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Parent-child engagement in constrained (e.g., learning alphabet letters or sounds) and unconstrained (e.g., storytelling, defining words) literacy activities are central components of the home literacy environment. Unconstrained activities are particularly important for children's oral language and support school readiness. Yet, many parents do not recognize that unconstrained activities can promote learning. This study examines whether an immersive tool can help parents recognize the importance of unconstrained activities and how to embed learning into everyday home routines. N = 76 middle- to lower-income parents of three-year-old children were randomly assigned to a control condition or immersive "literacy scavenger hunt" where they self-explored opportunities to engage in unconstrained activities within everyday routines. The scavenger hunt was associated with an increase in parents' endorsement of unconstrained activities and verbal communication within parent--child interactions. Results are discussed in terms of intervention approaches that build adult capacity around supporting children's early literacy.

All stakeholders in schooling, including teacher educators, are slowly realizing that the pandemic has created a sea-change rather than a temporary discontinuity. The pandemic-as-endemic world is neither a return to pre-pandemic normal nor a new-normal. Instead, we are now in Oz rather than Kansas, and--contrary to what some parents, many politicians, and all technophobes are hoping--no magical red slippers can bring us back to where we were. Understanding why this is the case and what schooling must now become is essential to a "rich and strange" transformation of teacher education to meet new necessities--and opportunities.

Higher-order thinking is crucial to inquiry learning. It is important to investigate how students think in inquiry contexts. Given the tacit nature of higher-order thinking, cognitive maps (e.g., concept maps, reasoning maps) have been used to externalize thinking and have shown promising effects in terms of improving inquiry task performance. However, few studies have analyzed student-constructed maps that reflect the thinking underpinning students' inquiry task performance. This study aimed to address this gap. Sixty-nine 11th grade students worked in small groups to explain a fish die-off phenomenon in a virtual ecosystem and collaboratively constructed an integrative cognitive map to facilitate thinking during the task. The map comprised a concept map (representing conceptual thinking about relevant subject knowledge) and a reasoning map (representing the reasoning process). Regression analyses showed that the quality of the student-constructed maps, particularly the reasoning maps, was a significant predictor of inquiry task performance assessed based on students' written explanations of the phenomenon. Although the quality of the concept maps was not a significant predictor of inquiry task performance, it did predict the quality of the reasoning maps. Student thinking reflected in concept mapping and that reflected in reasoning mapping play different roles in inquiry learning.

The use of external representations has the potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially hypothesis generation and reasoning, which typically present difficulties for students. This study describes a novel three-dimensional cognitive mapping (3DCM) approach that supports inquiry learning by allowing learners to combine the information on a problem, the subject knowledge, and the hypothesizing and reasoning process involved in the exploration in a single image. The study also investigates the influences of the 3DCM approach on knowledge achievement and learner perceptions within an online inquiry-learning context. Forty-eight 11th-grade students used 3DCM to complete an inquiry task. Data were collected from multiple sources, including pre- and post-tests, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that the students showed high levels of academic achievement, positive attitudes toward inquiry learning, low levels of anxiety, and medium levels of confidence. A post-hoc test indicated that the students at a low academic level had acquired significantly more knowledge than either the high-level or medium-level students, thus narrowing the academic gap between low-level, medium-level, and high-level students. In addition, the participants' attitudes and degree of confidence were found to be positively related to their inquiry skills, such as hypothesis generation and reasoning. The implications of the study and directions for future work are also discussed.

This literature review analyzed 18 studies published between 2013 and 2020 to understand the role of virtual humans in mixed reality digital puppeteering simulations aimed at promoting teacher learning. Research questions explored: simulation design models, interactor training, and the attention researchers gave to language and race in the virtual classroom. The descriptive and logistical findings from this review resulted in three learning design models and five design principles that may guide the future use of digital puppeteering in mixed-reality virtual classrooms to promote teacher learning. Across studies, findings suggested promising results of teacher learning through mixed reality simulations and illuminated possible areas for future research. These included the documentation of interactor preparation and detailed evaluation of the interactions between teachers and avatars in virtual classrooms.

Despite increasing calls for science education that utilizes immersive technologies and authentically model scientific inquiry, little is known about how well curricula leveraging these technologies impact students' science identity. This paper presents a mixed-methods study of identity exploration in 7th grade science students using a three-week immersive virtual world-based curriculum. Data sources include interviews and pre-post assessments which are compared to see how one can best assess science identity exploration. Students had statistically significant gains in scientific self-efficacy, and interviews showed an increasing awareness of what it means to be a scientist and how inquiry and argumentation skills can be used across different disciplines.

