Scaffolding students’ knowledge integration: prompts for reflection in KIE

Elizabeth A. Davis, University of Michigan, USA, e mail: betsyd@umich. edu, and Marcia C. Linn, Graduate School of Education, University of California at Berkeley, USA,

e mail: mclinn@socrates.berkeley.edu

Reporter: 張謙楣

Report Date:2004/01/05

Summary

• 科學的學習是一種概念統整。• 知識統整 ( knowledge integration ) 需要學生

自主的將學到的知識與既有的概念做連結。• Autonomous 是鷹架式知識整合架構 ( Scaffold

ed knowledge integration framework ) 的主要目的。

• 本篇研究所指的 scaffolding 是 prompts ，並探討不同類型的 prompts 對學習者知識統整的影響。

Introduction

• The process of reflection on ideas motivates students to revisit, test, reformulate the links of ideas.

• Knowledge integration involves differentiating, integrating, restructuring ideas.

4 elements of scaffolded knowledge integration instructional framework

• "Make thinking visible“ 教師和學生說明想法是如何連結的。 • Make science accessible 建立科學現象的模式 ( identify models for scientific phenomena) ，

使學生易於連結概念，並將之應用於相似或相關的問題情境中。 • Provide social support 學生可以從同儕身上學到新概念的連結。

• Encourage autonomous 學生如果能自主學習，便能夠規律性的檢視自己的概念，並持續

進行知識的整合。

Promoting knowledge integration with prompts

• Two types of prompts :

– Activity prompt

Facilitate completion of specific aspects of the activity.

– Self-monitoring prompt

Encourage planning and reflection.

Relevant research • Prompts that elicit self-explanation leads to impr

ove understanding of text ( Chi et al.,1989; 1994, Webb 1983 ).

• Students benefit from contextualized prompts which help them clarify and focus their thinking ( Davis, personal communication ).

• Students who were scaffolded in self-monitoring did better in exams and representation of their knowledge ( Lan,1996 ) .

Relevant research(Cont.)

• Self-monitoring prompts encourage students planning, reflection, and thinking carefully about their own activities.

• Prompts can serve two roles in achieving knowledge integration : – Provide the impetus for explanation. – Encourage reflection at a level that

students do not generally consider.

Method• Learning environment

• Time & objects

• Prompt delivery

• Study designs– Study1– Study2– Study3

• Outcome measures and scoring criteria

Learning environment

• Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE)

• KIE projects are designed to encourage a deep understanding of science concepts rather than a collection of scientific facts.

• KIE projects fall into 3 major categories ：– Critique 培養學習者發展在採取證據和評估討論議題時的判斷能力。

– Debate 學習者可以從多元的角度來思考辯論的議題，並有效的利

用證據來改善辯論內容。 – Design projects 促進學習者藉由科學證據來應用他們的知識。

KIE guidance system(Mildred)

Go Back to Method

Time & objects

• The research designed 3 studies to assess learning from activity and self-monitoring prompts.

• The studies took place in different semesters with different students of this eighth grade class.

Go Back to Method

Prompt delivery

• KIE prompts appear in the form of sentence-starters.

• Self-monitoring prompts typically fall before and after the activity itself.

• Activity prompts compose part of the activity itself.

Go Back to Method

Example of Sentence-starters ◎Self-­Monitoring­Prompts­encourage planning and ref

lection : Thinking ahead: To do a good job on this project, we need to . . . Thinking ahead: To do a good job on our letter, we need to . . . Checking our understanding: Pieces of evidence or claims in the arti

cle we didn’t understand very well included . . . Checking our understanding: In thinking about how it all fits altogeth

er, we’re con fused about . . .

◎Activity­Prompts­facilitate completion of specific aspects of the activity:

The letter says we need to . . . The major claims made by the article include . . . Overall, we think the first evidence/claim we critiqued . . . Claim I should say . . .

Study 1

• Students did a design project called ‘aliens on tour’, they design houses and clothing for three sets of aliens with different requirements.

