The purpose of this study was to document how teachers and students describe and comprehend the ways in which participating in an augmented reality (AR) simulation aids or hinders teaching and learning. Like the multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) interface that underlies Internet games, AR is a good medium for immersive collaborative simulation, but has different strengths and limitations than MUVEs. Within a design-based research project, the researchers conducted multiple qualitative case studies across two middle schools (6th and 7th grade) and one high school (10th grade) in the northeastern United States to document the affordances and limitations of AR simulations from the student and teacher perspective. The researchers collected data through formal and informal interviews, direct observations, web site posts, and site documents. Teachers and students reported that the technology-mediated narrative and the interactive, situated, collaborative problem solving affordances of the AR simulation were highly engaging, especially among students who had previously presented behavioral and academic challenges for the teachers. However, while the AR simulation provided potentially transformative added value, it simultaneously presented unique technological, managerial, and cognitive challenges to teaching and learning.

Affordances and Limitations of Immersive Participatory Augmented Reality Simulations for Teaching and Learning

Teachers are viewed as important agents of change in the reform effort currently under way in education and thus are expected to play a key role in changing schools and classrooms. Paradoxically, however, teachers are also viewed as major obstacles to change because of their adherence to outmoded forms of instruction that emphasize factual and procedural knowledge at the expense of deeper levels of understanding. New constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, which many reformers advocate, are inconsistent with much of what teachers believe--a problem that may be overcome if teachers are willing to rethink their views on a number of issues. This article seeks to advance this cause by identifying important aspects of current thinking that may get in the way of teachers adopting a constructivist approach to teaching and learning.

Teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning: A constructivist perspective.

Engineering education research (EER) has been on the fast track since 2004 with an exponential rise in the number of Ph.D.s awarded and the establishment of new programs, even entire EER departments. The National Research Council’s Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) report (National Research Council, 2012) captures the state-of-the-art advances in our understanding of engineering and science student learning and highlights commonalities with other science-based education research programs. The DBER report is the consensus analysis of experts in undergraduate education research in physics, chemistry, biology, geosciences, astronomy, and engineering. The study committee, chaired by Susan Singer, also included higher education researchers, learning scientists, and cognitive psychologists. A central aspect of the DBER report is the focus on and application of research in the education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences to science and engineering curricula design and teaching methods. Froyd, Wankat, and Smith (2012) identified five major shifts in engineering education in the past 100 years: 1. A shift from hands-on and practical emphasis to engineering science and analytical emphasis 2. A shift to outcomes-based education and accreditation 3. A shift to emphasizing engineering design 4. A shift to applying education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences research 5. A shift to integrating information, computational, and communications technology in education

Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in

Audience response systems (ARSs) permit students to answer electronically displayed multiple choice questions using a remote control device. All responses are instantly presented, in chart form, then reviewed and discussed by the instructor and the class. A brief history of ARSs is offered including a discussion of the 26 labels used to identify this technology. Next a detailed review of 67 peer-reviewed papers from 2000 to 2007 is offered presenting the benefits and challenges associated with the use of an ARS. Key benefits for using ARSs include improvements to the classroom environment (increases in attendance, attention levels, participation and engagement), learning (interaction, discussion, contingent teaching, quality of learning, learning performance), and assessment (feedback, formative, normative). The biggest challenges for teachers in using ARSs are time needed to learn and set up the ARS technology, creating effective ARS questions, adequate coverage of course material, and ability to respond to instantaneous student feedback. Student challenges include adjusting to a new method of learning, increased confusion when multiple perspectives are discussed, and negative reactions to being monitored. It is concluded that more systematic, detailed research is needed in a broader range of contexts.

Examining the benefits and challenges of using audience response systems: A review of the literature

Many researchers agree that children's difficulty with fraction and rational numbers is associated with their whole number knowledge, but they disagree on the origin of the whole number bias. This article reviews three explanations of the nature of the bias. These accounts diverge on the questions of whether or not early quantitative representation originates from a numerical-specific cognitive mechanism, and whether or not the early quantitative representation privileges discrete quantity. The review suggests that there does not yet appear to be sufficient evidence to decide among the competing accounts as to the nature of the whole number bias. Yet, in the search for the understanding, two important issues have been brought up with regard to learning and teaching fraction and rational numbers. One question is related to how learning about fraction and rational numbers may be organized in such a way to be less strained for taking advantage of the prior knowledge of whole numbers. The second issue is conc...

