1:1 mobile inquiry learning experiencefor primary science students: a study oflearning effectivenessjcal_390 1..19
C.-K. Looi,* B. Zhang,* W. Chen,* P. Seow,* G. Chia,* C. Norris† & E. Soloway‡*Learning Sciences Lab, National Institute of Singapore, Singapore†University of North Texas, TX, USA‡University of Michigan, MI, USA
Abstract This paper presents the findings of a research project in which we transformed a primary(grade) 3 science curriculum for delivery via mobile technologies, and a teacher enacted thelessons over the 2009 academic year in a class in a primary school in Singapore. The studentshad a total of 21 weeks of the mobilized lessons in science, which were co-designed by teachersand researchers by tapping into the affordances of mobile technologies for supporting inquirylearning in and outside of class. We examine the learning effectiveness of the enacted mobilizedscience curriculum. The results show that among the six mixed-ability classes in primary(grade) 3 in the school, the experimental class performed better than other classes as measuredby traditional assessments in the science subject. With mobilized lessons, students were foundto learn science in personal, deep and engaging ways as well as developed positive attitudestowards mobile learning.
Keywords elementary education, improving classroom teaching, mobile learning, mobilized curriculum.
Introduction
Educational researchers and practitioners have longbeen advocating the notion of 1:1 computing, whichmeans equipping students with personal mobile devicesand enabling 24/7 access so that the devices can mediatetheir classroom as well as out-of-classroom learning.From a science education perspective, there have beeninterests in developing curricula that specifically con-sider the affordances of these mobile technologies.Various studies provide designs for supporting studentinquiry-based learning using mobile technologies (e.g.Roschelle et al. 2007; Squire & Klopfer 2007; Chenet al. 2008; Spikol et al. 2009; Vavoula et al. 2009).
Most of them were targeted towards a short unit or cycleof activity that lasts at most a few weeks and may nothave to be part of a school’s existing science curricu-lum. In contrast, the problem we are approaching is tomake mobile technology an integral and essentialelement in a school’s curriculum with the teacher andstudents using mobile technologies in a routine way fortheir weekly lessons.
The term ‘mobilized lesson’ is used to describe alesson that starts with an existing, perhaps paper-basedlesson design, but then is transformed to make use ofmobile technologies’ affordances (Norris & Soloway2008). A ‘mobilized curriculum’ is a transformationfrom a more content-centred and teacher-centred infra-structure to a systematic student-centred infrastructurethat seeks to foster personalized learning and self-directed learning (Looi et al. 2009). In researching thepotential of the pedagogical possibilities afforded by
Accepted: 6 August 2010Correspondence: Chee-Kit Looi, Learning Sciences Lab, NationalInstitute of Education, NTU, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616.Email: [email protected]
harnessing mobile technologies, we transform the exist-ing science curriculum for a grade level into a ‘mobi-lized’curriculum.We conduct this design and evaluationin an experimental class for a whole year’s worth ofscience curriculum. As this is embedded in the real-world context of ensuring no harm done to the class, weare cognizant that students in our experimental classtake the same tests as other students in the same cohort.The mobilized curriculum is expected to address learn-ing objectives in the existing curriculum that follows theexisting curriculum schedule and yet affords the possi-bilities for deeper learning and engagement in science,and personalized learning across contexts.
Our consideration for the redesigned science cur-riculum is for it to be adoptable in real classrooms withaverage teachers and average students. Such a transfor-mation of the existing science curriculum will have toplan for a gradual but fundamental change of the cur-riculum, and for it to be sustainable. The process willrequire much time and resources for the co-design oflessons, for teachers’ professional development, forsetting up the technology infrastructure, and for evalu-ating the enactment of the curriculum in the classroom.
In this paper, we report on our first year’s results ofthis pilot test of 1 year’s worth of science curriculum inan experimental class. The researchers work closelywith the teachers to design the mobilized lessons toteach the curriculum by tapping into the affordances ofmobile technologies for supporting inquiry learning inand outside of class. The students experience a total of21 weeks of these mobilized science lessons. In theoverall project, we examine student and teacher changethrough classroom observations, analysis of classroomvideos, analysis of the artefacts produced by themusing the mobile devices, their performances in the tra-ditional assessments, and interviews with the teacher,students, and parents. In our research, we are interestedin articulating the challenges and opportunities topromote student-centred science learning with the useof mobile devices. However, in this paper, we will justfocus on discussing the findings for this research ques-tion: what is the learning effectiveness of the students’experiences of the mobile inquiry lessons in science?The organization of this paper is as follows: wedescribe (1) the long-term vision of our researchand the role of technology; (2) related work intechnology-enhanced and mobilized inquiry sciencelessons; (3) the mobilized science curriculum; (4) the
research design; (5) our findings; and (6) discussionand conclusion.
Envisioning a ‘seamless’ learning environmentand the role of technology
This work in ‘mobilizing’ the science curriculum isframed in the broader context of constructing ‘seamlesslearning’ environments to bridge formal and informallearning (Chan et al. 2006; Looi et al. 2010). Opportu-nities are sought to go beyond classroom learning andexplore the continuous, pervasive, and longitudinal useof mobile technologies. Our aim is to design a curricu-lum that facilitates and scaffolds student-centred learn-ing activities that encompass formal and informalsettings, that is, in and out of the formal classroom.
We collaborate with a Singapore primary school toexplore a sustainable model for integrating 1:1 mobiletechnology into student-centred, inquiry-based learn-ing. We followed a mixed-ability class to first observethe teaching and learning practices in the class. A cur-riculum task force involving teachers and researchersworked together by meeting weekly to develop a meth-odology for designing science inquiry-based curricu-lum. The research work also included pilot-testing theresulting curricular materials in classroom settings.Quantitative and qualitative research methods weredeployed for studying the experimental classrooms,while an ethnographic research approach was used tostudy several selected students from the class in theirhome. Our intent is to describe the broad range ofplanned and emergent activities that occurred in classand outside of class over 2 years.
