Collective Engagement in a Technologically Mediated Science Learning Experience: A Case study in a botanical garden

This paper presents an interactional case study from Tree Investigators, a research study designed as a technologically mediated tour of an arboretum where children aged 7-11 collaboratively learn about the characteristic features of different types of trees. Throughout the tour, children are facilitated by a Naturalist and use mobile technology (e.g., iPads) to focus on specific characteristics of trees on their touch screens while observing the trees and discussing about them. This analysis focuses on a group activity where children use a mobile app to identify a mystery tree, analyzed through video-based Interaction Analysis. The findings reveal a collective engagement afforded by a coordinated interaction between sensory modes (verbal, gaze, touch, spatial) and mobile technologies (iPads, AR content). The purpose of this analysis is to help researchers and educators utilize the analytical concept of the collective when designing or examining mobile learning activities outside of school. The Tree Investigators research and design project investigates science learning within technologically enhanced outdoor informal learning institutions (ILIs) such as nature centers and arboretums. Tree Investigators includes a field tour at an arboretum where families and children are facilitated by naturalists to collaboratively learn about the characteristic features of different types of trees. Throughout the tour activity, children are accompanied by their families and are encouraged to use mobile technology (e.g., iPads) to discuss the scientific characteristics of trees as they observe trees. The analysis in this paper focuses on the coordination of sensory observations, interactions, technology, and science content when children were facilitated to use a mobile application to identify an unknown tree, called the mystery tree. This paper contributes an account of collective engagement, coupled with learners’ sensory interactions, as a theoretical tool that can aid in the research and design of mobile computing to support out-of-school learning in ILIs. Conceptual Framework This paper focuses on interactions between learners, mobile computers, and an outdoor learning center to exemplify a collaborative educational design which includes learner-centered pedagogy relevant to learning outside of school. With this focus, our work draws on two theoretical literatures: collective engagement (Thomas & Brown, 2011) and learners’ interactions with technologies. The structure of our mobile learning activity includes learner-centered, small group engagement facilitated by a Naturalist where learners work on authentic problems to acquire new scientific information as part of a visit to the Arboretum at Penn State. The learners’ activities occur within the context of emerging technologies, which present a potential for analyzing what Thomas and Brown (2011) call the collective, which is a highly collaborative problem solving system relying on the complex, real time coordination of various resources — including people, skills, technologies, and interactions. The concept of the collective relates to the framework of distributed intelligence (Pea, 1993, White & Pea, 2011) whereby intelligence is seen as spread across social and material resources. In the same vein, “collective intelligence” is enlisted amongst the eleven core social and educational skills for children in the emerging participatory culture of the future (MacArthur Foundation, 2006, p. 4). Also, various attempts at re-imagining education, such as the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (e.g., ‘Schooling for Tomorrow’ and ‘Future of Higher Education’), direct educators towards a future where learning will require cross-disciplinary expertise encompassing multiple ways of knowing. Concepts like distributed intelligence and the collective enable researchers to understand that these multiple ways of knowing do not reside within the individual; rather, knowing locates itself in the dynamics of coordinated interactions of human and technological resources. An important characteristic of the collective as emphasized by Thomas and Brown (2011) is that the collective is “defined by an active engagement with the process of learning” (p. 52) while “providing access to an increasing number of resources managed by a technological infrastructure” (p. 53) since it is “well designed to facilitate peer-to peer learning, their raison d’être” (p.53). We rephrase these characteristics as: (1) active engagement with the learning process and (2) accessing multiple human and technological resources. It is important to note that collective engagement invokes the concept of multimodality or multiple semiotic modes (Hodge & Kress, 1988; Kress, 2005; Kress, et al., 2001; Lemke, 2002) from the field of social semiotics. Kress et al. (2001) explains multiple modes within learning “when learners actively engage with all modes as a complex activity in which speech or writing are involved among a number of modes” (Kress et al., 2001, p.1). The importance of multiple modes in learning specifically science literacy is furthered by Lemke ICLS 2014 Proceedings 378 © ISLS (2002) who asserts that all meaning resides in the integration of complex material systems that span across temporal, spatial scales which can be seen as semiotic resource systems—separable only analytically. One semiotic resource is digital technology (Baldry & Thibault, 2006) that combines and unfolds other semiotic resources in new and innovative ways (O'Halloran, 2009). Researchers (e.g., Mann & Reimann, 2007) also emphasize the role of mobile learning technologies as mediating tools—acting as a cultural intermediary between the learner and his or her social and physical environment. In keeping with this view, we understand that mobile technology serves as a semiotic resource for families’ meaning making. Studies (e.g., KahrHøjland, 2011; Sung et al., 2010) where out-of-school learning activities utilized mobile technologies have recommendations that align with characteristics of the collective. Sung et al. (2010) in their museum-based study found that students using a mobile problem solving guide system fared well in terms of interactions and learning-related discussions. KahrHøjland’s (2011) findings from a science centre study favor a narrative-based exploratory design for meaningful technological scaffolding. However, both studies lament learners’ disengagement with the exhibits, and a lack of deeper analysis, especially when utilizing technologies. They recommend a detail-oriented design that explicitly directs learner’s attention to some specific aspect of the materiality (e.g., texture, actual size) on-site in order to engage learners in in-depth discussions and careful study of the exhibits, instead of a focus on just the technology (Hsi, 2003). Research Question How do mobile computers interact with sensory semiotic modes to support collective engagement of learners while exploring trees in an ILI?