Background and Context: This study looks at computational thinking (CT) assessment of programming artifacts within the context of CT integrated with science education through computational modeling. Objective: The goal is to explore methodologies for assessment of student-constructed computational models through two lenses: functionality and conceptual fluency. Method: This study uses data from research with EcoMOD, a 3rd grade ecosystem science curriculum in which student pairs program computational models of a beaver building a dam. Snapshots of programs for 47 student pairs collected over time are assessed. Findings: A functionality-based rubric provided assessment of student task progress, but was less successful at correctly identifying CT gains in programs that were partially correct. A rubric for conceptual fluency identified development of fluency in CT concepts of sequencing, loops, and conditionals. Implications: This study contributes to the literature by exploring affordances of different rubric-based CT assessments of student programs.

Background: In scientific inquiry learning, students often have difficulties conducting hypothetical reasoning with multiple intertwined variables. Concept maps have a potential to facilitate complex thinking and reasoning. However, there is little investigation into the content of student‐constructed concept maps and its association with inquiry task performance. Objectives: This study explored students' concept mapping style and its association with task performance in computer‐based inquiry learning. Methods: An exploratory study was conducted with 80 Grade 11 students, who collaboratively constructed concept maps in a free style to support inquiry learning with a virtual ecosystem. Student‐constructed concept maps was analysed by firstly identifying different types of propositions formed in the maps and then determining the style of each concept map based on the dominant type of propositions in the map. Finally, the association between the concept map style and inquiry task performance was explored. Results and Conclusions: Two major concept map styles were identified: (1) knowledge‐oriented concept maps (KCMs) mainly representing problem‐related subject knowledge as a set of concepts and their relationships, and (2) problem‐oriented concept maps (PCMs) mainly representing problem situation as a sequence of changes and their causal relationships. Compared with those constructing KCMs, the students constructing PCMs formed higher‐quality propositions in their maps and performed better in hypothesising, reasoning, and drawing conclusions in the inquiry task. Implications: Besides KCMs, students in inquiry learning can be encouraged to construct PCMs to foster effective thinking and reasoning; that is, constructing a concept map to represent the problem situation as a sequence of changes and the causal relationships between the changes. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter: Concept maps (CMs) can facilitate complex thinking and reasoning in inquiry learning.There is little investigation into the content of student‐constructed CMs.It is unknown how CM content might associate with inquiry task performance. What this paper adds: Students constructed two major styles of CMs in computer‐based inquiry learning.The two styles of CMs are problem‐oriented and knowledge‐oriented CMs.Students constructing problem‐oriented CMs performed better in the inquiry task. Implications for practitioners: Analysing student‐constructed CMs helps understand student thinking in inquiry.Students are encouraged to build problem‐oriented CMs in inquiry learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a mobile augmented reality (AR) experience called Atom Tracker designed to help middle school students better understand the cycling of matter in ecosystems with a focus on the concept of conservation of matter and the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. Location-based AR allows students to locate virtual "hotspots," where they interact with multiple representations including vision-based AR animations of virtual atoms during ecological processes such as photosynthesis and physical LEGO® -based representations of molecules. This design case describes the design rationale, the iterative design process, the context for implementation, and reflections on the success and limitations of the Atom Tracker AR experience. An augmented reality interface was chosen due to theoretical support for its utility in supporting interaction with multiple representations (both physical and virtual) of atoms and molecules, the ability to condense and expand temporal and spatial scales associated with ecological processes, and its ability to explicitly situate these representations in real-world contexts that could support learning. Two significant design challenges that we recognized were (a) appropriately leveraging narrative, student engagement and agency when designing around the topic of atoms and molecules, which are inanimate and invisible; and (b) designing for engagement with both virtual and physical resources available during the experience