The mobile device chosen was the smartphone com-puter HTC TyTn II (Taoyuan, Taiwan) which runs theMicrosoft Windows Mobile 6 operating system. Thesoftware on the HTC smartphone includes a calculator,a calendar, mobile web Internet access, MS WindowsMobile Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which providethe affordances of basic math computation, self-monitoring, online search, digital production, data col-lection, data storage and analysis, and presentation.Besides these standard productivity software, studentsand teachers needed explicit software support for theinquiry learning approach we were using in our curricu-lum design effort. Our inquiry learning approach isintended to provide instruction and learning designedaround examination of real phenomena and the pursuit
of significant questions formulated by both teachers andstudents (Dow 2000). For this, we selected the GoKnowMLE (Mobile Learning Environment) (Dallas, TX,USA) that supports our pedagogical philosophy andserves a malleable environment to support the specificinquiry-based teaching and learning strategies as trans-formations of the existing science curriculum.
Our learning design framework provides the flexibil-ity for a teacher to tailor student learning by providingassignments and tasks that are appropriate to individu-als’ and/or subgroups’ levels for personalized learning.With the tailored learning tasks, students can adopt dif-ferent learning pathways by using different tools on thesmartphones for their learning purposes. The affor-dances of the smartphone with GoKnow MLE environ-ment that we are harnessing include:
• A smartphone with the MLE provides a student a‘hub’ to integrate learning resources and activities.
• Students have immediate access to their smartphones24/7 and their Internet-based electronic portfolios(supported by the GoManage web-hosted applicationaccessible from the smartphone over the Internet) as apersonal learning space.
• The smartphone with Internet access affords studentcommunication and access to information.
• The smartphone and its applications enable the digitalproduction of artefacts (e.g. concept maps andanimation) by students that reflect their conceptualunderstanding, as well as facilitate the sharing, com-menting, reflecting and revising of their knowledge.
Review of technology-enhanced inquiryscience lessons
In this section, we take a closer look at recent projects intechnology-enhanced inquiry science learning. One ofthese is the Personal Inquiry (PI) project (http://www.pi-project.ac.uk/), which aims to help school stu-dents learn the skills of modern science through a‘scripted inquiry learning’ approach (Sharples 2009).Students aged 11–14 investigate a science topic withclassmates by carrying out explorations between theirclassroom, homes and discovery centres, guided by apersonal computer. The project investigates how effec-tive inquiry learning can be enabled with technologyacross formal and informal settings. Learners areguided through a process of posing inquiry questions,
gathering and assessing evidence, conducting experi-ments, and engaging in informed debate. Their activi-ties will be based around the topic themes of Myself,My Environment, and My Community that involvethem in investigating their health, diet and fitness, theirimmediate environment, and their wider surroundings.
Students will use a personal inquiry toolkit whichcomprises a software application, called an ‘ActivityGuide’, together with the associated hardware supportfor conducting the inquiry (including a range of sensorsfor use in collecting data – such as temperature and windspeed) (Scanlon et al. 2009). The Activity Guide run-ning on both Ultra Mobile PCs and regular desktopmachines supports students in defining, organizing, andcarrying out their inquiry. From the description of thesystem, we can feel the strong emphasis on students’taking responsibilities as well as ownership for their‘personal inquiry’.
The Learning Ecology through Technologies fromScience for Global Outcomes Project aims to provideeducational activities and tools for helping students par-ticipate in collaborative science inquiry involving localenvironmental data (Vogel et al. 2010; Wichmann et al.2010). These data are collected, analysed, reflected on,and reported through mobile and sensor technologies.Handheld-based data collection probes are used toaugment inquiry-based investigations with real-timedata and visualizations. Maldonado and Pea (2010)report a 90-min water quality curriculum unit designedfor 16–18-year-old students. The design emphasizes theuse of the new tools for doing science – sensors for datacapture, information visualization for data analysis, andlow-cost mobile computers and accessories for field-based science.
The Science Created by You (SCY) project aims toprovide inquiry in science education by developing aflexible, open-ended learning environment that trulyengages and empowers adolescent learners between 12and 18 years old (SCY, n.d.). In this learning environ-ment, called SCY Lab, students embark on authenticmissions that can be completed through constructiveand productive learning activities. Students work indi-vidually and collaboratively on ‘missions’ which areguided by a general socio-scientific question (forexample, ‘how can we produce healthier milk?’). Ful-filling the mission requires a combination of knowledgefrom different domains (e.g. physics and mathematics,or biology and engineering).
Learners perform science inquiry by searching forinformation, doing research, discussing and collaborat-ing with others. These activities require them to produceartefacts such as small notes, reports of measurements,computer models of the situations, drawings, designsand reports. Mobile devices like data loggers can beused for collecting data from real environment orexperimental situations. These artefacts form the basisfor organizing the work, to monitor progress and to col-laborate with others. The SCY Lab is the main placewhere learners will see, create, edit and share their arte-facts (de Jong et al. 2009).
Our initiative as reported in this paper shares similargoals as the above three projects in engaging the stu-dents in authentic science inquiry. We note some differ-ences too. Our students were primary three studentswhile the target audience for the above projects was sec-ondary and high school students. Further, as our mobi-lized lessons were designed to cover the existingcurriculum, we had to make a balance between servingthe existing curriculum objectives and guided inquiry toscaffold student inquiry activities. Our curriculumactivities were usually short in duration and enabled thelearners to engage in a wider range of light-weightexplorations rather than more protracted inquiries for aspecific science question such as ‘how can we producehealthier milk?’ and ‘how to design a climate-friendlyhouse?’
