Seeing the unseen learner: designing and using social media to recognize children's science dispositions in action

Abstract

This paper describes the development of ScienceKit, a mobile, social media application to promote children's scientific inquiry. We deployed ScienceKit in Kitchen Chemistry (KC), an informal science program where children learn about scientific inquiry through cooking. By iteratively integrating design and implementation, this study highlights the affordances of social media that facilitate children's trajectories of disposition development in science learning. We illuminate how the technological and curricular design decisions made in ScienceKit and KC constrain or expand the types of data we can collect and the actionable insights about learning we can recognize as both educators and researchers. This study offers suggestions for how information gleaned from social media tools can be employed to strengthen our understanding of learning in practice, and help educators better recognize the rich actions that learners undertake, which may be easily overlooked in face-to-face situations.

Keywords:

• social media
• science dispositions
• data-informed instruction

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the members of the Kidsteam at the University of Maryland, Allison Druin, Mona Leigh Guha, Becky Lewittes, Emily Rhodes, as well as all of the children, educators, and school administrators who have been a part of every aspect of the design of ScienceKit and implementation of Kitchen Chemistry throughout this project.

Notes on Contributors

Dr June Ahn is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He holds a joint appointment in the College of Information Studies and College of Education.

Dr Tamara Clegg is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. She holds a joint appointment in the College of Education and College of Information Studies.

Dr Jason Yip is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Information School.

Elizabeth Bonsignore is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park in the College of Information Studies.

Daniel Pauw is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park in the College of Information Studies.

Michael Gubbels is a Masters student in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Maryland, College Park in the College of Information Studies.

Charley Lewittes is a member and coordinator of the Human–Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Emily Rhodes was an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park and is currently a Masters student of Interaction Design and Information Architecture at the University of Baltimore.

Notes

1. Learners often used ‘scope' to refer to the process of investigating.