Using Robotic Technology as a Constructionist Mindtool in Kn

The knowledge society brings its own challenges and demands upon its citizens. Key amongst these is the need to empower people to become lifelong learners, to reflect upon their own learning, to become problem solvers and to appreciate technology. This pap

Using Robotic Technology as a Constructionist Mindtool in Knowledge

Construction

Timothy Savage, Inmaculada Arnedillo Sánchez, Fionnuala O’Donnell, and Brendan Tangney

Centre for Research in Information Technology and Education,

Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Tim.Savage@cs.tcd.ie

Abstract

The knowledge society brings its own challenges and demands upon its citizens. Key amongst these is the need to empower people to become lifelong learners, to reflect upon their own learning, to become problem solvers and to appreciate technoloy. This paper records the experiences of an innovative project usin a constructionist Mindtool approach in a module on logic, robotics, and programming for non-technical third level students.

[8]. Experiential thinking develops from an inpidual’s experiences with the world when information is perceived and acted upon as a reflexive, automatic action. Reflective thinking requires “mental effort to think of and contrast the various courses of action” and often necessitates external support.

Knowledge representation, external support and reflective thinking are all tenets of Mindtools. The term, coined by Jonassen [3], describes computer-based tools and learning environments that act as extensions of the mind and when engaged in “intellectual partnership” with learners intend to promote critical thinking , creative thinking, and complex thinking [3].

“Developing a discourse is at the heart of developing a culture” [9]. Discourse is understood as the means through which knowledge is formed, criticised and amended [11]. There is a need for a learning environment and context that promotes transformational thought through a knowledge-building discourse that allows for ideas to be conceived, responded to and reframed [6].

1. The Pedagogy

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In 1993 Seymour Papert proposed that the coming period, labelled the information age, “could equally be called the age of learning” [1], an age in which he had already identified “the ability to learn” as “the competitive ability” [1]. This poses questions in regards to appropriate learning paradigms and methodologies for utilizing potentially competitive technological tools to

2. Design and Implementation promote the ability to learn.

In order to explore paths leading to a technology enhanced ability to learn, the following section will PBL is an instructional strategy that promotes active examine Constructionism as a learning paradigm [1, 2], learning. It is characterized as student centred and Mindtools [3] as instruments, and learning from dialogue occurring in small student groups where the teachers are [4-6] as a methodology. facilitators or guides. The problems form the organizing Rooted in Piaget’s constructivism, constructionism focus and stimulus for learning and are a vehicle for the argues that “the construction that takes place in the head development of problem-solving skills. often happens especially felicitously when it is supported

The Lego Mindstorms Robotics System (LMRS) by construction of a more public sort in the world” [1], by

enables the learner to design, build, and programme a way of creating a product that “can be shown, discussed,

robot or artefact through a programmable brick that can examined, probed and admired” [2]. In effect, “an object

control motors and sensors. The sensors (light and touch) to think with” [7].

allow the artefact to interact with its environment in The constructionist “cycle of internalisation of what is

accordance to the programme that has been designed. outside, then externalisation of what is inside and so on”

The programming interface resides on a PC and is [2] encompasses two complementary ways of thinking:

downloaded into the brick through an infrared the abstract and the concrete. This co-evolution of

connection. It enables the use and manipulation of all of understanding and artifacts within the inpidual and

the basic programming concepts without any knowledge social worlds promotes knowledge construction through

of the syntax. learning and collaborative knowledge building [5, 6].

This constant duality (abstract-concrete, The course was designed to follow four distinct

phases; Introductory, Collaborative Group working, understanding- artefact, learning-collaborative knowledge

Assignment, and Presentation. All stages except the last building) is further reinforced by a dual manner of

thinking proposed by Norman: experiential and reflective

The knowledge society brings its own challenges and demands upon its citizens. Key amongst these is the need to empower people to become lifelong learners, to reflect upon their own learning, to become problem solvers and to appreciate technology. This pap

utilised a PBL approach and all actively encourage reflections on the process and the content.

The learners were adult students on the first year of the Masters in IT in Education at Trinity College, Dublin. There is a strong constructivist/constructionist ethos that is made explicit to the students from the outset and in which they actively engage and contribute to.

3. Reflection on the Module

The highly interactive introductory phase consisted of the presentation of previous years work and whole class PBL with the LMRS. The whole class PBL consisted of the lecturer presenting the programming interface and a robot cart to the class and setting problems. The proposed solutions were tried and the results instantly demonstrated through the cart.

The group-working …… 此处隐藏：7249字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……