While the PI project uses different technologies fordifferent purposes (sensors, cameras, personal desk-tops and Ultra-Mobile PCs), we are interested in study-ing the sustained use of truly portable device in theform of a smartphone computer. Other differencesrelate to the context of our research. We are interestedin exploring students taking the responsibilities andownership of their learning by making the smartphonetheir personal learning device with anytime and any-where access. Our goal is to transform school routineteaching and learning practices; in this case, we mobi-lize a whole level of primary school science curricu-lum, made mobile learning the routine for the sciencelessons, and prepared students for out-of-classroom,self-directed learning (Zhang et al. forthcoming). Thedesign, implementation, and evaluation were done con-currently so that we were able to improve our curricu-lum design and implementation in a timely manner.Furthermore, ours is a longitudinal study of a classhaving mobilized lessons over a period of 2 years.
The ‘mobilized’ primary science curriculum
We design our mobilized curriculum to be studentcentred, inquiry based and collaborative in nature(Zhang et al. forthcoming). With the use of the smart-phone as a learning hub to integrate formal and informallearning activities, each student creates and maintains abroad range of documents (artefacts) associated witheach curriculum unit, e.g. concept maps, text docu-ments, photos and animations. The student’s work isstored on the smartphone, which is backed up onto theGoManage server using the cellular network for Inter-net connectivity. In the curriculum design, we haveapplied the following guidelines with consideration offoregrounding an inquiry science approach and theaffordances of the mobile technologies (Zhang et al.forthcoming):
• Design student-centred, inquiry-based learningactivities. We model the inquiry processes and fosterstudents’ self-directed learning by initial teacher’sfacilitation of their inquiry-based learning.
• Exploit the affordances of mobile technologies.Tapping on the mobility that is afforded, usage of themobile technologies is woven into the fabric of thelearning activities, thus constituting an essential,integral component in the teaching and learningprocess. As the students are doing their scienceexperiments, they can use a variety of tools availableon the handhelds to support their learning. Forexample, they can list ideas and connect them using aconcept map through the use of Picomap (Dallas,TX, USA). They may use the camera to captureexamples of a science concept in their everyday lifeto connect what they learn in class.
• Assess student learning formatively. The teacher, stu-dents, and researchers had access to student artefactsduring and after classes for timely assessment andadjustment of teaching and learning.
• Facilitate collaborative interactions. Mediated bymobile technology, students share their work inprogress, resources, artefacts, and findings that theygot from their Internet searches and cooperatetogether on their learning activities. Students can col-laboratively compare and contrast information ontheir individual hand devices.
• Make use of community support and resources. Stu-dents make field trips to the local zoo and the science
centre, and investigate science phenomena for mean-ingful learning.
• Support teacher development to be good curriculumdevelopers and facilitators. Many regular meetingsbetween teachers and researchers are held toco-design curriculum materials for the professionaldevelopment of teachers and for researchers andteachers to share observations of classroom enact-ment of mobilized lessons.
Mobilizing the curriculum requires a holistic view ofhow the learning activities are organized via technologyso that student learning is situated in authentic contextsto understand how the connections and coherenceacross various concepts. For example, in a visit to a pro-biotic drink factory, students learned about the presenceof good bacteria in a drink commonly known to themand how the bacteria travels through their digestivesystem. We provide them an authentic context where wecan connect their everyday experiences to science con-cepts. In this example, the concepts are bacteria in aliving micro-organism and how the digestive systemfunctions in a human body. Instead of learning the con-cepts in the abstract and in isolation, they learned abouthow the two concepts are connected such as how bacte-ria affect the digestive system. They might also relatethis to their experiences of stomach disorders when theyeat spoilt food.
The MLE provides the infrastructure to develop aproject with driving questions, activities and learningresources.Aproject is a container of related and interde-pendent learning tasks. Each task is an instantiation ofhow the affordances of mobile computing enable per-
sonalized learning from four facets: (1) allowing mul-tiple entry points and learning pathways; (2) supportingmulti-modality; (3) enabling student improvisation insitu; and (4) supporting the sharing and creation ofstudent artefacts on the move (Looi et al. 2009). Stu-dents can pursue their inquiry in a personalized way,without having to do the tasks in a strict sequentialorder. A good curriculum design will harness theseaffordances to transform a science curriculum into amobilized one that makes science learning motivating,engaging and holistic.
A mobilized lesson design on body systems
The primary 3 science curriculum in Singapore com-prises the two big themes of Diversity and Systems.Figure 1 shows a diagram of the various units in thesetwo themes with linkages with planned home and infor-mal activities as well as class field trips to the zoo, thehorticulture park, and the priobiotic drink factory.Appendix I shows the learning objectives of these units.
In the following we describe the lesson design oftopic on body systems. The goal for this series oflessons is to help students attain the learning objectivesfor the body systems through hands-on, cooperative andself-directed activities. These activities were done indi-vidually, with classmates and with parents. The activi-ties were conducted not only in class but also in thestudents’ homes. This extended the classroom hours forlearning the body systems beyond the limited 4.5-hclass time to over 3 weeks. The designed activities werepackaged into GoKnow’s MLE MyProjects, whichcould be accessed by the students on their smartphones
as shown in Fig 2. A lesson overview shown in Fig 3shows students the objectives of the lesson and what isexpected from them in learning about the body system.
The students started the inquiry learning by playing acooperative game to identify the parts and functions offive body systems. They helped one another to identifythe parts correctly, and the teacher played the role of acritic to ensure that the students have identified thecorrect body parts and systems. After the game, theteacher recapped what the students had learnt from oneanother and reinforced their knowledge of the parts andfunctions of each body system.
Each student was then tasked to conduct an experi-ment at home with the help of his or her familymembers. Using the smartphone, the student video-recorded the experiment and used it to discuss with theirclassmates and teacher during the discussion in class.From this activity, the students learned that digestionstarts from the mouth and how the mouth helps in thedigestion process.
