LEARNING TO LEARN

SCIENCE TOGETHER

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LAB

http://etl.ppp.uoa.gr

NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN

UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

zsmyrnaiou@ppp.upa.gr

Zacharoula Smyrnaiou, R. Evripidou

10th CBLIS, Barcelona, Spain, 26 – 29 June, 2012
 Combining the two strands…
 The Metafora Project:
• METAFORA (“Learning to learn together (l2l2): a visual
language for social orchestration of educational activities”).

• The METAFORA learning approach incorporates inquiry-based

processes and constructionist activities that we introduce
using a half-baked, game-like microworld called Juggler.

• This paper aims at exploring :

1. What is the role of dialogical interactions in creating scientific

meanings through Planning tool and Argumentation tool
(LASAD)?

2. What are the characteristics of the dialogues emerged from the

use of the tools?

3. What are the roles of the tools to stimulate and sustain the
dialogues?
 Intuitions, human conventions….

 In Science Education we have knowledge of how we

use our intuitions, experiences and in constructionism to
understand the scientific explanation of the phenomena
(dissesa, 1993; Sherin, 1996, 2001; diSessa, A. & Sherin,
1998).
 Until now, we haven’t payed attention in understanding aspects
that don’t adhere to intuitions just because they are
conventions.
 Thus, in this research report don’t focus on the intuitions or on
the phenomenon per se but on two human conventions for
studying motion in 3d Newtonian spaces. These two
conventions are the shot azimuth and shot altitude parameters.
 Intuitions, human conventions….

 In Science Education we have knowledge of how we

use our intuitions, experiences and in constructionism to
understand the scientific explanation of the phenomena
(dissesa, 1993; Sherin, 1996, 2001; diSessa, A. & Sherin,
1998).
 Until now, we haven’t payed attention in understanding aspects
that don’t adhere to intuitions just because they are
conventions.
 Thus, in this research report don’t focus on the intuitions or on
the phenomenon per se but on two human conventions for
studying motion in 3d Newtonian spaces. These two
conventions are the shot azimuth and shot altitude parameters.
 3d MW – set of parameters….

We developed a 3d microworld with a set of parameters

to control motion (Smyrnaiou et al., 2012). These parameters
are Shot Azimuth, Shot Altitude, 3d view Sphere Mass,
Sphere Size, Power, Gravity pull, Wind Direction, Wind Speed,
Target Size.
 We asked the students to address two scientific challenges
that could be solved using different combinations of
parameters and we studied the stategies they followed.
 The strategies they follow are influenced by their mental
representations and more specifically by their operational
invariants (Vergnaud, 2008).
 The activity in which the students engage is constructionist
because using different subsets of parameters leads in different
models.
 Science Learning….
 Constructionist learning approach:
• Learning as "building knowledge structures”
• Constructing external personally meaningful artefacts (Harel
& Papert, 1991; Kafai & Resnick, 1996).
• Shareable artefactsthat are made objects of discussion and
reflection among the peers – opportunities gaining an analytic
understanding of the phenomena under discussion (e.g.
Simpson, Hoyles & Noss, 2005).
• Modelling: exploring, designing and building models of complex
scientific phenomena (Wilensky & Reisman, 2006)
• Modeldesigning and building when it occurs in the context of
working with game microworlds, may offer students
opportunities to learn about academic subjects as they play a
game themselves or create games for others to play (Harel,
1991; Kafai & Resnick, 1996).
 Digital artefacts for Learning….
 Microworlds:
• Pieces of software embed a coherent set of scientific concepts
and relations – combined in an underlying model.

• White box perspective (see Kynigos, 2004), the model is made

visible to the students who may explore how it works and
-having deep structural access (diSessa, 2000)- change it to
incorporate their own ideas and conceptualizations regarding the
scientific concepts the microworld embeds.

• Half-baked microworlds (Kynigos, 2007): malleable digital

artefacts incomplete by didactic design so as to invite changes
to their functionalities and engage students in exploring and
changing them.
 Implementation context and data

 Context and Settings:

• Implementation: Lower Secondary Education School
• Students: 12, 9th grade, 14 – 15 years old
• Workgroups: 3, sharing a PC
• Duration: 1 sessions – 4 school hours
• Researchers: 3 ETL researcher also acted as a teachers

 Data:
• a screen-capture software & audio recordings, students’
artefacts, Researchers’ field notes

 Analysis:
• The episodes presented in this paper were selected as indicative
of l2l2 in which the students engaged as they played with the
game-like half-baked microworld in Metafora platform.
 Activities

 Challenges using 3D Juggler Microworld

• Warm up challenge “Keeping the blue and the green

balls still, shoot the red ball vertically upwards”.