Teaching and Learning Fraction and Rational Numbers: The Origins and Implications of Whole Number Bias

The National Science Foundation has funded 22 Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation. Despite the remarkable allocation of resources to this effort, it has proven exceptionally difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborative reform. In large part, this has resulted because of the difficulty of defining and measuring reform. The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) was designed by the Evaluation Facilitation Group of the Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (ACEPT). It is a 25-item classroom observation protocol that is (a) standards based, (b) inquiry oriented, and (c) student centered. This instrument has provided the definition for reform and the basis for evaluation of the ACEPT collaborative. The data upon which this report is based were collected over a period of more than 2 years from 153 public school, college, and university mathematics and science classrooms. A trained team of observers consisting of two faculty members and seven graduate students was able to achieve exceptionally high levels of interrater reliability. Internal consistency, as estimated by Cronbach's alpha, was also remarkably high. Correlation coefficients ranging from 0.88 to 0.97 between RTOP scores for classrooms, and mean normalized gain scores for students in those classrooms on achievement measures demonstrate that reform, as defined by ACEPT and measured by the RTOP, has been effective.

Measuring Reform Practices in Science and Mathematics Classrooms: The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol

The study sought to trace the emergence and differentiation of partitioning as a process that leads young children to construct ideas of rational numbers. The method involved clinical sessions with children as they manipulated materials while solving tasks designed to reveal partitioning processes. The data analysis led to a theory concerning the emergence of partitioning capability, and conceptual structures that undergird the capability were identified. A five-level theory of the development of the partitioning process is presented. Key position papers by Kieren (1976, 1980) have created a new theoretical context for inquiring into the child's acquisition of rational number concepts. Recent work within the new perspective (Kieren & Nelson, 1978; Kieren & Southwell, 1979) has lent support to Kieren's position. Basic in Kieren's perspective is the process of dividing a whole into parts, a process variously referred to as partitioning, subdivision, or dissection. The purpose of the present study was to trace the emergence and differentiation of the process of partitioning as revealed in children's attempts to subdivide a continuous whole into equal parts. METHOD The method involved a clinical interaction with a child as he or she grappled with tasks specifically designed to reveal partitioning capabilities. As the child grappled with the tasks, the researchers grappled with the even more complex task of attempting to make sense of the child's behavior. We hoped to discover underlying patterns that would help us trace the emergence and differentiation of the partitioning process. The method can be characterized as a clinical interaction technique set within a discovery paradigm. The interactive encounters were designed to yield insights rather than to verify hypotheses; validity, as opposed to generalizability, was our concern. The interaction was characterized by flexibility in questioning. The initial question for each task was standard, but the subsequent questions, although following a general pattern, were varied, as were the numbers in the problem, depending on the behavior of the child. The method permitted probing,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/748675.pdf

Partitioning: the emergence of rational number ideas in young children

In today’s schools, turbulence is identified with disorder and disarray. A turbulent classroom would be seen as noisy, disorganized, and undesirable. Only recently in science has it been discovered that turbulence is also a source of order. New theories, based on the construct of “order through fluctuations,” have arisen and lead to new understanding of the emergence of creativity from turbulence both in the universe and in education. We capture this creativity in new metaphors for becoming in education.

Dissipative Structures: New Metaphors for Becoming in Education:

Evaluating College Science and Mathematics Instruction: A Reform Effort That Improves Teaching Skills.

Though national standards emphasize the importance of connections between math and science, few empirical studies exist to support the notion that student achievement increases from such integration. This paper examines an eighth-grade science class that integrated mathematics into science through the use of technology. In a setting of action research, the effects of such integration were examined. This paper reports that integrating mathematics into the science class positively affected students' achievement in their math class and describes the circumstances under which the integration occurred.

Daiyo Sawada

Papers

Measuring Reform Practices in Science and Mathematics Classrooms: The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol

Partitioning: the emergence of rational number ideas in young children

Dissipative Structures: New Metaphors for Becoming in Education:

Evaluating College Science and Mathematics Instruction: A Reform Effort That Improves Teaching Skills.

Examining the Effects of a Reformed Junior High School Science Class on Students' Math Achievement.