
NSF Org: |
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | September 15, 2015 |
Latest Amendment Date: | August 22, 2016 |
Award Number: | 1530465 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Amy Baylor
abaylor@nsf.gov (703)292-5126 IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
Start Date: | October 1, 2015 |
End Date: | September 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,349,958.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,349,958.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
343 WATER ST AUGUSTA ME US 04330-4665 (207)626-3230 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
219 Capitol Street, Suite 3 Augusta ME US 04330-6237 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): |
AISL, Cyberlearn & Future Learn Tech |
Primary Program Source: |
04001516DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that support envisioning the future of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Development and Implementation (DIP) Projects build on proof-of-concept work that shows the possibilities of the proposed new type of learning technology, and PI teams build and refine a minimally-viable example of their proposed innovation that allows them to understand how such technology should be designed and used in the future and that allows them to answer questions about how people learn, how to foster or assess learning, and/or how to design for learning. This project is building and studying a new type of online learning community. The WeatherBlur community allows kids, teachers, scientists, fishermen/fisherwomen, and community members to learn and do science together related to the local impacts of weather and climate on their coastal communities. Members of the community propose investigations, collect and share data, and learn together.
WeatherBlur is designed to be a new form of knowledge-building community, the Non-Hierarchical Online Learning Community. Unlike other citizen science efforts, there is an emphasis on having all members of the community able to propose and carry out investigations (and not just help collect data for investigations designed by expert scientists or teachers). Prior research has demonstrated important structural differences in WeatherBlur from other citizen science learning communities. The project will use social network analysis and discourse analysis to measure learning processes, and Personal Meaning Mapping and embedded assessments of science epistemology and graph interpretation skills to examine outcomes. The measures will be used to explore knowledge-building processes and the scaffolds required to support them, the negotiation of explanations and investigations across roles, and the epistemic features that drive this negotiation process. The work will be conducted using an iterative design-based research process in which the prior functioning WeatherBlur site will be enhanced with new automated prompt and notification systems that support the non-hierarchical nature of the community, as well as tools to embed assessment prompts that will gauge participants' data interpretation skills and epistemic beliefs. Exponential random graph modeling will be used to analyze the social network analysis data and test hypotheses about the relationship between social structures and outcomes.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project builds on the findings of the prior two WeatherBlur EXP and EAGER projects as well as existing theory to identify the design elements of a non-hierarchical online learning community (NHOLC) for use in co-created citizen science projects, designed in explicit partnership between scientists and members of the public starting with defining a research question all the way through the investigation process to interpreting the data and determining findings together.
The project forged new ground as it learned how to design online and offline supports to enable discovery and knowledge building via citizen science for youth. The most unique aspect of this project was the co-design mindset that drove every aspect of the project, connecting the students, scientists, educators, and community members ? with the key tenant that each stakeholder group and individual is bringing unique skill set and expertise to the table, no matter where they live or their age. The results indicate that applying the non-hierarchical online learning community (NHOLC) framework to citizen science in the classroom is a vehicle for meeting learning standards in the elementary and middle school grades. The affordances of the online environment provide significant opportunities for participants to connect with individuals that have similar interests, and who may never have had the chance to share ideas otherwise. Results from both the discourse and social network analysis identified principal drivers within the co-created citizen science investigations, indicating that drivers were not limited to those individuals who posted at high frequencies. Key drivers in the online discussions were also those in key positions to connect users within the discussion space, linking users from different stakeholder groups. When looking closely at the connections and roles across the network, students demonstrated a broad variety of brokerage potential (betweenness centrality), including positions among fellow students and fulfilling key roles in bridging conversations with teachers and scientists.
This study provides initial evidence to demonstrate the potential for youth, teachers, and scientists to build knowledge together in citizen science investigations. The fact that youth serve as drivers reiterates the results found in knowledge-building classrooms and extends those findings through both the addition of scientists to the online community and the focus on citizen science.
The project as a whole, has not only defined how online communities can support and be designed for collaboration but we have also begun to understand how the power place-based education can be amplified through relationship building both online and in-person/in-place. The focus on this project of co-design on so many different levels - from the design of the project itself, to the online community, to the investigations themselves each school year ? has been our greatest strength. This focus on co-design provided the project and its participants with the ability to truly explore place-based interests. At the start of an implementation cycle we would never know what types of investigations would bubble up from the combination of explorations of place, local issues/problems, content focuses of the classrooms, and student interests. The project simply needed to provide the appropriate supports online and in-place to support classrooms, connect scientists as needed, and facilitate the co-design process.
Public school K-12 classrooms are the only learning spaces in our country that provide access to youth from every socioeconomic and racial background. The implication that citizen science, or the free-choice learning nature of it, would be stifled in a traditional K-12 setting provides all the more reason to try and find ways to make engaging citizen science experiences work for public school settings. There is no doubt that finding a way to make citizen science, especially co-created variants such as WeatherBlur, work in a K-12 classroom is extremely difficult. But at the same time, the findings of this project highlight both the design principles and best practices that educators and researchers can use in tandem to facilitate experiential and empowering learning experiences for youth that connects them to real science, scientists, and their community.
Last Modified: 01/03/2020
Modified by: Ruth Kermish-Allen
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