After that discussion, the students were required to doonline research using their smartphones on digestivesystems and to share their findings with their class-mates. At the same time, the students were tasked toupdate their own KWL (what do I already Know? what
do I Want to know? What have I Learned?). This helpedthe teacher to identify learning gains and gaps in theconceptions of the students. The teacher addressedthese findings during class time to help students clarifytheir alternate conceptions and at the same time learnfrom their friends. The students then created Sketchy(Dallas, TX, USA) animations of digestive processes toillustrate their understanding and used a rubric to helpthem assess the quality of their work. Before the teacherprovided comments to their work, the students evalu-ated one another’s work based on the same rubric. Theteacher also shared these artefacts created by the stu-dents and at the same time offered suggestions toimprove on the illustrations and the scientific represen-tations in the students’ work. Students were tasked toimprove their work before re-submission.
The lessons culminated in an unusual teach-your-parent activity. The students were tasked to ask theparents what they know about the digestive system andto identify gaps in their parents’ knowledge. They had toteach the parents what they thought the parents did notknow and to interview their parents again to check theirunderstanding. All the parent–child interactions werevideo- or voice-recorded using the child’s HTC phone.
Fig 2 Screenshot of body systems lessons designed for the MLE. Fig 3 Overview of a body systems lesson on the MLE seen by thestudents.
Each student shared the audio or video recording of hisor her parent–child interactions with a partner, andtogether they discussed and reflected on their ownunderstanding of the digestive system.
In the co-design of the mobilized curriculum such asfor the body systems unit, the researchers workedclosely with the teacher to study the national science syl-labus, the current textbooks, workbooks and relatedmaterials used, and the affordances of the mobile tech-nologies to define the learning objectives. While thestudent activities were designed primarily for enactmentin the classroom, we expect that student learning mightcontinue in informal settings such as the home. In thedesigned lesson, they had to internalize their under-standing to teach others what they know about the bodysystem. Our strategy is to provide certain ‘structures’ toallow students to learn the skills and foster habits ofminds so that they might transfer what they have learnedto plan for their own self-directed learning. For example,if they learn how to use KWL and inquiry skills such asasking questions, designing investigations, collectingand analysing data, and making conclusions, they mightplan their own self-directed and inquiry-based learningwith topics that are not taught in class.
Research design
We adopted a design-research approach in our school-based work as we sought to address complex problemsin real classroom contexts in collaboration with practi-tioners, and to integrate design principles with techno-logical affordances to render plausible solutions. Ourgoal was to conduct rigorous and reflective inquiry totest and refine innovative learning environments as wellas to refine new learning-design principles (Brown1992; Collins 1992). In early cycles of the intervention,as enacted in the classroom implementation describedhere, we have focused very much on co-design of themobilized curriculum, enactment of it into holisticlesson plans, teacher professional development, sup-porting classroom management and fixing technicalproblems that impede the smooth running of thetechnology.
There were nine classes in primary grade 3 in theschool, three of which (Class A, B and C) are high-ability classes and six (Class D, E, F, G, H, I) are mixed-ability classes. Each class had about 40 students. Theaverage age of the students across all the classes was 9
years old. The classification of ability in the Singaporecontext is based on the general examination scores ofstudents at the end of their primary grade 2 year, and theassignment of students to their corresponding abilityclasses is random. We randomly chose one mixed-ability class (3E) for mobilized science curriculumintervention. The other classes were classes taught inthe traditional way.
We have collected students’ general science exami-nation scores before and after the mobilized science cur-riculum activities, across all the nine primary grade 3classes in the school. The general science examinationpapers comprised 30 multiple-choice questions and 14open-ended questions, and the duration of the exam is1 h and 45 min. All the nine classes took the sameexamination at the same time.Appendix II shows a sam-pling of some of the question items in the examinationpaper which are related to the topic of body systems.
Before and after the intervention, the students in theintervention class 3E filled in a questionnaire surveywhich comprised questions including the usage ofmobile devices in and after class, and their perceptionsand attitudes towards the mobilized lessons and thetechnology. To control the observe-expectancy effect,the students were told to be honest when answering thequestion. They were told that their answers would not berevealed to their teachers, nor would they be related totheir exam results.
The research team started observations of the class atthe beginning of the school calendar year prior to theintroduction of mobile devices in class. The weeklyobservations were made to help researchers understandbetter about the class and the teacher before using themobile devices for lessons. A science practice test wasgiven to the students in all the mixed-ability classes justbefore the introduction of the mobilized lessons. Thestructure of this test was modelled after the scienceexamination paper and was devised for this study. Theresults of this test served as the covariate in our analysisof covariance (ANCOVA) when comparing the stu-dents’ final science examination results across classes.
After the introduction of the mobile devices, observa-tions of the classroom continued with more lessonsobserved per week. In addition, we recorded severallessons involving the use of the mobile devices onvideo. When the lessons were recorded, one videocamera was set in the back of the classroom. Tworesearchers observed each mobilized lesson and took
down detailed field observation notes. Occasionally wewould look through the classroom video after the lessonto review the possibility of missing out any details fromthe actual ‘live’ observation of the class lesson. Arte-facts created by the students during the lessons werecollected and archived. The artefacts comprised of thestudents’ Sketchy animations, KWL, Mobile Worddocuments and pictures taken through the use of themobile devices. We also recorded each weekly profes-sional development session in which the teachers wereinvolved in the lesson co-design with the researchers.
Findings
In this section, we will present some observations of theteacher’s enactment of the transformed curriculum inthe classroom and report on perceived student andteacher changes as plausible mechanisms which explainthe learning effect. We will present our findings fromthe quantitative analysis of data which shows positivegains for the experimental class compared with theother classes, followed by a discussion of students’usage of HTC phone in and out of class and their atti-tudes towards mobile learning over the duration of theintervention.