Background: Many students enter into postsecondary education without the preparation to face the demands of postsecondary coursework in science. Increasingly, policymakers and educational researchers are responding to calls for reforming secondary education to provide more opportunity for all students to receive high-quality education and to become career and college ready. Purpose: This study attempts to identify levers to increase student learning in secondary education. In particular, it examines relationships between school, teaching, teacher, and teacher professional development characteristics and student scores on high-stakes Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in the sciences. Setting: This study is situated in the context of the large-scale, top-down, nationwide AP curriculum and examination reform in the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) in the United States. This is an unprecedented opportunity to analyze changing educational landscapes in the United States with large-scale national student-, teacher-, school-, and district-level datasets across multiple science disciplines and different stages of the curriculum reform implementation connected to a standardized and high-stakes student outcome measure. Population: This study analyzes nationwide data samples of the AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics population during the first, second, and third year of the curriculum reform implementation. Across disciplines and years, the analytical samples include a total of 113,603 students and 6,046 teachers. Research design: This empirical quantitative study uses data from web-based surveys sent to all AP science teachers. Additionally, the College Board provided student- and school-level data for all students taking AP examinations. Data preparation methods included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Associations with student achievement were analyzed through a multilevel ordered logistic regression analysis, separately by science discipline and year of the curriculum reform implementation. Afterwards, results were aggregated through a meta-analysis. Findings: Even after controlling for student background variables, roughly 60% of the AP score variance could be explained at the teacher and school levels. In particular, teachers' perceived administrative support, self-efficacy, teaching experience, and elements of classroom instruction were related to student performance. Notably, teachers' professional development participation--which has been a major focus of interventions--has a small, mixed impact on student achievement. Conclusion: The identified levers for improving student achievement provide a strong rationale for the continued efforts of policymakers to improve school environments and to support science teachers, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning to help all students to be prepared for college and ready for their future careers.

In incorporating technology in science education, some have expressed concern that the value added by technology is primarily due to the novelty or excitement about using the devices, resulting in no lasting effect on student motivation or learning in science. This research addresses this concern through evaluation of student motivation during a two-week, multi-user virtual environment (MUVE)-based curriculum for middle school ecosystems science. Analysis of multiple surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the curriculum found that students continued to find the activity engaging from beginning to end, while student value of its utility in helping them learn science increased significantly. Furthermore, while initial student engagement resided primarily at the technology interface level, with time and experience students became increasingly engaged in the student-led, collaborative inquiry experiences afforded by the embedded scientific investigation.

Research in the field of technology-enhanced learning has argued for a broader scope of technology-supported learning environments to include the design of activity systems which position students as active thinkers by reorganizing learning with technology around the practices of scholarly communities. In the context of elementary ecosystems science, this entails structuring classroom activity around the construction and evaluation of epistemic artifacts, such as scientific models and representations, that profitably direct learners' conceptual efforts toward productive forms of inquiry and the construction of new scientific knowledge. In this demonstration-of-concept paper, we present EcoMOD, an elementary ecosystems science curriculum that blends an immersive virtual environment with an agent-based computational modeling tool to support growth in ecological knowledge and scientific practice in learners aged 8 to 11 years old. Specifically, we explore how the design of the EcoMOD activity system supported students' active thinking in scientific inquiry through transformative modeling practices. Analysis of student activity and discourse indicates that engagement in transformative activities supported students in developing more nuanced causal explanations of the ecosystem by the end of the curriculum.

The use of external representations has a potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially in hypothesis generation and scientific reasoning, which are typical difficulties encountered by students. This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three-dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image, problem information, subject knowledge (key concepts and their relationships), and the hypothesizing and reasoning process involved in exploring a problem, to support inquiry learning. Two classes of eleventh grade students (97 in total) were randomly assigned to use either the 3DTG (i.e., experimental condition) or concept map (i.e., control condition) to complete a group-based inquiry task in an online environment. Data were collected from multiple data sources, including measures of group inquiry task performance, postknowledge scores, postquestionnaires of student perceptions of consensus building, and open-ended survey. The analysis of group task performance revealed that participants in the experimental condition performed better in the inquiry task than their counterparts specifically in generating hypotheses and reasoning with data, but not in drawing conclusions. The findings show the 3DTG's benefits in facilitating exploring and justifying hypotheses, and also suggest that the 3DTG can share equal value with concept mapping in terms of drawing conclusions and consensus building. In addition, students using the 3DTG achieved higher scores in the postknowledge test, although no difference was found in their perceptions of consensus building. These findings were validated by students' responses to the survey. Implications of this study and future work are also discussed.

