ABSTRACT: Research into students’ understanding of complex systems typically ignores young children because of misinterpretations of young children’s competencies. Furthermore, studies that do recognize young children’s competencies tend to focus on what children can do in isolation. As an alternative, we propose an approach to designing for young children that is grounded in the notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky 1978) and leverages Activity Theory to design learning environments. In order to highlight the benefits of this approach, we describe our process for using Activity Theory to inform the design of new software and curricula in a way that is productive for young children to learn concepts that we might have previously considered to be “developmentally inappropriate”. As an illuminative example, we then present a discussion of the design of the BeeSign simulation software and accompanying curriculum which specifically designed from an Activity Theory perspective to engage young children in learning about complex systems (Danish 2009a, b). Furthermore, to illustrate the benefits of this approach, we will present findings from a new study where 40 first- and second-grade students participated in the BeeSign curriculum to learn about how honeybees collect nectar from a complex systems perspective. We conclude with some practical suggestions for how such an approach to using Activity Theory for research and design might be adopted by other science educators and designers.

Award Recipient: This paper received the award for the Best Design Paper at CSCL 2011!

ABSTRACT: The Semiotic Pivots and Activity Spaces for Elementary Science (SPASES) Project was implemented as a proof of concept. Our goal was to demonstrate that with the right set of technological supports, young children can start their learning trajectory in science off on the right foot by engaging in rich scientific investigations into complex science topics. The SPASES curriculum was successfully implemented in two multi-age classrooms of 43 students aged 6-8 years at a progressive elementary school in Los Angeles, CA. Pre/Post-test results show that these 6-8 year old students were able to develop a conceptual understanding of force, net force, friction and two-dimensional motion after participating in the SPASES curriculum which leveraged their prior experiences and ability to engage in embodied play as a form of scientific modeling.

ABSTRACT: One approach to promoting successful engagement of underrepresented groups in mathematics classrooms is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP). However, it has been argued that CRP risks essentializing students or watering down academic content. We report our analysis of a case study of a group of three 6th grade students who took part in a 6-week mathematics curriculum. This curriculum used Geographical Information System (GIS) maps to engage students in designing personally meaningful research projects while learning about measures of central tendency (i.e., learning statistics). The case study was chosen as representative of how students in this urban classroom (47 total) successfully navigated the curriculum. While successful, the intervention highlights the kinds of negotiations that students engaged in with each other, the teacher, and the curriculum as they co-constructed their own meaning of relevance. The goal of our analysis is to illustrate the importance of recognizing multiple forms of relevance and supporting ongoing negotiations of these multiple forms.

ABSTRACT: A productive approach to studying the role of representations in supporting students’ learning of science content is to examine their actions from a practice perspective. The current study examines kindergarten and first-grade students’ representational practices across a consistent context—the creation of storyboards—both before and after a curricular intervention in order to highlight those aspects of their practices that changed regardless of a superficially similar task. Analysis of the students’ storyboards reveals considerable improvement in the number of included features after the intervention. Analysis of the students’ practices as they changed over time is also presented by examining the students’ discourse, with a focus on their discussions of the science content and the representations themselves. We demonstrate an increase in accuracy and relevance of the features being discussed, as well as an increase in requesting and providing assessments of students’ representations, particularly between students and their peers.