Personal Inquiry

Personal InquirySupporting Inquiry Science Learning with Mobile Technology
Mike Sharples
Learning Sciences Research Institute
University of Nottingham

Health warning: exercise makes you fat
...re-programming body fat is the key to weight loss, not working out
Sunday Telegraph
Social websites harm children's brains
Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist
Daily Mail

How can we help children to think, talk, and act like scientists?

Personal Inquiry project
Three year project
University of Nottingham/ Open University
Aim:
To help children to engage in effective science inquiries

Inquiry learning
“Inquiry-based learning involves learners asking questions about the natural or material world, collecting data to answer those questions, making discoveries and testing those discoveries rigorously”
de Jong, 2006

Elements of successful inquiry learning
Motivation of learners
Tools for data collection, discovery, testing
Support for the inquiry process
Sequencing activities

Motivation
Taking science learning outside the classroom
- school, playground, home, outdoors
Supported by personal technology

Tools
Low cost science inquiry toolkit

If we were starting now: iPhone?
Calculator
Timer
Camera
Audio recorder
Accelerometer
Location recorder
Tilt sensor
Communicator
Anemometer

Scripted inquiry learning
‘dynamic lesson plans’
on a personal mobile computer
Process support

Decide
my inquiry question or hypothesis
Plan
my methods, equipment, actions
Collect
my evidence
Analyse
and represent my evidence
Respond
to my question or hypothesis
Share
and discuss my inquiry
Reflect
On my progress
Find
my topic
Cycle of engagement and reflection

Inquiry Guide to provide flexible sequencing of activities

Healthy Eating Inquiry
Investigate daily eating
“Is my diet healthy”?
Compare with Recommended Nutrient Intakes (RNI)

Context
Inner city school
High levels of social deprivation
School policy of no homework
Flexible curriculum
Year 9 class, 28 children
Healthy eating topic
Inquiry learning between school and home

Technology
Asus computer running the PI toolkit
Camera to keep a food diary

Food diary
Photograph daily eating
Tag with food content
Create tables of data
Reflect on data collected by their group

Research Design

Nov 2008: Data Collected
70 sets of Questionnaires (pre-post)
Log filesfrom 28 students of their use of the PI toolkit in class and at home (e.g. summaries, graphs, presentations)
Video capture of the 9 lessons with three cameras (2 groups and 1 overall)
Interviews
11 interviews with Teacher, 7 with pupils
during and post-intervention
Researchers’ observation notesafter each lesson

Critical incident analysis of video
Breakthroughs
Observed events that indicate successful learning or conceptual change
Breakdowns
Observed events that indicate technical, social or learning difficulties

Breakthroughs
Seeing RNI graphs e.g. for crisps & cola
Experiencing the problems of not having collected their own data
Presenting their own investigation

Breakdowns
Navigation
Some usability problems with the software
Synchronization: Teacher showed a display on SmartBoard but pupils saw a different display on their computers
Using the diary
Categorisation of food
Filling in the comment box of each graph

Children’s challenges:Too personal inquiry
Children see their own food on the classroom screen
Too embarrassed to take photos

Personal inquiry
How can you design inquiry teaching that is personal, challenging and motivating,
but not embarrassing or demeaning?
Not personal enough
Too personal

New investigation
Developed with students, teacher & expert
Effect of noise pollution on birds
Observations, naturalistic study, experiment

Teacher’s challenges
Managing the toolkit in class
Confidence in supporting learning outside the classroom

Conclusions
Personal technology can support inquiry learning inside and outside the classroom
Important that learners should own
the inquiry question
the technology
the process of inquiry
Balance of engagement and embarrassment
Balance between understanding the inquiry topic and learning inquiry skills

Personal Inquiry

by sharplem on Nov 17, 2009

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