• Objective : energy conversion

• Comparison of self-monitoring prompts and activity prompts.

• Activity vs. Activity + Self-monitoringGo Back to

Method

Study 2

• Extension and replication of study 1

• Students did a critique project called ‘all the news’, they read a fabricated news article and write a letter to the imaginary editor with a synthesized critique and guidelines for future.

• Activity prompts vs. Self-monitoring prompts vs. beliefs prompts

Go Back to Method

Study 3

• Study 3 investigated the kinds of reflection self-monitoring prompts elicit as well as the relationships between reflection and success on the project.

• The project included– 6 ‘think ahead’ prompts– 4 ‘checking our understanding’ prompts– 1 ‘thinking back’ prompt

Go Back to Method

Outcome measure and scoring criteria

• We scored overall project success and individual prompt responses.

• Studies 1 and 2 emphasized project success.

• Study 3 emphasized individual prompt response.

Go Back to Method

Results

Study 1 ： comparison of self-monitoring prompts and activity prompts

• One group ： (activity prompts)– 2 activity prompts

• The other group ： (self-monitoring prompts )– 2 activity prompts– 7 self-monitoring prompts

• The overall quality of the two groups’ 65 designs for ‘aliens on tour’ was the same.

Study 1 ： comparison of self-monitoring prompts and activity prompts （ cont. ）

• Although the groups who received only activity prompts had more time for their reports, they did not create better designs.

• The students in the self-monitoring prompt condition gave fewer purely descriptive explanations and, were significantly more likely to use at least one scientific principle in their designs.

Study 2 ： extension and replication of comparison

• In study 2 we equalized the time students spent on responding to prompts in each condition.

• Three groups ：– activity prompts group (78% completed)– self-monitoring prompts group (32% completed ) – Control group (42% completed)

Study 2 ： extension and replication of comparison （ cont. ）• The self-monitoring prompt groups was

more likely to link those principles to other ideas.

• Principle Knowledge Integration :100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Activity Prompts Self-Mon. Prompts

Study 3 ： in-depth investigation of prompt response and reflection

• In study 3 we investigated the mechanism behind self-monitoring prompts.

• All students received 11 self-monitoring prompts, as well as a set of activity prompts.

• Students left less than 10% of the self-monitoring prompts unanswered.

Study 3 ： in-depth investigation of prompt response and reflection （ cont. ）

• To analyze reflection, we look at comments made in response to the prompts.

• Comments addressed – Project activities （ 39% ）– Project ideas （ 21% ）– Knowledge （ 18% ）– Actions （ 12% ）– ‘No problem’ （ 9% ） - No need for reflection– Did not fit in Table 1（ less than 2% ）

Comments address

39%

12%

21%

18%

9%

Others2%↓

Study 3 ： in-depth investigation of prompt response and reflection （ cont. ）

• Prompts can improve project success when students elaborate on the ideas in the project that do not fully understand.

• Study 3 shows that students who identify confusion benefit more from self-monitoring prompts than those who deny any difficulties.

Discussion － Design implications

• Prompts can enable knowledge integration when they encourage students to monitor their progress and identify new connections among ideas.

• Over 90% of the prompts elicited student responses but, these responses varied.

• The form of self-monitoring prompt also influenced responses.

Discussion － Learning implications ： Activity prompts

• Activity prompts help students finish activities but do not necessarily help the students develop an integrated understanding.

• They guide the inquiry process and help students to walk through the activities step-by-step.

Discussion － Learning implications ： Self-monitoring

prompts • Self-monitoring prompts encourage students

to reflect on their own understanding.

• Self-monitoring prompts provide scaffolding to help students think about their goals for and progress on a project.

• Self-monitoring prompts help students to engage in the knowledge integration processes like making links and restructuring ideas.

Conclusions

• Self-monitoring prompts let students make their own thinking visible and explicit, though we see that not all students take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

• Self-monitoring prompts succeed in encouraging reflection more than activity prompts.