Student changes
Through our observations of the enacted lessons and ouranalysis of student-created artefacts using their mobiledevices, we detect a shift in the classroom behaviourafter the introduction of the mobile devices. The classcomprised 39 students. The students were moreengaged and are able to conduct research by formulat-ing questions, conducting online search, collecting data,and producing quality animations and concept maps, aswell as other digital artefacts to reflect their understand-ing and negotiate meanings collectively. For example,the students drew an animation of their understanding ofthe body system using Sketchy. Frames 1–7 in Fig 4show a sequence of animation frames drawn by astudent to illustrate his understanding of the digestivesystem. He showed how an apple eaten by him wasdigested starting from the mouth and the sequence asthe food moved through the different parts of the diges-tive system. After the animated illustration, he wrote toexplain the function of each part of the digestive systemshown as shown from frames 8–10.
frame 1 frame 2
frame 3 frame 4
frame 5 frame 6
frame 7 frame 8
frame 9 frame 10
Fig 4 A sequence of animation frames drawn by a student toillustrate his understanding of the digestive system.
Our interviews with the parents during the homevisits informed us about how the students taught theirparents about the digestive system in our designed homeactivity. The students were asked to teach their parentsabout the digestive system and the function of each part.One student Roy’s father recounted that his son wasable to teach him without reading off materials. Roy wasalso able to identify that his father did not introduce thestomach and the intestine when he interviewed hisfather after the teaching. Roy’s knowledge of digestivesystem impressed his father. The latter said:
I think he knows more than what I know. What I know isvery basic. Some of the parts I describe wrongly. He isvery specific. Those terms that he uses are new to mealso. He said a lot of things . . . I try to understand but it isa bit difficult. I think he knows his stuff.
Classroom observations provided instances that indi-cated students doing some form of self-directed learn-ing. For example, some of them conducted independentresearch online: they searched for videos relevant toclassroom learning from YouTube. Questions raised bythe students during class focused more on the content ofthe lesson as compared with before the implementation.For example, their questions used to focus on clarifyingthe instructions of the teachers. The changes in thenature of the questions could be attributed to engaging intheir independent research of the subject. We have intro-duced KWL for students to record their thinking overtime. It is also a mechanism to help the teacher to forma-tively make use of the information. Student questions inWhat I Want to Know reflect deep thinking and are morerelevant to what they were doing. Figures 5–7 showsome of the questions a student Jeremy asked in hisKWL. He shared with researchers that he likes usingKWLto watch his own learning progress. Some studentshave explored new applications for learning purposes.
We consider the behaviour of students asking theirown questions and their changed mindset about notbeing afraid of asking questions (that might be deemedas ‘stupid’ by their peers and their teacher) as very sig-nificant cultural changes. These are among the most sig-nificant indicators of pedagogical change towards aculture of collective knowledge construction in theclassroom. Students tended to write down their ownanswers on the worksheets rather than copy the answersfrom the teacher’s board. They were more confident oftheir own answers and would integrate their answers
with the teacher’s written answer. The students weremore aware and curious of the surroundings aroundthem.
We noted signs of self-discipline in the class when thestudents were carrying out tasks on their mobile deviceseven without little supervision from the teacher. Duringthe class when the batteries of some of the students’devices run low, they organized themselves orderly indeciding who should charge the devices.Although therewere a limited number of chargers, the students waitedpatiently for their turn. As the devices were beingcharged, the students would sit or stand besides thechargers working on their task on the mobile devices asshown in Fig 8. The use of the mobile devices fosteredcollaboration among students. Some students paired upto work on their assignments during class time. Themobile devices mediated the face-to-face interaction asthe students worked on their individual assignment ontheir personal smartphone and interdependently withtheir friend as shown in Fig 9. They fostered socialinteraction over the sharing of videos, the sharing ofanswers they found on the Internet and towards makinggroup decisions, using information from the Internet toresolve conflicting individual ideas and integrate theirideas, teaching one another new software they have
learned, and helping one another to solve technicalproblems.
Teacher changes
The teacher, Jean, taught English, science and math-ematics to the class. She has about 3 years of teachingexperience. In interviews with her, before the interven-tion of the mobilized lessons, she had expressed her lackof confidence in teaching science content knowledge,and she did not think that she was a good science teacherthen. After the intervention, she said that she felt morecompetent as a teacher and was more prepared to teachscience.
Fig 7 KWL-insects.
Fig 8 Students work on their task while charging the smart-phones.
Fig 9 Students working together mediated by the use of thesmartphones.
From the observations of the class before the intro-duction of the mobilized lessons and our interviews withher, the teacher felt pressurized to cover the essentiallearning points through a teacher-centred approach(teach to textbook). She was task oriented and aimed tofinish the predefined drill-and-practice activities in theconventional curriculum in the stipulated time. Since theintroduction of the mobilize lessons and the use of thehandhelds in her classroom, she felt that she did not needto teach according to the textbook. She said that theteaching of science was not confined to the textbookswith which she previously relied heavily on. With themobilized lessons, we detected a transition from didac-tic teaching to student-centred learning. She was incl-ined to give students more time to construct their ownunderstanding rather than feed them with information.She tended to give more time to the students to answerthe questions before providing the answers. With moretime to observe students learning with mobile devices,she learned to identify student learning difficulties whenshe facilitates student learning (see Figs 10 and 11). Thedesigned MLE lessons did not necessitate the teacherhaving to talk and take the initiative all the time. Whenimplementing the MLE lessons, she instructed when thesituation called for it, enabling her to spend more timefacilitating the learning processes rather than providinganswers. As a result of adopting the mobilized curricu-lum in the class, the teacher shared with the researchersthat she has had more time to reflect on her lessons evenduring class. She said that she could think on her feet andimprovise on the lessons in real time.
