Research in Motiona digital learning environment to explore the research practice

Laura TamassiaUC Leuven-Limburg, Belgium

EAPRIL 2015 conferenceBelval, November 25th, 2015

Research in Motion?

www.onderzoekinbeweging.be

Concerns: how research is presented to pupils at school

Project goals:

1. Enrich current pedagogy of research at school2. Educate future teachers to a broader approach to research

Research @school and in the world

Research @schooleducation

• Scientific facts ( = research results)• Inquiry based learning• Research skills/competency (research cycle)

Research in the ‘outside’ world a human practice

• Today’s research (in universities, research centres, companies ...)

• Research in the past: has led to current knowledge (now in school textbooks)

& teacher education

teacher educators?

In your TE/school practice?

?

Educational design process

Curriculum & document studyInterviews: teachers, teacher educators

Observations (research competency)Literature study (research & research at school)

Brainstorming -> educational conceptScenario 1 - limited try-out in TE

Scenarios 2 & 3 + 1 – try-out in school, TE, teacher prof. developmentDidactic guidelines for teachers/TE

G. Cornelissen, L. Tamassia, S. Vervaet, F. Depaepe, K. Van De Keere, M. Simons, Tijd voor onderzoek als authentieke leerinhoud: een verkenning van eindtermen en leerplannen, Impuls 45/2 (2014).

Reflection -> scenario 4 - TE-only:development of Research in Motion

as case in educational design-based research

Why Research in Motion?

Develop interest for research as a thing of the world

A. Brew, Conceptions of Research: a phenomenographic study, Studies in Higher Education Vol. 26, No. 3, 2001

Researchers have very different conceptions

of what research is.

‘One’ research???

Diversity-> specific research ‘cases’

Misrepresentation of science by school approaches based

on research ‘competency’

Steps? Attitudes?

Complexity-> research practice

D. Hodson, Science Fiction: the continuing misrepresentation of science in the school curriculum, Curriculum Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1998

The two faces of research

Pupils (and teachers…) see only one face.

Challenge:How to make the other face visible as well?

Bruno LatourScience in Action, Harvard University Press (1987)

Research Black Boxes

Bruno LatourScience in Action, Harvard University Press (1987)

Research practice locked in a black box for pupils (and teachers).

Choose specific black boxes as entry points to the world of research.

Allow young people to open them.

3 + 1 Black Boxes

Your Black Box?

Research ‘things’: authenticity

Learning material based on ‘artefacts’:

- emails, letters, interviews- articles, research websites- images: labs, researchers, instruments, diagrams- maps with research locations- timelines- …

People, places, activities, things

Interest-oriented pedagogy

• Explorative (diversity, complexity)

• Eyes&minds on artefacts

• Connections

• Collective dimension

T. Venturini & controversy mapping studentshttp://controverses.sciences-po.fr/archiveindex/ A. Baricco, The Barbarians, 2006

Teacher education trajectories

3 phases

Teacher students:

1. Discover the world of research

2. Guide pupils in the discovery of the world of research

3. Develop & test own material about the world of research

Example of a trajectory

Conclusions and challenges

• Currently no space foreseen for connection with research in the world in Flemish curriculum

• Experienced teachers have more problems with new way of working/digital environment than teacher students and pupils… (age issue?)

• Teachers students in try-out have been able to find ‘own’ research in motion artefacts and to develop and test own didactic material.

• Material triggers honest reactions of pupils in relation to research in the class: maybe painful but useful for teachers!