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Notes:
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Science is a complex topic and over the past two decades information and
communication technologies have had an advantageous impact on science teaching and
learning. When information and communication technologies are used into classrooms,
students play an active role, learn at school and outside school, improve their teamwork
skills, ask more questions, find answers to questions and show a higher interest in
learning. The development of pedagogical strategies suited to classroom use of online
resources should be an important priority for the science education community.
Although many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of computer-based
instruction in the students’ achievement in science, others suggest that students get lost
on the Internet when searching information. However, other works have reported that
students have difficulties in regulating their learning when using hypermedia
environments. Science educators claim the necessity of attempting to facilitate students’
learning of science topics by using scaffolds, or instructional aids, designed to develop
appropriate web searching and managerial strategies and to support students’ web-based
learning.
In response to this educational necessity, our work offers more insight into the
challenge of combining information and communication technology with Inquiry WebBased
Learning and procedural guidance in order to increase the students’ involvement
and responsibility for their own learning of complex science topics. The main goal of the
present study is to integrate technology and inquiry into science classrooms to assist
students build their own knowledge and answer meaningful driving questions. 27 secondary education students. Specific scaffolds were provided to guide students
through complex tasks, to help them develop scientific knowledge, and to provide
support to enable them to transfer what they learnt during the web-based activity. All
activities were designed keeping in mind the WebQuest structure but also including the
circular notion of inquiry process presented by Lim (2004). According to Lim (2004) an
inquiry process has the following elements: Ask, Plan, Know, Explore, Construct, and
Reflect.
Quantitative assessments showed that students in the experimental group
outperformed the ones in the control group in the post test, indicating the positive effect
of the instructional design. Some clues to use adaptive scaffolds effectively were
exposed. Some of these scaffolds are tables, simulators, applets, visualizations,
conceptual maps, and note-taking areas/boxes.
This research lends evidence to questions regarding the value of students engaging in
on-line inquiry learning to enhance science content understanding. The conclusions
drawn in this work present a positive and promising path in the design of instructional
processes capable to enhance students’ digital literacy and, consequently improve
student’s content understanding using web information. |
