Pragmatic Design for Inquiry-Based Learning
Library & Information Science
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Format
This slide show was created and presented using a standards-based template (i.e., no Powerpoint) developed by Eric Meyer. I make extensive use of branching, so if you want to print out all of the content, you'll need to print the branch shows as well.
Can Technology Support IBL?
Yes, but too often it...
- fragments inquiry
- limits the scope of inquiry
- strips away the moral, political, sociocultural, aesthetic, kinesthetic, and historical dimensions
- is unjust
The solution?
- Better technology is not enough
- Not just a problem of computers
- Most important contribution may be to have us re-examine fundamental assumptions
Keywords
- Learning
- Technology
- Lived Experience
- Community Inquiry
(1) Learning
What shape is the earth?
1.
3.
2.
Overcoming difficulty
- Piaget: disequilibrium
- Vygotsky: zone of proximal development
- Dewey: felt difficulty
Learning is grounded in the personal, embodied, social, material, historical situation
⇒
Scratch theory
Keyboard collaboration
Christine Wang, Constructing a third space at the computer in a first-grade classroom
Technology is design through use
Through creation of content, contributions to interactive elements, and incorporation into practice, users are not merely recipients of technology, but participate actively in its ongoing development.
Pragmatic technology
John Dewey, 1859-1952
- tools to meet real human needs, accommodate to users and situation
- technologies developed within a community of inquiry; embodying both means of action and forms of understanding
Active participation
every individual must be consulted in such a way, actively not passively, that he himself becomes a part of the process of authority. —Dewey, Democracy & Education
Reinterpret, Adapt, Reinvent
—Ron Eglash, "Appropriating technology"
Active participation
every individual must be consulted in such a way, actively not passively, that he himself becomes a part of the process of authority. —Dewey, Democracy & Education
Paseo Boricua
- Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood
- Galvanizes neighborhood residents around community projects
- Addresses critical issues: gang violence, AIDS, social and environmental justice, literacy, and economic development
- http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilab/pbcl
Ethnography of the University
- undergraduate student research across disciplinary boundaries
- invention, composition, and revision
- archived in web-based inquiry units
- academic audience beyond the University
- use and re-creation of inquiry units
Graduate Teaching Fellows
graduate students collaborate with faculty and K-12 teachers to integrate computer-based modeling and scientific visualization into education
Chickscope
Chickscope is a project to study chicken embryo development using a variety of educational resources, such as inquiry-based curriculum materials, interactive modules on egg mathematics, image processing, and remotely controlled magnetic resonance imaging instrument.
Conclusion
- Solutions as works in progress
- Progress of expertise is secondary to equitable participation
- The problem of technology
- Spirit of pragmatism
Community Informatics Initiative
- works with people to develop ICT's to achieve their goals
- fosters collaborations across campus, local, national and international communities
- innovative community networks, community technology centers, software, and library services
Credits
Thanks to the many people involved with the Community Informatics Initiative