“Teaching means creating situations where structure can be discovered.” –Jean Piaget

Many science teachers struggle with the idea of free exploration. Free exploration takes advantage of the natural tendency for children to just mess around with materials, without following any rigid procedures. If you have ever watched a child playing in sand, you have seen free exploration.

I have observed some preservice teachers struggle with a hands-on science lesson because they pass out the materials to the children and then they try to explain what they should do with them. More experienced teachers know that once children start to interact with the materials, they begin to tune the teacher out. A better strategy, therefore, is to explain to the children all that they need to know before passing out the materials.

Free exploration purposely allows students to mess around with the materials. It is a shame that for so many teachers, science experiences are always canned (first do this, and then do this). I have no objections to well articulated experiences that lead to discovery, but students also need opportunities to mess about. Each time they change something and see the result, they are developing ideas and approaches that will deepen their abilities to design and understand experiments.

The virtual world can be a great place to mess around without causing a great mess! The activity object, “Space Objects Interaction Explorer,” presents a great canvas to mess around with. Students are presented with two celestial objects, larger than the other. By changing the size and direction of the arrow, they control their initial velocities. Then they hit the play button and the objects move according to their initial velocities, and their motion is immediately influenced by gravity. Lines are drawn as the planets move so the orbital paths are evident.

Experienced teachers also are aware that challenges can really keep students engaged, such as with GEM’s Bubble-ology, where the teacher walks around and says, “Okay, let’s see who can produce the largest bubble!” or “Wow, great! Now, can you blow a bubble within a bubble?”

In “Space Objects Interaction Explorer,” the first challenge is easy. Make the objects collide. A fiery explosion rewards success, but there is no big bang—of course, contrary to Hollywood misconceptions, sound does not travel in the vacuum of outer space.

The second challenge is to make the smaller object orbit the bigger one. Most children can’t do this at first, but neither can most adults. It is interesting that most adults know what an orbit is, but they can’t at first produce one. It is very different being able to define the term orbit versus being able to explain why an object orbits another. Through trial-and-error learning, both children and adults can get one object to orbit the other—and develop intuitive ideas about orbits.

Inevitably, the first orbit produced by the learner is not a circle but an elliptical orbit. The third challenge is to achieve a circular orbit. When this task is completed it helps students really understand that orbits are an interplay between velocity (moving tangentially to the orbit) and gravitational interaction. Then, when orbits are explained, students have the experiences to understand why they occur.

 The fourth challenge involves three objects and asks that two of the objects orbit the largest one, which I will call the star. In putting this together, students (and adults) usually place one object closer and one farther from the star. And they initially make the farthest one have the bigger initial velocity. When they hit play, the nearest object crashes into the star and the larger object shoots out of the star system. Through trial-and-error learning, students will get it right, and later when they learn that Mercury is the fastest moving planet, it isn’t just an isolated fact to be memorized, but becomes an example of a concept they already know.

The last challenge is, appropriately enough, the most difficult to achieve. Appropriate because the really smart kids that solved the other challenges with great speed are fully engaged as everyone else catches up. The challenge is to make the small object orbit the medium object as the medium object orbits the largest object, or in other words, they are challenged to create a moon that orbits a planet, while the planet orbits the star. Students can, of course, adjust the position and velocity of the objects, as well as their masses. Success with this challenge isn’t easy and it takes a lot of messing about, but it is fun to see the interactions and patterns drawn of the paths followed. And when success arrives, it feels sweet!

References:

Adaptive Curriculum. (accessed August 7, 2008). Space Objects Interaction Explorer. https://www.adaptivecurriculum.com/us/details/USSSM150202

Barber, J. (1987) Bubble-ology (Great Explorations in Math and Science). Berkeley: Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California. http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gems/

Hawkins, D. (1965). Messing about in science. Science and Children, 2(5), 5-9.

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1967). The Child’s Conception of Space. New York: W. W. Norton.

Adaptive Curriculum, describes its core learning segments as “Activity Objects.” This is, as far as I know, a new term that has evolved from other terms including “Learning Objects.” In case you are not familiar with the term Learning Object, I will describe this, touching briefly on its origins, and then explain why I think Activity Objects is a well-chosen term.

What is a Learning Object?

The term Learning Object grew from computer object-oriented programming, a paradigm of creating reusable and cooperating “objects.” As with programming objects, the generally accepted criteria for Learning Objects are that they are digital, cooperating, and reusable. Unfortunately, as so often happens in education, terms are used in so many different ways, they start being less useful.

From a broad perspective, a Learning Object is any instructional resource that can be combined with other resources. This is formally presented as “independent pieces of instruction that may be reused in multiple learning contexts” (Fernandez-Manjon & Sancho, 2002). To many of us, that is too wide a definition as almost anything can be considered a learning object.

Wiley’s (2000) definition—more useful because it is narrower—is as follows: “Any digital resource that can be reused to facilitate learning.” According to Wiley, “Learning objects are generally understood to be digital entities deliverable over the Internet, meaning that any number of people can access and use them simultaneously (as opposed to traditional instructional media, such as an overhead or video tape, which can only exist in one place at a time). Moreover, those who incorporate learning objects can collaborate on and benefit immediately from new versions.”

Friesen (2003) describes problems with terminology involving Learning Objects and makes a call for clarity: “Using a term that make sense only in abstruse technical discussions, and that is opaque and confusing to practitioners does not make its potential benefits clear to teachers…. It is simply that innovations must be presented in terms that are meaningful for teaching practice.”

I think teachers need to be able to easily differentiate between online resources that are relatively passive (such as text based web pages) and those that have strong elements of student interactions. I believe that the term Activity Object is a term that will make sense to practitioners and will help differentiate online resources with strong elements of interactivity. There is a big difference between some current science articles versus cool science experiments online.

What is an Activity Object?

An Activity Object, as the name describes, is a learning module that puts the emphasis on active learning rather than just passively reading text or viewing images or movies. It is designed to compliment other instructional approaches.

I propose the following definition of an Activity Object: An Activity Object is an online digital learning module featuring high-quality student interactions that help to achieve narrow learner outcomes.

To be sure, the Activity Objects of Adaptive Curriculum feature engagements, animations, closures, activity sheets, and assessments, but these are supportive of the high-quality interactions. Of course, some may take the definition I propose and say that many online materials are Activity Objects. To me the question resides in whether or not it is a high-quality interaction. If students mainly read text or watch movies, even if they are answering some questions as they go, this just doesn’t rise to the level of being a high-quality interaction and should not be considered an Activity Object. I propose that we use the term Learning Object for those online materials that support learning but that don’t have high-quality interactions, and that the term Activity Object be judiciously used for learning experiences with high-quality interactions. Therefore, the resource with current events in Earth science can be considered to be a Learning Object but the science project, science activity, and interactions would be considered Activity Objects.

References

Fernandez-Manjon, B. and Sancho, P. (2002) Creating Cost-effective Adaptative Educational Hypermedia Based on Markup Technologies and E-Learning Standards. Interactive Educational Multimedia, No. 4, April, 1-11 

Friesen, N. (2003). Three objections to Learning Objects and E-learning Standards

Wiley, D.(2000). The Instructional Use of Learning Objects. Agency for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Available at Reusability.