In an interview with researchers, the teacher recalledher experience since she joined the project and worked
with the curriculum development task force, andco-designed and implemented the mobilized curricula.She acknowledged that she herself learned much fromthe experience of being involved in designing the mobi-lized curriculum as well as enacting it in class:
I gained some Science content knowledge. I thoughtScience is boring and difficult subject to master. throughthis PD sessions we start discussing topics like actuallywe can do this with the pupils and how can we teach thestudents this content that they could actually learn it.through that process though I did not go through NIEtraining. I thought it might more fruitful than in goingthrough the NIE training
When I teach Science I usually follow the textbook. I didrealize I can teach this chapter first before I teach thatchapter. it is until this PD sessions that I can this before Iteach that. that is something new that I learned
Her further elaboration highlighted some fundamen-tal dispositional and behavioural changes in herself:
I do not have much confidence in teaching Science . . . noconfidence at all. because myself I am not trained inScience. that part really deters me a bit. and I never seemyself as an upper primary science teacher at all. but nowthe perception changes in me. now I feel more confident
I did not realise that they can have misconception . . .When I teach I give you all the content and children donot have the misconceptions.it is only last year when wehave the sessions then I realize it might the mode also.inthe past I did not look at. before and I think of what arethe misconceptions the kids might have. It never strikemy mind to address the misconceptions.it is only until wehave the PD that we look into what misconceptions thekids might have and address it
Fig 10 Teacher discusses with the students in the group.Fig 11 Teacher reviews the students’ work on their mobiledevices in facilitating their learning.
The teacher acknowledged that the curriculumco-designing experience helped her to prepare herteaching in terms of subject knowledge, student learn-ing difficulties and the use of technologies (Zhang et al.2010). The co-design process allowed researchers tounderstand tensions between using mobile technologiesin science learning in the classroom and the existingconcerns of the teacher, such as assessment, in order todevelop feasible and evolutionary strategies towardstransforming the classroom science pedagogy.
Positive science learning gains of theexperimental class
Performance in assessments is always a concern ofteachers, students, parents, principals and other stake-holders. We did a comparison of the students’ generalscience final examination scores after the mobilizedlessons.Among all the classes, 3E was the only one withthe mobilized curriculum intervention. To examine theimpact of the mobilized curriculum on students’ learn-ing, we compared the P3 year-end exam scores acrossthe six mixed-ability classes.
To remove the obscuring effects of pre-existing indi-vidual science score differences, we conducted one-way ANCOVA to examine the P3 year-end scienceexam score (dependent variable) differences across sixclasses (independent variable) with the science scoresfrom the practice test (before the first mobilized lesson)as the covariate. The question structure of the testing inthe previous semester was similar to that of P3 year-end exam. The introduction of test scores from the pre-vious semester as the covariate is to ensure that the sixmixed classes were starting out approximately equalbefore the introduction of the mobilized curriculum.The assumptions of ANCOVA are met: (1) the indepen-dent variable (mobilized curriculum implementation)and the covariate (exam scores in previous semester)were independent; (2) the dependent variable (scienceexam scores of current semester which was after themobilized curriculum implementation) was linearlyrelated to the covariate (exam scores in previoussemester); and (3) the slope for the regression linebetween the dependent variable and the covariates(s)was the same for each group. In the ANCOVA, the P3year-end exam scores will be adjusted after controllingfor the testing score from the previous semester(see Table 1).
The ANCOVA results show that there is significantdifference on year-end science exam scores among thesix mixed-ability classes after controlling the examscore before the introduction of mobilized lessons con-stant [F(5345) = 31.619, P < 0.01]. The class differenceexplains 41.1% of the variance in the year-end examscores. The intervention class 3E has the highest examscores among all the mixed-ability classes. Thus, themixed-ability class with the mobilized lesson interven-tion performed better in the traditional science assess-ment than the classes without the intervention.
Attitudes towards the use of mobile devicesfor learning
Pre- and post-surveys of attitudes towards the use ofmobile devices for learning were administered to thestudents at the beginning and after the completion of themobilized lessons. The majority of the students felt theHTC smartphone was easy to use, easy to hold and lightenough to carry. Screen size and keyboard size was aconcern for some teachers. However, about 2/3 of thestudents did not think the size of the screen and the key-board is too small for their schoolwork (see Table 2).
The majority of students held the positive viewtowards the HTC phone for learning.Around 80% of thestudents thought that the HTC phone helped their learn-ing in and out of class. Sixty-two per cent of studentsthought that by using the HTC phone, they understoodthe science concepts learned better and they understoodbetter how things they learn in class were connected totheir daily life.
The school had a long tradition of using Pocket PCsfor field trips before our mobilized lesson intervention.
Table 1. ANCOVA on year-end science exam scores across sixmixed ability classes when holding the exam scores before theintroduction of mobilized lessons constant.
The students of class 3E had used Pocket PCs for theirlearning a few times when they were in primary grades 1and 2. In both pre- and post-intervention surveys, weasked students the same set of questions about the role ofmobile device for their learning. Paired-sample t-testswere conducted to compare the mean scores of the atti-tudes towards mobile devices for learning between thepre- and post-surveys. As shown in Table 3, there is asignificant improvement in students’ attitudes towardsmobile devices for learning from the pre- to the post-survey. The response scale is a Likert scale where1 = Strongly Agree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Dis-agree and 5 = Strongly Disagree. Thus, the lower thescore, the more positive the student’s attitude towardsmobile devices for learning is. The scores in the range1–2 means that the students’ average attitudes werebetweenAgree (2) to StronglyAgree (1).After the mobi-lized curriculum intervention, the students had morepositive attitudes towards the use of mobile devices for
learning in [t(38) = -2.765, P < 0.01] and out of theclassroom [t(38) = -2.321, P < 0.05].
