Browsing by Subject "exploratory learning"

This is a research on how the manifestation of critical thinking skills of secondary school students was supported in the different iterations of the Global Challenges phenomenom-based learning course. Phenomenom-based learning (PhBL) is one alternative on how to teach critical information gathering and processing skills – also known as knowledge building – which are vital in the modern society. The implemented models of PhBL, however, lack foundational research and they’ve been criticized to be a waste of time. This thesis introduces how PhBL can be carried out in a pedagogically meaningful way by utilizing the theories of project-based learning, inquiry-based learning and collaborative knowledge building. Three years of design work resulted in a research-based model on how to organize a PhBL course for secondary education. The model is justified and criticized in the framework of the national curriculum and previous research. This thesis follows the design-based research (DBR) protocol by describing the needs, different processes and the final product of the design. Research material was gathered from the Global Challenges course that was organized from 2017 to 2019 by Helsinki University Science Education Center for students of secondary schools. The gathered material is mostly qualitative, constisting of the course materials, participant observation carried out by the university students and narrative self-evaluations, course artefacts and summative feedbacks from the secondary school students. In the first iteration 10 out of 19 attending students were observed, whereas in the second iteration all seven attending students were observed. The observation reports of the first two iterations were subjected to empirical problem analysis. In the third iteration participant observation was no longer carried out, and all material consists of the course assignments that the 17 attending students submitted in to the created MOOC web-learning environment. The manifestation of the critical thinking skills on the secondary school students’ course assignments in 2nd and 3rd iterations were comparatively analyzed with The Vocabulary of Critical Thinking Skills (2009) by Phil Washburn. A successfull practice of phenomenom-based learning required well defined structure and guidance. The goals of the course were met only partially in the first iterations, because the freedom and fun didn’t motivate the students to invest in the knowledge building process. The elements implemented in the last iteration supported meeting the goals considerably more efficiently than the model of free knowledge creation. The manifestation of the critical thinking skills was connected to the ability to follow the structures modelled after the Progressive inquiry. The conclusion was that the structures of PhBL must be built up carefully, if they are to challenge the traditional subject learning model in a pedagogically meaningful way.