Representation, Participation and Teaching in Connected Classrooms

University Of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, North Dartmouth MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will investigate the potential of combining the representational innovations of SimCalc in the core mathematics of change with the new affordances of wireless Classroom Connectivity (CC). An intense program of exploration has yielded dramatic new forms of classroom activity structures that offer students newly participatory ways to be mathematical in group and classroom activities, and teachers flexible new pedagogies that, together, may point the way to standard classroom practice of the future when CC is common. Student participation structures and attention are newly manipulable, and teacher ability to manage the interplay between individual learning/cognition and public social participation is likewise enhanced, especially through the teacher's ability to selectively aggregate, manipulate and publicly display individual or group constructions, as well as rebroadcast objects to the class for further investigation and new cycles of harvest, aggregation display and discussion. Two streams of inquiry are proposed: Stream 1 is convergent and systematically experimental on stable technologies in sets of common teaching experiments, producing carefully developed evidence on participation, teaching, learning and relations among them, and new instrumentation that enables researchers to measure/compare forms and levels of participation in CC contexts and potentially relate these to teacher characteristics. Stream 2, continuing the invention and exploration of the prior project, consists of three sub-streams, systematically, but opportunistically, exploiting the expanding affordances of evolving technologies to explore (a) new participation structures, (b) the growth in teacher capacity to use CC productively, both as individuals and as members of peer communities, and (c) dynamic representational supports for effective teacher understanding and use of CC.