The Virtual Lab as a Context for Collaboration and Learning: Student Engagement and Teacher Contributions

• In Event: Implementing Innovative Ideas and Practices in the Classroom: Pitfalls and Challenges

Abstract

Attempts to integrate computers and digital technologies into education have been going on for over fifty years, and the conviction that new media would revolutionize teaching and learning has an even longer history. We have seen a long struggle between technophiles, preaching the revolutionizing potentials of new media, and skeptics, far less convinced about the contributions of such innovations. In many countries there have been considerable investments into education motivated by the needs of introducing digital resources, while it is still unclear to what extent this has beneficial effects on teaching and learning.
The basic assumption of the present research is that it is difficult, even impossible, to predict how technologies will function in educational settings. Teaching and learning are diverse practices, and the curricular goals vary in manners that make it difficult to predict and generalize. Furthermore, as we have been taught by research in the field of science and technology studies, no technology completely determines human action. In order to understand how technologies function, we have to consider the social context in which they are introduced.
The background of the present study is an interest in virtual labs as contexts for inquiry learning about ocean acidification. What activities evolve when students engage in virtual lab work, and what are the consequences for interaction and knowledge-sharing between students and between students and teachers? The study is part of a collaboration between marine scientists and educational researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Stanford University. The aim is to develop innovative approaches to learning about the environment through the use of digital tools. The empirical data are video recordings of high school students engaged in lab work. The focus of the analysis is on the role the digital tools have in increasing students’ understanding of environmental issues. In addition, the involvement of the teacher in student activities has been analysed.

At a general level the results indicate that students profit from engaging in this kind of activities. Virtual labs offer opportunities for inquiry learning, and for the learning of scientifically relevant modes of reasoning and working, for instance about how to organize and evaluate experiments. Added advantages are that the virtual setting is a cost-effective and accessible context for types of laboratory work students would not encounter otherwise. However, the educational value of such a virtual setting is not determined by the environment itself, but rather by the activities that students engage in. The work at times becomes quite mechanical, and students click back-and-forth between the icons without any obvious coordination with scientific concepts or procedures. To be successful for learning, the virtual lab cannot be used as a stand-alone technology; the presence of a more knowledgeable partner – a teacher – is vital to frame the activity in a productive manner. Implications for the teaching role of the presence of such resources will be discussed.

Authors

• Emma Petersson, University of Gothenburg

• Annika Lantz-Andersson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

• Roger Saljo, University of Gothenburg