Waldrip, Bruce (2014) IMPROVING INTERNATIONAL RANKINGS THROUGH ENHANCED LEARNING THROUGH REPRESENTATIONAL REASONING. In: The 1st Sriwijaya University Learning and Education International Conference (SULE-IC) 2014, 16-18 May 2014, Palembang.
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Abstract
There is growing concern over students? performance in international testing like PISA and TIMMS. All countries desire to improve their ranking compared to other countries. While it is reasonable to focus on teacher performance, it neglects the students? learning processes and how students develop their understandings. This concern about teacher performance is resulting in increased bureaucracy on monitoring what is done in classrooms to the detriment of understanding how students learn. In this presentation, I will argue that it is important to address student learning and reasoning processes if a gain in ranking is to be achieved. Hence there is growing research interest in the challenges and opportunities learners face in representing their scientific understandings, claim making, verification and reasoning during student learning. The research outlined in this presentation involved both primary and high school students and their teachers. It also explored the introduction of enhanced student voice through the use of peer and self assessment in an inquiry learning project designed to improve the quality of their explanations. In these studies, students verbalized initial understandings of key terms, then negotiated with partners the meanings of their explanations. They tested the adequacy of their descriptions and claims through guided inquiry using simple everyday equipment. In each lesson, the teacher prompted students to test and justify the adequacy of their verbal and subsequent multi-modal representations through new questions, or activities, to challenge and clarify some of their views. The activities and questions required students to refine or modify 2D or 3D representations of their emerging claims. In each case, after the students had resolved different representational accounts within groups, the class discussed these representations in teacher and/or student-led discussion. The teachers maintained a pivotal role in developing student understanding. This project gave students the opportunity to choose both the type and the context of learning activities. Students needed to declare their understandings and explain their reasoning behind their explanations. This set the scene for testing of the adequacy of peer assessment about their claims.The findings show the benefits of peer assessment as a valuable learning tool that gave targeted feedback to students, allowing them to have more of a voice in their education and challenged students to reflect critically on the quality of their reasoning. Data from classroom observations, transcripts of discussions, and interviews with students and teachers, suggest the value to students? learning in this topic through reasoning about representational adequacy. The finding demonstrated clear learning gains, when compared to similar schools, in national testing outcomes.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Keynote) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | L Education > L Education (General) > L7-991 Education (General) |
| Depositing User: | Dr, M.A. Hartono Hartono |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Nov 2019 06:22 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Nov 2019 06:22 |
| URI: | http://repository.unsri.ac.id/id/eprint/13688 |
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