
models.

Videos
Videos are added to pique student interest and motivate learning. Like simulations,
students can better access information when they are represented visually. With these
videos, exploration and reflective prompts are also inserted to aid student learning.

Making Thinking Explicit

Comparisons
Multiple choice and free response appears to be a popular way to gain
feedback. As part of the efforts to make thinking explicit, it is important to include
space for detailed comparisons. Comparisons may also help expose possible
misconceptions and revise thinking models. These comparisons may also serve as
conceptual scaffolds to “help students to identify essential knowledge gaps between
what they already know and what they need to know.” (Kim & Hannafin, 2011,
p.408) Hence, the science notebook has been modified to clearly document student
responses and revisions.

Discussions
Notably, the new WISE is designed to enhance social opportunities for
students to learn from each other. Through discussions, students’ misconceptions may
be exposed. In one of the discussions, it employs ideas from the theory embodiment.
Scholars believe that “[t]he body participates in abstracting the ideas unfolded in the
interaction imaginatively and spontaneously.”(Kim, Roth & Thom, 2011, p.224)
Specifically, gestures help “organizing their thinking in visible and concrete
dimensions.” Kim, Roth & Thom, 2011, p.225)

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Making Learning a Social Activity

Learning from each other

Discussed previously, in the revised WISE, there are more social interactions.
These new communicative spaces help students take advantage of distributed
learning. Since scientific discoveries are “unlikely to be discovered by individuals
through their own observations of the natural world” (Driver, Asoko, Leah, Mortimer
& Scott, 1994, p.6) students will need to rely on their peers to help polish their own
understanding of learning concepts. Users are also making their designs visible and
accessible by their peers. This will encourage others to help polish their peers’ new
designs.

Learning from Experts

In the original WISE, it clearly lacks a component where students learn from
experts. It is important that learners “seek alternative hypotheses to explain anomalies
or unexpected findings, and consider the applicability and impact of the findings to
other organisms, theories, and domains” (Kim & Hannafin, 2011, p.406). Therefore,
new videos of specialist making instruments has been embedded in the WISE.

Promoting Life-long Learning

Sharing and revising Designs

Notice that throughout the revised WISE, there is a culture of sharing. There
are 4 new discussion opportunities that guide student reflection and knowledge
integration. During discussions, they are sharing insights and inviting feedback.
Students are also making revisions after receiving new ideas. Hence, students are
actively participating in a scientific learning community by following an inquiry map
outlined by the WISE project. Specifically, “learning science thus involves being
initiated into the ideas and practices of the scientific community” (Driver et al., 1994,
p.6). These inquiry skills are transferable to future research opportunities.

Conclusion

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 With additional modifications, WISE projects are sufficient TELEs to enhance
student learning. First, the pedagogy premise of WISE helps promote learning. More
specifically, the WISE pedagogy envisions digital tools as methods to help make
learning accessible, to allow thinking to be made more explicit, to increase social
opportunities for learning and to promote life-long learning. Additionally, these
inquiry projects promote active participation in a science learning community.
Moreover, WISE projects easily allow for the use of interactive visualizers and
simulators to help users gain direct experience with learning concepts. Embedded
prompts and scaffolds help direct student focus and allow them to better explore,
document and validate their learning. Thus, a modified WISE serves as a suitable
solution to support student learning in science.

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