The Gateway Science: a Review of Astronomy in the OECD School Curricula, Including China and South Africa

in Research in Science Education (2020)

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture or general inclination to science. While the inclusion of ... [more ▼]

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture or general inclination to science. While the inclusion of astronomy in the school curriculum has waxed and waned over the years, in the current era, where there is a global push to get more students engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), astronomy provides an invaluable conduit to bring about this shift. This paper highlights the results of a study which has reviewed the presence and extent to which astronomy has been incorporated into the school curriculum of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) member countries as well as two non-OECD countries strong in astronomy research, China and South Africa, and one international curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme. A total of 52 national curricula from 37 countries were reviewed. The results revealed that overall astronomy and its related topics are prevalent in at least one grade in all curricula across the OECD, China and South Africa. Of the 52 national curricula, 44 of them had astronomy related topics in grade 6. Out of the 52 national curricula, 40 introduced astronomy-related topics in grade 1, while 14 of them had astronomy-related topics explicitly mentioned in all grades. The most common keywords were related to basic astronomy concepts, such as the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, all have occurrences of over 100. Relational textual analysis also revealed that all the major concepts could be encompassed across two broad themes of Earth and Physics. [less ▲]

An activity theoretical research lens on inquiry-based learning

in de Vries, Marc J.; Fletcher, Stefan; Kruse, Stefan (Eds.) et al Research in Technology Education: International Approaches. (2018)

Inquiry-based learning and instruction with mobile technologies generate tremendous research interest. To what extent do these tools innovate and transform learning processes, shape individual or ... [more ▼]

Inquiry-based learning and instruction with mobile technologies generate tremendous research interest. To what extent do these tools innovate and transform learning processes, shape individual or collaborative explorations of scientific phenomena, facilitate auto-regulated processes, stimulate creative classroom productions, or support the formation of scientific understanding and critical thinking? That’s exactly where this book chapter gets in. It's purpose is to set up an open, theory-based research framework which allows to empirically study inquiry-based learning and teaching practices in technology education (TE). [less ▲]

Elementary science and education within the Luxembourg educational system

in De Vries, Marc J.; Fletcher, Stefan; Kruse, Stefan (Eds.) et al Technology Education Today – International Perspectives (2016)

The article analyses the curricula of elementary technology and science education in fundamental and secondary education, situates its evolution and current implementation in the Luxembourg school context ... [more ▼]

The article analyses the curricula of elementary technology and science education in fundamental and secondary education, situates its evolution and current implementation in the Luxembourg school context and concludes with opportunities for valorising technology and science education across the education system. [less ▲]

ICT use at home and at school: A study on 8- to 12-year old students in Luxembourg

in INTED2015 Proceedings (2015, March)

The proliferation of mobile computing and ubiquitous internet access creates enhanced opportunities for digital activities and interactive engagement in everyday life for adults, youngsters and children ... [more ▼]

The proliferation of mobile computing and ubiquitous internet access creates enhanced opportunities for digital activities and interactive engagement in everyday life for adults, youngsters and children. By introducing mobile devices into formal education contexts, the present study is investigating ICT-enhanced learning opportunities of younger students in their life and school contexts. The focus of this paper is to 1) delineate the ICT environment, that 8- to 12-year old students face in their home context, 2) map the ICT-related practices this age group experiences within the family context, e.g. patterns of usage, frequency, 3) identify the kind of ICT-based activities which kids prefer and in which they are actually engaged, 4) trace differences in ICT-enhanced classroom activities between students with a strong and a weak ICT home background. The analysis combines data from an online survey and interviews with 8- to 12-year old students. All data have been gathered in an ongoing national project on “Creative inquiries with tablet-cloud systems in elementary science”. This project aims at exploring the impact of interactive technologies on inquiry-based learning processes in elementary science education (Max & Hack, 2014; Max & Song, 2014). The results show that the students have large use of ICT equipment at home and extended access to the internet. Children access the web through a wide range of ICT devices (e.g. PC, laptop, tablets or mobile phone). A majority of this age group goes online alone so that their internet activities are not necessarily guided and supervised by parents. Most kids use a range of different ICT devices for specific purposes on a regular basis ranging from simply consuming digital resources such as listening to music or playing games to searching information online up to creating digital content such as taking pictures and/or making videos. Considering their young age (8-12), our results show that sharing digital content through social media activities is somewhat limited. As regards the impact of a strong or weak ICT background on the students’ school-based ICT activities, we can say that both groups show a similar attitude towards ICT practices in school. The tablet-enhanced school activities are complementary to the leisure-driven activities at home and therefor beneficial for both groups of children. [less ▲]

“And? Did we do nice things?”: Children documenting their emerging inquiries in early science learning

in Milne, Catherine; Tobin, Kenneth (Eds.) Sociocultural studies and implications for science education: the experiential and the virtual (2015)

