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Volume 38, Issue 2
Displaying 1-12 of 12 articles from this issue
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[in Japanese]2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 39
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2017
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSDownload PDF (478K)
Special Article
Invited Education Issue
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Naomi MIYAKE, Jun OSHIMA, Hiroyuki MASUKAWA2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 43-53
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThis manuscript aims to introduce a discipline called the learning sciences to readers of this journal. Naomi Miyake spent years in the graduate program at UC San Diego in 1980s, was involved in the emergence of cognitive science and has expanded her basic research toward classroom practices. Jun Oshima spent years in 1990s as a graduate student at the University of Toronto to work on how computers can support students’ knowledge building in the classroom and has continued lesson studies in Japan. The two researchers had three meetings to talk about their research field. Their conversation was structured as a story line by Hiroyuki Masukawa. First, it starts with Miyake’s talk about how the cognitive science emerged and came to be related to the learning sciences. Second, Oshima describes his experience to be in the vortex of the emergence of the learning sciences and research projects in the 90s. Third, the talk continues to discuss more deeply a disciplinary issue of how we treat human learning in the learning sciences. Finally, we wrap up our talk by summarizing the future of this discipline and how we will approach collaboration with practitioners and other stakeholders in education.View full abstractDownload PDF (333K)
Research Article
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Miki SAKAMOTO, Etsuji YAMAGUCHI, Tomokazu YAMAMOTO, Keita MURATSU, Shi ...2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 54-64
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSOne feature of design-based research is progressive refinement of classroom practice and learning environments through the cycles of design and analysis. In our previous study (Yamamoto et al., 2013), we taught a science unit to fifth graders that dealt with the construction of arguments comprising claim, evidence, and reasoning. Through an analysis of the students’ performance after the unit, in this study, classroom practice was revised and its effectiveness was tested. The revisions to the unit were aimed at fostering the transfer of acquired argument skills in line with two design principles: detailed reflection on written arguments and fading scaffolds. One hundred and fourteen fifth graders were taught the revised unit, and then performed two argument tasks. The first argument task required students to write an argument related to the content of the unit after the training. The second argument task, the transfer task, required them to write an argument on other scientific topics which they had learned before. Their performance on these tasks was compared with that of students in the previous study. While students who participated in the revised unit obtained the same scores at the first argument task as students in the baseline unit, they showed more improvement in the transfer task in criteria concerning evidence. More students could justify their claims with both evidence (data) and reasoning (known scientific rationale). These results showed that the two design principles were effective in fostering the transfer of argument skills through the iterant cycles of design and analysis.View full abstractDownload PDF (481K) -
Hideaki KUZUOKA, Yasuyuki SUZUKI, Naomi YAMASHITA, Hiroshi KATO, Hidey ...2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 65-74
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSAstronomy education is particularly difficult because it requires learners to grasp multiple perspectives of celestial motion and reach a meta-level understanding by combining these perspectives. To enhance the understanding of various astronomy education perspectives, we developed a tangible learning environment called the tangible earth system. In this paper, we report on a case study in which we used our tangible earth system as an educational tool in a collaborative learning environment. Based on Price’s (2008) assessment framework, we identified design problems that impede learners from collaboratively understanding celestial concepts. For example, the tangible interface’s physical nature often hindered learners from grasping multiple perspectives and exchanging competent interpretations, misleading them into making incorrect judgments. Based on our analysis, we discussed design principles to alleviate the problems of location, dynamics, and correspondence parameters.View full abstractDownload PDF (1587K) -
Sakiko NAKASHIN, Etsuji YAMAGUCHI, Isao MURAYAMA, Miki SAKAMOTO, Tomok ...2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 75-83
