Computers, Teachers, Peers

"Computers, Teachers, Peers - Science Learning Partners" offers a knowledge integration perspective for designing instruction to promote lifelong learning. In this book and video set, Marcia C. Linn and Sherry Hsi: challenge science educators, textbook publishers, software designers, policy makers and classroom teachers to make lifelong science learning the number one priority; advocate a partnership process of curriculum improvement - where teachers, researchers, natural scientists and technologists collaborate. They show how computers, teachers and peers can serve as learning partners - helping students build on their ideas and regularly restructure their views; and synthesize specific design principles from their experience creating the computer as learning partner (CLP) curriculum and illustrate them with examples. Drawing on their experience over the last 15 years with the Computer as Learning Partner project, the authors offer this book and video as a guide. Rather than a quick fix, they advocate a process of continuous improvement for science education in which teachers, scientists, educational researchers, technology specialists, curriculum designers and students work together as partners to improve learning outcomes. They offer those who share their passion for improving science education an instructional framework, pragmatic pedagogical principles, stories of classroom successes and failures, case studies of student learners, insights from classroom teachers, and designs for powerful computer learning environments. They invite everyone concerned about science education to draw upon these tools and adapt them for their own best use. This set offers readers a set of practical tools for learning and instruction: case studies following students from middle school through their high school years connect the authors' findings with personal science learning and make visible the science learning of students in the CLP curriculum; descriptions of design studies conducted in science classrooms warrant the author's assertions and model approaches other partnerships might take - science teachers everywhere are encouraged to conduct design studies and use the results to improve student learning; pragmatic pedagogical principles synthesize the results of the design studies - curriculum designers are encouraged to test these principles and report their findings; Points to Ponder encourage reflection on the ideas in each chapter - partnership groups or classes might use the points as discussion starters or assignments; and Ask Mr.K, a feature in each chapter, is an interview with the classroom teacher who was a founding member of the CLP partnership - in these interviews, Mr.K adds insights from his own classroom experience. This volume is supplemented by the CLP CD-ROM (included in each copy), and a web site which contains the complete CLP curriculum, lesson plans, a Quicktime virtual reality visit to the classroom, copies of assessments, opportunities to joint partnerships, and more. For readers who wish more information, Related Readings are cited, including works by authors mentioned in each chapter. Additional work by other authors who inspired the authors appear in the bibliography, on the web site and on the CLP CD-ROM. An annotated bibliography of papers by members of the CLP partnership also appears at the web site and on the CD-ROM.