Developing spaces for technology-mediated inquiry in education

Scientific Conference (2014, August 28)

Interactive communication technologies enter our everyday activities at an impressive pace. The proliferation of mobile computing devices coupled to a ubiquitous connectivity initiates a “historical shift ... [more ▼]

Interactive communication technologies enter our everyday activities at an impressive pace. The proliferation of mobile computing devices coupled to a ubiquitous connectivity initiates a “historical shift to digital” and profoundly changes the ways we organize our daily life, communicate, interact, learn or gather information. Digital media also shape the life contexts of our children, who keep on using interactive tools from game-playing to explicit learning activities. This issue creates a growing need to investigate the potential of mobile computing devices in educational contexts and analyse its impact on pedagogical, organisational and technological challenges, the school communities are dealing with. The present paper is discussing findings from a research project that studies the use of tablet-cloud systems in fundamental schools. Luxembourg’s schools and homes are well equipped with computers and internet access. However, little is known about promising strategies and existing barriers to integrate mobile devices effectively into educational contexts. Our research supplies schools with tablet-cloud systems in order to study the impact on collaborative and student-centred learning activities. The project’s core research foci put attention on processes of a) student-led inquiries and creative productions and b) the empowerment of teachers. Prior research often reveals a reluctance of teachers to use IC technologies in classroom activities. Often, teachers experience a lack of digital literacy skills to support students in using interactive devices in classroom inquiries and hands-on activities. This contribution analyses how ICT-enhanced learning practices challenge existing notions of educational achievement, learning, student engagement and participation among the involved teachers. Our transformative research approach puts specific emphasis on threads and opportunities that members of four fundamental school communities experience concerning technological, organisational and pedagogical innovation. We ground our developmental work on the concept of ‘expansive learning’, where “learners learn something that is not yet there. In other words, the learners construct a new object and concept for their collective activity, and implement this new object and concept in practice“ (Engeström & Sannino 2010, 2). Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) offers a sound theoretical and methodological framework for implementing and investigating innovation in organisations and institutions, especially in order to interrelate individual and collective actions. CHAT considers both as dialectically interrelated, that is to say, they can be understood only historically and in interaction with each other. The research data are gathered by a multi-method approach, which combines video-ethnographic data of students’ classroom tasks, multimodal analysis of students’ multimodal productions and self-recordings (on the cloud), video-taped stimulated recall sessions with students about their own learning. Excerpts from these data sets are discussed with teachers in developmental work sessions to identify current barriers and successful strategies to integrate technology in learning and teaching practices. The outcomes of our analysis allow to identify potential levers for increasing the use of mobile computing devices in educational contexts and expand the object of socio-digital activity systems in the field of education. [less ▲]

Learning with tablet-cloud systems in elementary science education

in IATED (Ed.) EDULEARN14 Proceedings (2014, July 06)

Mobile and interactive technologies offer sophisticated learning opportunities in everyday life so that some authors speak about a new era of mobile learning. Especially tablets fascinate people of all ... [more ▼]

Mobile and interactive technologies offer sophisticated learning opportunities in everyday life so that some authors speak about a new era of mobile learning. Especially tablets fascinate people of all age and induce novel ways to interact, create and communicate. After proliferating in everyday contexts, these high performing mobile devices are currently entering formal learning environments. First experiences in classrooms describe tablets as promising means to improve learning in respect of 21st century challenges. A myriad of educational applications is being offered for all kind of classroom use. But up to date, less is known about opportunities how to integrate this flexible and versatile tool into inquiry-based learning approaches thanks to the device’s potential to a) gather own data, b) facilitate multimodal and multimedia productions c) back interactive forms of collaborative learning. Our study analyses how tablet-cloud systems re-shape the learning landscape of inquiry-oriented science classrooms, i.e. to what extent do tablets facilitate student-led explorations and explanations of scientific phenomena, support the formation of scientific thinking and stimulate creative classroom productions. We are particularly focussed on the situated ways which 8-12 year old students (n=240) create to make sense of science topics in tablet-enhanced inquiry activities. In science education, inquiry is emphasised both as a method and an outcome. Student-centred inquiry activities are advocated as a promising way of learning, encouraging students to actively explore the world and engage in critical thinking. Inquiry activities amplify the development of inquiry skills, which are core outcomes of probably any science education curriculum. That’s why we focus on how a series of learner-centred pedagogical choices of the teacher coupled with the use of tablet-cloud systems facilitates creative inquiry processes. Evidence is gathered through different data sets, collected either by researchers (video recordings from science lessons, stimulated recall interviews) and/or students (uploads of own videos and multimodal documents on the internal school cloud). The various kinds of data are triangulated in order to create a multi-perspective understanding of the processes occurring in the tablet-supported practices. The preliminary analysis shows that integrating tablets into the science class increases the gathering of student-initiated data and supports interactive forms of student inquiries. Students quickly acknowledge the potential of these devices for gathering information, documenting their science investigations or hands-on activities, (re)-evaluating own explanations for science phenomena, communicating targeted inquiry results or reflecting on their learning. Technology-enhanced inquiry activities shift easily to a more learner-centred and open form of inquiry, when the use of tablets is encouraged by a series of well-designed hands-on activities together with rich interaction opportunities (collective or collaborative). [less ▲]