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe goals of science education include developing students’ capability to engage in scientific inquiry. Asking questions is one of the elements of scientific inquiry. A scientific question is a question that can be answered through experiments and observation, or a theory-inspired question. We focused on the latter because there has been to no study dealing with instructional scaffolding for generating theory-inspired questions. We conjectured that fostering students’ meta-understanding of theory would be an instructional scaffolding for generating theory-inspired questions. We implemented a curricular unit for 37 sixth grade elementary school students, adopting the curricular unit designed by previous studies. We also developed a written assessment instrument for assessing students’ meta-understanding of theory and students’ questions. Results indicate that the curricular unit fostering students’ meta-understanding of theory may support them in generating scientific questions.View full abstractDownload PDF (345K) -
Moegi SAITO2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 84-96
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThis research examined the effects of the order of learning materials and the collaborative conceptual change, observed in two classrooms of 21 and 25 third graders. Each class was taught by a experienced teacher to help the children learn about the air in twelve lessons. The children learned the concept collaboratively, by guessing the possible results of a given experiment and discussing the alternatives, in eleven experiments set in a fixed order. Almost all the children successfully changed their folk knowledge into some rudimentary scientific concept of the air. The answers to the first six problems were justifiable with daily experiences. The latter set required the children to gradually form a highly abstract explanatory model, based on the knowledge gained through the first set of problems. Analysis revealed that the critical process towards change started with their shared sense of the inadequacy of their comprehension aroused by the carefully thought out order of the problems. This incongruity then induced enduring discussion to express and debate ideas based on each student’s evolving explanatory model. To conclude, the combination of the carefully devised structure of the learning materials and the collaborative atmosphere were the key to the success of these classes.View full abstractDownload PDF (376K) -
Keigo MINAKUCHI, Masamichi YUZAWA, Atsushi ASAKAWA, Hitomi KURANAGA, D ...2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 97-106
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSIn this study we examined the relationship between the attitude of children with poor working memory and the characteristics of teachers’ revoicing in mathematics classroom discussion. Three children with poor working memory and three children with average working memory were selected from each of two fourth-year classes by computer-based working memory assessment, and observed in mathematics classes by two teachers using different discussion-centered approaches. The classes were also videotaped and teachers’ and childrens’ utterances were transcribed. The following were the main results: In classes with one teacher (T1), the children with poor working memory listened carefully to the teacher’s explanation and classmates’ opinions at the same rates as the children with average working memory did, whereas in classes by the other teacher (T2), the children with poor working memory did not listen to the teacher’s explanation and classmates’ opinions as carefully as the children with average working memory did. When teachers’ utterances were analyzed, T1 used more revoicing than T2 did. It is suggested that the teacher’s revoicing helped children with poor working memory understand and follow the discussion in mathematics class.View full abstractDownload PDF (1202K) -
Nobuaki KATO, Yasufumi KAWAMURA, Yoshiro SADAMOTO, Kazuaki KAHARA2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 107-116
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSBefore, during, and after a class practice for force and motion at a public junior high school, we investigated how the practice and everyday experience affect the mechanics concepts of the students, using questionnaires and concept maps. The results are as follows: 1) Students treat the label of “force does not act” as a lower concept before the practice and as an upper concept similar to “force acts” after the practice. 2) Students, who maintain scientifically adequate concepts after the practice, treat both labels of “force acts” and “force does not act” as upper concepts and separate the labels associated with the first law of motion from the labels associated with the second law of motion. 3) It is difficult for most students to separate the label of “force does not act” from the label of “slowing down” in the practice. In their concept construction, the wrong everyday-experience-knowledge, in which the velocity of an object is slowing down when no force acts on the object, prevents the students from getting scientifically adequate concepts. Even for other students who temporarily have scientifically adequate concepts in the practice, the wrong everyday-experience-knowledge tends to reconstruct the MIF misconception after the practice.View full abstractDownload PDF (1574K) -
Takeshi KITAZAWA, Toshio MOCHIZUKI2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 117-134
