Original Papers
Development and Evaluation of the Digital Fortune Line System
2011 Volume 51 Issue 3 Pages 33-46
Details
2011 Volume 51 Issue 3 Pages 33-46
In this study, we developed the Digital Fortune Line System for supporting the visualization and sharing of students' multiple ideas and their commitment to those ideas. We used the Conceptual Ecology Model as a theoretical base, which has received much attention from researchers and teachers aiming to promote conceptual change. In process of developing the DFL, we put importance on three principles: 1) students express their own commitments, 2) students refer commitments each other, and 3) teachers and students grasp the change of commitments. To evaluate how the DFL is effective as a learning support tool in school science, while designing a science curriculum for the elementary school, we have conducted three pilot surveys as below: 1) interviews with 5 teachers prior to the lessons, followed by posterior surveys of 2) paper questionnaire targeting 37 pupils in fourth-graders, and 3) interviews with 20 pupils by random sampling among the targeting group. We obtained a result that shows that most pupils recognised their conceptual changes in implementing the characteristic functions of the DFL: Representation, Layer display, and Summary. The result indicates that the DFL has a possilbility of enhancing classroom teaching and curricula in promoting students' conceptual changes.
