Summary
The paper presents an investigation in two different classroom settings to understand how different teachers use the same physical and computer‐based tools into their teaching practices.
Authors, reviewing the literature in science education research, demonstrate the challenges that students have in learning about complex natural systems. Students (a) often focus on simple linear relationships and visible components of an ecosystem; (b) give explanations which favor single causal and linear connections between system components; (c) make limited connections across system levels; (d) fail to understand a system's structure and underlying mechanisms (or behaviors), and functions, and (e) cannot connect macro level with micro level phenomena.
Authors also mention studies that have provided some recommended conditions that facilitate student understanding of complex systems, as: (a) involving students in hands‐on experiences as well as simulated experiences that engage them with complex systems phenomena; (b) providing students with opportunities to simultaneously participate in the epistemic practices of science, along with big ideas related to systems, that offers potential for coordinated development of knowledge and skills in science practices.
The purpose of the investigation is the understanding of interactions between variables of the culture of the classroom with the teaching and inquiry practices in relation to student learning. Each teacher worked with physical aquaria, function‐oriented hypermedia for background information and reference, and NetLogo simulations for computer‐supported collaborative inquiry learning. The students engaged in inquiry as they used the NetLogo models in small groups. Because of distinct teaching styles and varying levels of comfort with the materials and content, these two enactments were extraordinarily different between the two classrooms. Authors present a contrasting case analysis to examine how each teacher's practices set the stage for the kinds of interactions that occurred during students' computer‐supported inquiry learning. They suggest that one teacher worked from a cognitive‐elaboration perspective whereas the other teacher took an approach to teaching that incorporated socio‐cultural perspectives. Both approaches to teaching supported the active engagement of learners and may account for the similar learning outcomes measured. Very similar learning outcomes in the two different classrooms were found. The results of this study do not support that there is only one pathway for teaching to support student learning as authors provide evidence that different instructional models, classroom norms, and appropriation of tools can support similar student learning outcomes with respect to content knowledge.
Authors suggest that computer‐based simulations can provide opportunities to help students learn about complex systems because of their ability to represent dynamic processes, making the interacting behaviors and functions visible as students engage in inquiry. They also mention two important ways that computer simulations support understanding: (a) simulations draw students' attention to system dynamics so that they can observe the effect of one component on other components in the system and the emergence of aggregate‐level phenomena, which are difficult to accomplish in static media; (b) the computer simulations provide representational tools with which students can negotiate, compare, and repair understandings to achieve convergent conceptual change. Despite this, the results of this study support the notion that orchestrating tool‐mediated learning about complex systems is a difficult task and how different teachers appropriate these tools in their classrooms can lead to very different enactments. Authors suggest that the teacher's role in technology‐supported inquiry learning is generally that of a planner and facilitator of active learning, although different pedagogical practices can be deployed in the process. For example, some teachers may focus more on monitoring, observing, and assisting in students' problem solving, while other teachers tend to ask more open‐ended questions to facilitate and encourage students to discover knowledge by themselves.
Finally, the difference in classroom enactments suggests that in spite of promoting epistemological thinking as an important goal for a middle school science classroom, teachers may have a hard time balancing inquiry‐related demands with the need to promote content knowledge.
Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The paper deals with “systems thinking” and “complex systems”.
Systems thinking is recognized as an important cross‐cutting concept consistent with promoting scientific ways of learning. Learners also need to learn how to investigate complex systems phenomena in order to be able to think critically about them.
Complex systems are composed of multiple interacting levels with heterogeneous components and aggregate behavior that goes beyond the sum of the parts.