After the mobilized curriculum intervention, the stu-dents liked the learning activities using computers andgadgets more than before [t(38) = -2.016, P < 0.05].They perceived themselves as learning more whenworking in a group than working alone [t(38) = -2.634,P < 0.05].
Discussion and conclusion
In seeking to put together a coherent classroom pro-gramme that can be sustainable, our work faces the realchallenges of introducing an intervention in the realclassroom. Our unique research context is that weworked with a school with nine classes in the cohort ofprimary grade 3 taking the science subject. The experi-mental class has to follow the same class schedule andassessment schemes as the rest of the classes. Our
Table 2. Students’ attitude towards HTC phone for learning.
Agree/stronglyagree (%)
Neutral(%)
Disagree/stronglydisagree (%)
It is easy to use. 71.8 20.5 7.7It is easy to hold. 66.7 33.3 0It is light enough for me to carry. 74.4 17.9 7.7The size of the screen on the HTC smartphone is too small to do my
school work.25.6 10.3 64.1
The size of the keyboard on the HTC smartphone is too small to domy school work.
17.9 15.4 66.7
It distracts me from doing my school work. 7.7 25.6 66.7It helps me learn my class subjects. 84.6 12.8 2.6It helps me learn things outside of school. 78.9 18.4 2.6I understand the science concepts learned in class better. 61.5 35.9 2.6I understand better how things I learn in class are connected to my
daily life61.5 33.3 5.1
Table 3. Paired sample t-test comparing the students’ attitudes towards mobile devices for learning.
Mean N SD t
The mobile devices help me learn my class subjects. Pre survey 1.46 39 0.643 -2.765**Post survey 1.82 39 0.451
The mobile devices help me learn things outside of school. Pre survey 1.42 38 0.683 -2.321*Post survey 1.76 38 0.490
I like the learning activities using computers and gadgets. Pre survey 1.05 39 0.223 -2.016*Post survey 1.23 39 0.536
I learn more when I work in a group than alone. Pre survey 1.37 38 0.633 -2.634*Post survey 1.68 38 0.662
research work is situated in such a trajectory towardsmaking an impact on practice. In our intensive school-based work, we design and implement 1 year’s worth ofmobilized lessons in science, which will expand tocover more subjects in the subsequent years. In the SCYproject, five inquiry missions are designed, and eachinquiry learning mission or scenario takes at least two tosix lessons of learning time (de Jong et al. 2009). Asthey are designed for the purposes of research, they arelikely to be authentic activities whereas our mobilizedlessons are designed to cover the curriculum but with aninquiry perspective.
We have described our empirical study in exploringthe learning effectiveness of a science curriculum trans-formed for delivery and for learning on mobile technolo-gies. Our analysis of the science examination scores ofthe mixed-ability classes shows that the students receiv-ing instruction using the mobilized curriculum outper-formed those of the classes taught the traditional way.We feel that this result is a very worthwhile contributionto the field, as much research work on mobile learningfocus only on units of at most a few weeks’ duration, orthey are add-on activities to some existing curriculum,or they are extra-curricular activities.
The use of the mobilized technologies provides manyleverage points for the researchers and teachers toco-design a new curriculum that focuses on inquirylearning. The designers have to spend a lot more time todesign the mobilized curriculum. Once designed, thecurriculum can be enacted by science teachers, and it isimportant for the teachers to understand the design prin-ciples behind a mobilized curriculum for inquiry learn-ing and how to implement in the way to harness the bestlearning outcomes for students. We see a shift in theteacher’s attitudes and behaviours towards scienceteaching, from a style that sees her preoccupied with justcovering the curriculum to one that allows her to watchover and facilitate students’ work on the inquiry activi-ties on their handhelds.
With the mobilized lessons, we observe studentsengaging in science learning in personal and engagedways. They demonstrated their understanding of sciencephenomenon in multimodal ways and did self-directedlearning by doing online search and exploration on ques-tions related to the curriculum topics. They engagedin instructional activities that involve their parents, asin our mobilized lesson for the body systems. This lies incontrast to the more ‘traditional’ way of learning, in
which students learned science from the didacticinstruction of the teacher or from the textbook.
In considering the role of technology in mobilizedlearning, we have observations of how the technologyis fostering thinking in the students: they drew and ani-mated on the Sketchy to demonstrate their understand-ing; they listed ideas and connected them on PicoMap;they constructed comparison of concepts on Word; theysearched for terms and ideas on the Internet; theyobserved videos on YouTube; they did research on theirown and synthesized the ideas they found; theyobserved the world around them and record them bytaking pictures; and they had a tool to capture thoselearning moments that interest them. It is true that theycould do this on a plethora of devices: desktop PCs,Ultra-Mobile PCs and cellphone computers, but it isthe one device that they always have access to (theimmediacy) as a learning hub (continuum and consis-tency) and that provides the mobility for them to learnoutside of the classroom, on the move and across con-texts, and thus really enabled students to take bothresponsibilities and ownership to motivate them. Wehave done intensive teacher professional development,but without the above affordances of mobile technol-ogy and the educational software that runs on them, itwould be less possible to design and enact such aninnovative curriculum.
In summary, this work provides a concrete example ofa science reform effort in which the conventionalscience curriculum is transformed into a mobilized cur-riculum over the sustained period of a year. Positive out-comes are attained in terms of science assessmentlearning gains, increased students’ engagement inscience learning, increased teacher’s agency in deliver-ing the science curriculum in the class, and positive atti-tudes of the students towards the use of mobile devicesfor learning.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on work supported by the LearningSciences Lab and a grant from the National ResearchFoundation, Singapore (Grant #: NRF2007IDM-IDM005-021). We wish to thank GoKnow Learning,Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI) for providing a license to use theGoKnow Mobile Learning Environment software inSingapore.We are grateful to Nan Chiau Primary Schoolfor collaborating with us on this research.