Despite three decades of advances in information and communications technology (ICT) and a generation of research on cognition and new pedagogical strategies, the field of assessment has not progressed much beyond paper-and-pencil item-based tests. Research has shown these instruments are not valid measures of sophisticated intellectual performances. Simply using technology to deliver automated versions of item-based tests does not realize the full power of ICT to innovate in assessment via providing rich experiences that enable observing and analyzing student performances. To illustrate this approach, we describe our early research on using immersive technologies to develop virtual performance assessments. (Contains 7 figures.)

Over the past decade, the field of teacher professional learning has coalesced around core characteristics of high quality professional development experiences (e.g. Borko, Jacobs, & Koellner, 2010. Contemporary approaches to teacher professional development. In P. L. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), "International encyclopedia of education" (Vol. 7, pp. 548-556). Oxford: Elsevier.; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017. "Effective teacher professional development." Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute). Many countries have found these advances of great interest because of a desire to build teacher capacity in science education and across the full curriculum. This paper continues this progress by examining the role and impact of an online professional development community within the top-down, large-scale curriculum and assessment revision of Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This paper is part of a five-year, longitudinal, U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project to study the relative effectiveness of various types of professional development in enabling teachers to adapt to the revised AP course goals and exams. Of the many forms of professional development our research has examined, preliminary analyses indicated that participation in the College Board's online AP Teacher Community (APTC)--where teachers can discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other--had positive, direct, and statistically significant association with teacher self-reported shifts in practice and with gains in student AP scores (Fishman et al., 2014). This study explored how usage of the online APTC might be useful to teachers and examined a more robust estimate of these effects. Findings from the experience of AP teachers may be valuable in supporting other large-scale curriculum changes, such as the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core Standards, as well as parallel curricular shifts in other countries.

Young people now must compete in a global, knowledge-based, innovation-centered economy; they must acquire not just academic knowledge, but also character attributes such as intrinsic motivation, persistence, and flexibility. To accomplish these ambitious goals, the National Research Council (2012) of the United States recommends the use of "deeper learning" classroom strategies. These include case-based learning, multiple representations of knowledge, collaborative learning, apprenticeships, life-wide learning, learning for transfer, interdisciplinary studies, personalized learning, connected learning, and diagnostic assessments. Immersive media (virtual reality, multi-user virtual environments, mixed and augmented realities) have affordances that enhance this type of learning. EcoXPT is an inquiry-based middle school curriculum on ecosystem science that invites students into immersive experimentation with scaffolding tools that support deeper learning. This includes a "case-based approach" situated in an unfolding eutrophication scenario in which students learn new information from their observations over space and time, speaking with virtual characters in the world, and gathering information in the field guide and other sources. "Diagnostic assessments" of students' progress are based on multiple sources, including process data from various types of logfiles. "Multiple varied forms of representation" convey perceptual, graphical, and experimental data, enabling students to investigate relationships between variables. Students are "apprenticed" in the ways of knowing of ecosystems scientists, which involves "interdisciplinary knowledge." Students "collaborate" in teams of two, subdividing the tasks of gathering evidence.

Data-informed instructional methods offer tremendous promise for increasing the effectiveness of teaching, learning, and schooling. Yet-to-be-developed data science approaches have the potential to dramatically advance instruction for every student and to enhance learning for people of all ages. Next steps that emerged from a recent National Science Foundation-funded "Computing Research Association" workshop on data-intensive research in education were: (1) mobilize communities around opportunities based on new forms of evidence; (2) infuse evidence-based decision-making throughout a system; (3) develop new forms of educational assessment; (4) re-conceptualize data generation, collection, storage, and representation processes; (5) develop new types of analytic methods; (6) build human capacity to do data science and to use its products; and (7) develop advances in privacy, security, and ethics. If these steps are taken, participants agreed that data science approaches have the potential to dramatically advance instruction for every student and to enhance learning for people of all ages. This article briefly summarizes three of these themes that are particularly relevant, yet have not received as much attention as they deserve.

As an emerging technology for learning, virtual reality (VR) dates back four decades, to early work by Ivan Sutherland in the late 1960s. At long last, interactive media are emerging that offer the promise of VR in everyday settings. Quasi-VR already is commonplace in 2-1/2-D virtual environments like Second Life and in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (e.g., World of Warcraft). Realizing the potential of VR for education, however, is much more complex than simply making its interface practical and affordable. Learning applications are not like fire, a wonderful technology that provides a benefit from merely standing in its vicinity. In education, technologies achieve their power indirectly, as catalysts for deeper content, more engaging activities, more active forms of learning and instruction, and richer types of assessment.