A New Approach to Using Photographs and Classroom
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 5-2012 A New Approach to Using Photographs and Classroom Response Systems in Middle School Astronomy Classes Hyun Ju Lee University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Hyun Ju, "A New Approach to Using Photographs and Classroom Response Systems in Middle School Astronomy Classes" (2012). Open Access Dissertations. 563. https://doi.org/10.7275/b3tw-6w04 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/563 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A NEW APPROACH TO USING PHOTOGRAPHS AND CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEMS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL ASTRONOMY CLASSES A Dissertation Presented by HYUN JU LEE Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION May 2012 Education © Copyright by Hyunju Lee 2012 All Rights Reserved A NEW APPROACH TO USING PHOTOGRAPHS AND CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEMS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL ASTRONOMY CLASSES A Dissertation Presented by HYUN JU LEE Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Allan Feldman, Chair _______________________________________ John Clement, Member _______________________________________ Stephen Schneider, Member ____________________________________ Christine B. McCormick, Dean School of Education DEDICATION To my grandfather JeongSuk Kang who gave me endless love like the stars in the universe. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am sincerely and heartily grateful to those who made this dissertation possible. I would not have been at this stage of my dissertation without the help and support of them. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Allan Feldman for his guidance, support, and encouragement throughout the whole doctoral program. Furthermore, I would like to thank Prof. John Clement for his insightful comments and encouragement, and Prof. Stephen Schneider for his kind support and comments in astronomy education. I was lucky that I met the three scholars and had opportunities of working with them. I extend my gratitude to Prof. Kathleen Davis for her warmhearted cheer, Prof. William Leonard who introduced me a teacher, Mary, for the study, Prof. William Gerace and Prof. Ian Beatty for giving me the opportunity of working as a research assistant at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute for the past five years. I would like to thank Prof. Yaron Schur for his comments on the curriculum development, and Mary and her students who participated in this study. It has been a long journey to earn a doctoral degree. When I started the study, there were only me and my husband, and now we have two lovely children. I would like to give my special thanks and love to my husband Ilsang Yoon for his love and continuous support, and to my two little boys, Seungwoo and Kunwoo, who always bring happiness. Special commendations to my mother, relatives and friends in Korea, thank you for your encouragement and prayer. I will miss the memories and friends at Amherst. I would like to thank my wonderful neighbors, friends, daycare and preschool teachers of my children, UHS pediatricians and nurses for their warmhearted welcome and friendships. Amherst became my second hometown, and it is the place where my two boys were born and met their first friends and teachers. I will remember the beautiful colors of the trees in Fall, kids sledding in the snowstorm in Winter, the fragrance of flowers and the breeze of Spring, and all the greenness in Summer. They are all in me. Thanks for all the moments at Amherst. v ABSTRACT A NEW APPROACH TO USING PHOTOGRAPHS AND CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEMS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL ASTRONOMY CLASSES MAY 2012 HYUN JU LEE, B.S., EWHA WOMANS UNIVERSITY, Korea M.S., SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, Korea Ed.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Allan Feldman This study reports middle school astronomy classes that implemented photographs and classroom response systems (CRSs) in a discussion-oriented pedagogy with a curriculum unit for the topics of day-night and cause of seasons. In the new pedagogy, a teacher presented conceptual questions with photographs, her 6th grade students responded using the CRSs, and the teacher facilitated classroom discussion based on the student responses. I collected various data: classroom observation with field-note taking and videotaping, student pre- and post-conception tests, student attitude survey and classroom short surveys, and teacher interviews. Classroom video recordings and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed with the grounded theory approach. This approach was used to analyze the open responses of the student attitude survey as well. Pre- and post- conception tests consisted of open-ended questions and they were scored based upon rubrics. Numerical data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and simple t-tests. In this study, I answered three research questions: 1) student-teacher discourses and interaction patterns while learning and teaching with the photographs and CRSs in the new pedagogy; 2) 6th grade students’ misconceptions about the concepts of day-night and cause of seasons, and their knowledge gains after they had the intervention; and 3) the students’ and the teacher’s attitude toward the new curriculum and the new pedagogy. Finally, I discuss the student-teacher interaction model and three important teacher-questionings in this pedagogy; levels of misconceptions; and the pedagogical roles of the photographs and CRSs. Keywords: astronomy, photographs, classroom response systems, discourse, classroom discussion vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................1 The Problem .............................................................................................................2 Background of the Study ..........................................................................................3 Thinking Journey .........................................................................................3 Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment ............................................6 Similarities between TJ Instruction and TEFA Pedagogy ...........................9 Purpose of the Study ..............................................................................................10 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...............................................................................................11 Misconceptions about Day-Night and Cause of Seasons .......................................11 Misconceptions about Day-Night ..............................................................12 Misconceptions about Cause of Seasons ...................................................14 Visual Representations in Science Education ........................................................15 Photographs as Static Visual Representation .............................................20 Visual-Spatial Thinking .............................................................................23 Constructivism .......................................................................................................25 Classroom Interaction and Discourse ....................................................................31 Teacher Questioning ..................................................................................32 Conflict Map ..............................................................................................34 Argumentation ...........................................................................................36 Summary ................................................................................................................38 3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCEDURES ..............................................................40 vii Development of a Curricular Unit for Day-Night and Cause of Seasons ..............40 Choosing Topics ........................................................................................41 Developing the Curricular Unit..................................................................41 Structure of the Curricular Unit .................................................................43 Research Questions ................................................................................................44 Methods..................................................................................................................46