The Mobilized Curriculum with Learning Objectives and Linkages to Out-of-School Learning
Duration Topic Learning Objectives Extension from OtherTopics/ Field Trips/ Personal Experiences
3 Weeks Living andNon-livingThings
1. Describe the characteristics of living things.– need water, food and air to survive– grow, respond and reproduce
2. Observe a variety of living and non-living thingsand infer differences between them.
3. Classify living things and non-living things intobroad groups based on similarities anddifferences of common observablecharacteristics.
1. Identify plants and animals from theartifacts collected from the zoo trip
2. Classify the artifacts of the living andnon living things collected from thezoo trip.
3. List ways of classification in daily livesand how such practices help them
4. Collect artifacts of the plants andanimals in the school and othersurrounding environment2 Weeks Plants 1. Recognise that plants are living things
2. Recognise that there is a variety of plants in oursurroundings
3. Classify plants into broad groups based onsimilarities and differences
3 Weeks ClassifyingAnimals
1. Classify animals into broad groups based onsimilarities and differences
2. Identify and describe the types of outercoverings that animals have
3. State and explain how animals reproduce
1. Recall that animals are living things2. Describe and compare the different
sizes, shapes and colours of animalsobserved during the zoo trip
3. Identify the similarities and differencesof artifacts animals use in the previoustopic
4. Reclassify the animals that werecreated in the previous animals
1 Week Bacteria 1. Recall the characteristics of living things– need water, food and air to survive– grow, respond and reproduce
2. Recognise that bacteria are Living Things whichneed air, water and food to stay alive
3. State that Bacteria are Micro-organisms4. Describe how some Bacteria can be use and how
others can be harmful
1. Recall what they have learnt fromPriobiotic Drink trip
2. State the similarities and differencesbetween animals and bacteria.
3 Weeks Materials 1. List some materials and relate their properties totheir uses, e.g. wood, metal, rubber, plastics,fabric, ceramic, glass.
2. Relate the properties of materials to their uses3. State the different properties of materials4. State the ways to test the properties of material5. Identify the appropriate materials to use for
different objects based on what the objects areused for.
1. State how materials are used in theschool and home environment
2. Show how materials can be tested fortheir properties
3. Collect evidence to show how theproperties of the materials affect theway they are used
4. Classify materials based on theirproperties and uses
1 Week What is aSystem?
1. Describe what a system is2. Recognise that systems can also be found in
living things, such as plants and animals3. Explain how a plant can be considered a system
1. Show how a system can be taken apartand analysed (ball point pen,correction tape with gear system)
2. Give examples of how a failed systemcan affect their daily lives.
Duration Topic Learning Objectives Extension from OtherTopics/ Field Trips/ Personal Experiences
3 Weeks Plant andPlant Parts
1. Identify and explain what is a system2. Identify and state the functions of different
parts of plants e.g. leaf, stem, root.3. Compare different parts of plants e.g. leaf, stem,
root according to shapes, sizes, colour andtexture.
4. State and label the transport system of the stem.
1. Provide evidences of a failed plantsystem and explain the consequences
1 Week Fungi 1. Recall the characteristics of living things– need water, food and air to survive– grow, respond and reproduce
2. State the characteristics of fungi3. Recognise fungi and provide examples (e.g.
mushroom, yeast)4. Recognise that fungi are Living Things which
need air, water and food to stay alive
1. Provide examples of fungi in theirdaily lives (e.g Fungi that are edible,fungi that grow on living andnon-living things)
4 Weeks BodySystems
1. List the parts of the five main organ systems inthe body and explain how they work as a system
2. List and state the functions of the five mainorgan systems in the body
3. Show an understanding that digestion refers tothe process where food is chewed or brokendown into simple substances in the body
4. List and state the functions of the mouth, gullet,stomach, small intestine and large intestine.
1. Teach peers and parents what theyknow about the digestive system
2. Assess peers’, peers’ parents and ownparents knowledge on digestivesystem
Appendix II
Examples of questions (related to the topic of Body System) from the science examination paper
1. The following table shows the functions of four human systems. Which body system has its function incorrectlystated?
Body System Function
1 Digestive Breaks down food into simpler substance2 Muscular Helps different parts of the body move3 Respiratory Takes oxygen away from the body4 Skeletal Gives shape to the body
2. Which of the following parts of our body need oxygen?(a) Heart and lungs only(b) Brain, heart and lungs only(c) Stomach, small intestines and large intestine only(d) All parts of the body
Which one of the following statements is true?(a) Part R helps us to move our head(b) Part S protects our heart and lungs(c) Part T allows the knee to move in more than one direction(d) Part U allows the arm to move in one direction only
4. The graph below shows the time taken for the body to digest four different types of food.
Which food was the most easily digested?(a) Milk(b) Donut(c) Noodle(d) Chicken Rice
5.(a) The table below describes the movement of food through the digestive system. Complete the table by
writing the numbers 1 to 6 in the boxes to show the correct sequence in which food moves through thedigestive system.
The digestive juices in the stomach break down the food.The food travels down the gullet into the stomach.Water is removed from the food. Undigested food is passed out through the anus.Undigested food passes into the large intestine.Digestion is completed in the small intestine. The digested food passes into the blood vessels.I bite into my sandwich. My teeth chew and grind the food.
(b) Name two parts of the digestive system which do not have digestive juices.
(i) _____________________
(ii) _____________________(c) In which part of the digestive system does most of the digestion of food take place?
_____________________6.
(a) Complete the classification chart below with the words given in the box.
(b) Which system is also known as the transport system of the human body?_____________________
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