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSNew teachers who are shocked by real-world classroom situations—such as rules of the local school, human relationships in a shielded environment, and the reality of teaching children—tend to leave the workforce within a few years, and it has become necessary to educate student teachers in the universities with a focus on adaptive professional socialization of teachers (Zeichner & Gore, 1990) to overcome this problem. We have provided a SNS (Social Networking Service) where pre-service teachers can have a dialogue based on their report of experiences during their practice teaching. However, in order to promote the professional socialization of teachers, we designed a new SNS where experienced teachers can participate in a lesson. We then compared by year the effects of studying the changed lesson. We revised the design of the pre-teaching from the year 2010, and altered the lesson design of the pre-teaching for the year 2012, so that an experienced teacher can join face-to-face lessons and a university teacher and an experienced teacher waited to submit their comments to SNS until almost all students had submitted. As we aimed to increase submission of diaries and comments about professional socialization, we changed the classroom design in the year 2013, introducing storytelling about the image of their practice teaching, and the way of intervention in SNS by an experienced teacher. The results show an increase of diaries and comments which were submitted to SNS about “social behavior as professionals,” “commitment towards work,” “value and standpoint as teachers,” “expectation and actuality of schools” and “efficacy”.View full abstractDownload PDF (1242K)
General Article
Research Article
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Mamoru KOIKE, Yuki KOMATSUDA, Akira KAMOSHITA, Mitsuru NAGANUMA, Sugur ...2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 135-147
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSIn this study a new two-dimensional balance lever was developed as a teaching tool in advanced science class of sixth graders in elementary school, in order to help pupils to understand and use the principle of leverage and its mechanism to balance things horizontally. Through practical application of this teaching tool to pupils, we investigated its usefulness and clarified the following four points: 1) This teaching tool consists of a brass nail (size 1.6) as fulcrum, an acrylic plate (1 mm thickness), and 5.0 g balance weights. 2) After the science class using this tool, pupils’ recognition and understanding of the mechanism of lever and its calculation method changed, achieving a correct understanding of the role of the fulcrum. 3) Pupils were able to solve some problems of the two-dimensional balance lever by construction or calculation method. 4) Pupil’s recognition of the lever changed from being a teaching tool to making a new discovery. It is thus suggested that pupils feel the new teaching tool to be useful, since in addition to changing their recognition of the mechanism of lever and calculation method, they were able to deepen their understanding of and enhance their satisfaction with the science class.View full abstractDownload PDF (1358K) -
Hidetoshi ANDOH, Takayuki NAKAMURA, Mie OBARA2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 148-156
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe need for cooperation between science and mathematics teaching was emphasized by the revision of the national curriculum in 2008. However, a lesson plan which involves cooperation between science and mathematics is rarely performed in the curriculum today. The purpose of this research is to propose a lesson which associates science and mathematics teaching and verify its educational effectiveness in high school. A lesson plan for mathematics class was prepared for 66 high school students, in order to apply Maraldai’s angle by inquiring the area of the film stretched across the surface of a soap film, and inside a regular tetrahedron. When Wilcoxon’s signed-rank tests were performed on 17 common items in the pre-and post-questionnaires before and after the lesson, significant differences were found in answers, such as “Science is required for mathematics”, “By studying mathematics we come to recognize a nature”, and “Science and mathematics are subjects which have close relation”. These results suggest that there was an clear educational effect in the lesson in which the combination of science and mathematics teaching were practiced.View full abstractDownload PDF (806K)
Research Data
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Masaharu TAKEMURA, Tomoko KAZAMA2014 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 157-161
Published: 2014
Released on J-STAGE: September 11, 2014
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe Japanese biological term Fukusei denotes some micro-level to macro-level biological phenomena. It can be interpreted as DNA replication at the molecular level directly, cell division at the cellular level indirectly, reproduction at the individual level, and speciation at the species level. The new Japanese national curriculum framework for high schools, the Course of Study (CS), assigns greater importance to teaching “Life possesses not only unity but also diversity.” We suggest that the Fukusei concept is applicable to this new curriculum for the most important commonality of life, and for comprehensive understanding and teaching of life, along with the course of the Japanese biology textbooks Basic Biology (Seibutsu-Kiso in Japanese) and Advanced Biology (Seibutsu in Japanese).View full abstractDownload PDF (333K)
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