Angel Bermudez

SME703, 5 July 2016

Teaching Science for Understanding Chapter Outline
Chapter 9: Using Hypermedia to Represent Emerging Student Understanding: Science
Learners and Preservice Teachers
The presentation, outline, and examples of hypermedia in science and mathematics education can
be found at http://tsuhypermedia.weebly.com .
Key terms:

What is hypermedia?
o A system in which various forms of information, as data, text, graphics, video,
and audio, are linked together by a hypertext program. -Dictionary.com
Platform examples:
Any website utilizing multimedia
Pinterest
Interactive Powerpoints or presentations with hyperlinks
Wikis
SMART Notebook
Hyperstudio
What is an artifact?
o For our educational purposes, artifacts are products students construct
collaboratively over an extended period of time.

Theoretical basis for using hypermedia and artifacts in science education:

Educational research suggests students should be active participants in the learning

process.
A rich conceptual understanding is achieved when there are many interconnections
between concepts (Novak & Gowin 1984)
When students are provided with opportunities to collaborate, the development of deep
understanding is fostered more than when students work individually (Brown &
Campione 1990)
Students should be presented with engaging, motivating, and meaningful learning
experiences situated in real-world contexts (1991)

Artifact construction:

Building artifacts can help students develop better conceptual understanding, because the
artifact process includes
o (1) organizing and synthesizing information from many sources,
o (2) structuring the artifact, and
o (3) representing the information.

The degree to which students illustrate relationships among ideas within their artifacts
can provide insight for the teacher into the level of understanding of the students.
Students can give and receive feedback on their artifacts, and also learn through
critiquing.
Preservice teachers can use artifacts to illustrate their understanding of teaching science
education, and providing opportunities for self-reflection

How can hypermedia help students create artifacts?

Technology enhances the value of student-constructed artifacts by allowing easy

incorporation and linking of multiple representations and for ongoing revisions.
o By comparing different versions of artifacts, teachers and students have evidence
of learning over time.

Examples of artifact construction using hypermedia

Both cases utilized HyperStudio to construct artifacts.
Case 1: Integrating hypermedia artifact construction into a high school chemistry class

Two teachers co-taught 85 high school chemistry students

Students created hypermedia documents to illustrate their understanding and progression
of learning of kinetic molecular theory
o Artifact guidelines:
(1) Describe and represent states of matter.
(2) Describe and represent changes in states of matter.
(3) Describe factors that influence changes in states of matter.
(4) Describe how kinetic molecular theory explains 1-3.
o Multiple representations of each guideline were required.
Two labs were done by students prior to the artifact creation one introducing the
material, and one experimenting with student knowledge
Students worked 9 hours in class on developing their artifact, including revising and
critiquing each others work and the teachers provided written feedback at least twice.

Examples of Student work:

Early on, students tended to represent matter change over time (Figure 3). But as their
learning progressed, they tended to provide animations and illustrations of matter change
(Figure 7) showing a deeper conceptual understanding.

Case 2: Integrating hypermedia artifact construction into an elementary science methods

course

Preservice elementary science teachers were enrolled in a 1-year science methods course
concurrent with student teaching in a science inclusion classroom.
Students were assigned a hypermedia project to be completed by the end of the course.
The instructor provided a template.
o Project guidelines:
(1) Includes video clips, graphics, photographs, student work, lesson
plans, and written reflections from teaching experiences.
(2) Includes science biographies that illustrate the students view and
philosophy of science education and how the view and philosophy
changed over time.

Examples of Student work:

Students became more metacognitive about their science education learning via the
artifact construction.
The artifacts showed evidence the students tried multiple teaching methods and
representations of topics taught, and reflections associated with each.

Conclusions:

Hypermedia allows for differentiation and promotes multiple representations of

understanding.
Using artifacts and hypermedia appear to be effective ways to build strong conceptual
understanding in science students and preservice teachers.