Abstract
In this paper we focus on students’ learning gains with respect to their understanding of biology and ecological management from the use of a teaching program combining online and offline activities to teach about the socio-scientific controversial issue of wolves in Norway. Gender differences in response to the program and students’ attitudes towards wolves are also investigated. The web-based part of the teaching program consists of an online knowledge base designed to promote discourse and argumentation while working at the computers and in an offline classroom debate. The participants were two Norwegian classes of students age 14-15, who followed the teaching program. A pretest-posttest design with a follow-up four months later was chosen to measure student learning gains. Our results show positive achievement from pretest to posttest and even after four months students continue to demonstrate high levels of retention. Girls have significantly higher scores on posttest and follow-up compared to boys. Our results also show that 2/3 of the students changed their attitudes towards wolves during work with this teaching program.
Highlights
The results show that the students improved their knowledge after using both programs: they gave more nuanced descriptions of phenomena, used more scientific concepts and the answers were based more on facts than feelings
The main topic of this thesis concerns how ICT in form of digital learning materials may serve as a vehicle guiding students and teachers in exploring socioscientific issues and scientific phenomena
The thesis consists of four articles that focus on the following aspects of the use of ICT in science education: a) What characterises the digital learning materials from viten.no, and how do these influence learning? b) Students’ argumentation when using information from viten.no in role-play debates, and the teacher role in such debates
Summary
The results show that the students improved their knowledge after using both programs: they gave more nuanced descriptions of phenomena, used more scientific concepts and the answers were based more on facts than feelings. The main topic of this thesis concerns how ICT in form of digital learning materials may serve as a vehicle guiding students and teachers in exploring socioscientific issues and scientific phenomena. The thesis consists of four articles that focus on the following aspects of the use of ICT in science education: a) What characterises the digital learning materials from viten.no, and how do these influence learning?
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