• Main Challenge: “The red ball should hit the blue ball’s
base”.
 Students’ strategies and meaning generation processes

 The students of Subgroups come to build and

experiment with an overall number of 18 or 25 different
models.
 Running and observing their first models, the students seem
not to be able to extract any reliable conclusions as for which
physical quantities they need to change or what values to
give so as to make their ball hit the racket.
 They haven’t incorporated to their exploration the basic
experimental skill: “every time I change one physical size
and see its effect to the others”.
 The students’ explorations seem not to focus on a systematic
process of creation a model. They try out giving the exact
same values on both shot azimuth and shot altitude and then
giving characteristic values, such as 90°, to those two
physical quantities.
 Students’ strategies and meaning generation processes

 Their explorations focus on the values to give to the shot

azimuth and shot altitude quantities. They come to a first
conclusion about the role of the physical quantities in the
represented phenomenon ("the shot altitude is about the
height").
 In the next models, they seem to move away from
characteristic values -like 90 degrees- and try out random
values for the shot azimuth and shot altitude quantities (206°
and 63°).
 As the goal of hitting the racket still hasn’t been accomplished,
the other student decides to increase the value of the Power
quantity, a parameter that had left intact up to that point.
Observing the simulation, the first student disagrees with this
action and asserts that "it has nothing to do with the
force".
 Students’ strategies and meaning generation processes

 they attempt to try out the effect of the gravitational pull

parameter
 they attempt to change the wind direction and wind speed
 they decide to also test how the ball’s size may help them
achieving their goal
 they focus on the shot azimuth and create several models
changing the values for only this parameter
 they throw the ball applying less Force
 Observing systematically, model after model, the simulation
generated, they come to an understanding on what needs to
be done to send the ball on the racket, implement it and
explain how increasing the value for the shot azimuth brought
the desired outcome.
 After hitting the blue ball’s base with the red ball, they move
to LASAD to share the values of the parameters for which they
attained their goal.
 3d juggler
Warm up – discussion map

Metafora Project | Wednesday, 17 May 2012

 3d juggler
Warm up - plan
FLOW CHART

Metafora Project | Wednesday, 17 May 2012

 Students’ strategies and meaning generation processes

 Analysing the students’ interactions with 3d MW,

we identify specific ideas and strategies such as : “every time I
change one physical size and see its effect to the others”, “ I
give the exact same values on both physical quantities”, “ I
give characteristic values, such as 90°, to two physical
quantities”, “I give random values to two physical
quantities”, “I change the value of the third quantity”, “I
know that the gravitational pull on the Earth's surface is
constant and equal to 9.81 m/sec2”, “I don’t to change the
wind direction and wind speed when there is no “air
conditions””.
 These ideas and strategies influence the models constructed
by the students and thus the generation of meanings when
they test the models they create. via the microworlds’ visual
feedback they change their strategies and so their
representations to the scientific.
 Learning by Doing activity. We asked students to play a
game with balls of different sizes (basket ball, volley ball,
tennis ball) in the schoolyard (as 3d juggler – experiential
learning)
- They split into groups of three (or four) and formed a
triangle (or a square).
- They were asked to throw the balls to their peer on their
right/left hand or to throw their balls so as to get them to
collide in the centre of the triangle (or square) etc.
- We asked them to answer questions regarding the angles
they had to turn their body in order to perform the shots, the
trajectory of the ball in each case and the forces they thought
might be exerted on the balls during their “flight”.

 A: B: C: D:

Metafora Project | Wednesday, 17 May 2012

  The Galileo’s Plan
- At this stage we gave students a text describing how Galileo was
led to the disproof of Aristotle’s free fall laws using the
scientific method. We presented to them the Planning tool
cards explaining the different stages and processes in them as
well as the role and attitude cards and how they could be used.
- We asked them to try to construct the map which presents the
plan that Galileo followed in order to disprove Aristotle’s law and
verify his own laws for the free fall of objects.

Metafora Project | Wednesday, 17 May 2012

 Challenges using 3D Juggler Microworld
• Warm up challenge “Keeping the blue and the green
balls still, shoot the red ball vertically upwards”
• First Challenge: The balls should hit each other’s base
in a circular manner
• Second Challenge: “The 3 balls collide at a point on the
red vertical line”
• Third Challenge: “Shoot the balls so as to hit the empty
base”
• Graph design: “Graph design and motion prediction” To
follow this procedure, we set random values in all sizes
of the 3D juggler (you can keep the values of the sizes
the 3D juggler has at starting point), but set the trace at
the value of 10. - Looking at the charts you drew.
• Conclusions “After dealing with the 3D Juggler
software, answer the following questions”
 Playing digital games
You are asked to play 3 digital games. Famous Angry
Birds, Apple Juggler and Canon Venture. Once you get
familiarized with the games, answer the following
questions.
 Designing a 3D Juggler game
- Build a 3D juggler game using Pixton or any other story telling
tool.
- Students creation:
 Thank you!

http://etl.ppp.uoa.gr

http://www.metafora-project.org/

Metafora: “Learning to learn together:

A visual language for social
orchestration of educational
activities”. EC - FP7-ICT-2009-5,
Technology-enhanced Learning, No.