The sciPADS project

Scientific Conference (2013, November)

The sciPADS project is conducting empirical research with children age 8-12 of Luxembourgish elementary schools using a tablet-cloud system. The study centres on students’ processes mediated by ipads such ... [more ▼]

The sciPADS project is conducting empirical research with children age 8-12 of Luxembourgish elementary schools using a tablet-cloud system. The study centres on students’ processes mediated by ipads such as inquiry-based learning and multimodal creations. The cloud system enables students, teachers, and researchers to share generated content across multiple platforms and across the school borders. Our data collection, spanning a two-year learning cycle, comprises the students’ multimodal creations and related commentary; recordings of classroom activities performed with Ipads; data from questionnaires, polls and online surveys; audio-visual recordings of recall-interviews with the students and of regular project meetings with teachers. The presentation's driving question concerns the methodological framework for conducting this investigation, i.e., gather a broad spread of data about the project foci, but also gain some profound insights on the learning process of the students. [less ▲]

Talking ideas into being: Reasoning about science phenomena in the elementary classroom.

Scientific Conference (2013, August 30)

The paper emphasises processes of growing understanding and reasoning about water-related phenomena in open inquiry-based science activities. It highlights the interplay of multiple cultural resources ... [more ▼]

The paper emphasises processes of growing understanding and reasoning about water-related phenomena in open inquiry-based science activities. It highlights the interplay of multiple cultural resources, which 4 to 8 year old children from diverse sociocultural backgrounds draw upon, to create shared meaning and attention when ‘doing science’ as cultural enactment in classroom contexts. The rationale is to deepen our understanding about the nature of learning from a dialectical perspective, i.e. how processes of personal inquiry and collective knowledge creation mutually develop. ‘Doing science’ unfolds through a dynamic, non-linear and creative combination of culturally given tools and children’s specific multimodal repertoires. The research draws close attention on the context-sensitive organization of this interactional achievement, i.e. the quality of the interactionally achieved convergence of multiple repertoires, their context-sensitive use and creative transformations The study is supported by a multi-method framework allowing to embrace multiple perspectives on the children’s inquiry processes. Two excerpts are discussed in detail – one from kindergarten, one from 2d grade – which address the children’s inquiry processes in different ways. The data reveal an astonishing depth of discussion and scientific reasoning of children at this age. Children’s critical conversations display awareness of relevant discourse elements and related explanations from other curriculum areas, which are confronted and actively worked into each other as an active accomplishment done by the children in dialogical interchange. The study is of substantial significance for conceiving sustainable science learning environments in multilingual and -cultural school contexts. [less ▲]

Towards a Proto-Language of Emotions (?) - Response Cries as an Interactional Achievement

Scientific Conference (2013, August)

"We provide micro-interactional analysis of a series of motion gaming sessions (Gregersen, 2011) with a focus on response cries (Goffman, 1978, 1981). We use Conversation Analysis (CA) to analyze ... [more ▼]

"We provide micro-interactional analysis of a series of motion gaming sessions (Gregersen, 2011) with a focus on response cries (Goffman, 1978, 1981). We use Conversation Analysis (CA) to analyze interactions in their situatedness and moment-by-moment unfolding (Schegloff, Sacks and Jefferson, 1977). We bring evidence that, although speakers sometimes communicate by means of non-lexicalized, subvocalized, interjections and vocalizations, they still manage to understand and coordinate each other. Extracts are taken from two corpora. One is the (2010) SISS-Corpus, consisting of eight hours of video-recordings of groups of teenage students filmed in their school while playing digital games on a Nintendo Wii console. Participants speak their L1 and select different socio-stratic varieties (Tempesta, 1995; 2000; 2005) of Italian. The second corpus (2009-2012) Multi-Wii- consists of eleven hours of video-recordings of groups of multilingual speakers recorded at University of Luxembourg. Participants select English, French and German (L2) as lingua franca. Data show that response cries develop into an ‘intersubjective’ (Schegloff, 1991; Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009) language, and constitute a mutually understandable form of interaction shared by participants. In an evolutionary and developmental perspective, response cries may be thought of as a physiological, vocalized protolanguage of emotions, speakers use socially, for indexical purposes (Heritage and Raymond, 2005); to express stance (Heritage, 2012), and co-construct emotion as an interactional achievement (Schegloff, 1988). The contribution discusses the process by which cognitive –emotional- states are brought to life via embodiment in interaction (Goodwin, 2011) through language and other physiological evolutions like gestures and facial kinetics (Birdwhistell, 1970)." [less ▲]