This project explores, develops and tests the educational possibilities of using an integrated, multi-functional computational medium that includes full programming capability. Boxer defines a high-powered work station environment for the personal and professional use of children, teachers, and curriculum developers of the 1990s. In a previous NSF grant, we established the scientific basis for such a system in a principled design, and we established the technological basis in a field-deployable implementation. Models of new kinds of educational practice in school settings that are made possible by such a medium, will be developed and tested. These models will highlight the new and special characteristics of Boxer that promise important changes in the ordering, content and form of school science. In particular, it will be demonstrated that Boxer is transparent, allowing students and teachers to get more quickly through the technical aspects of the system to basic mathematical and scientific learning, and that Boxer provides dramatic synergy in allowing easy combining of the various aspects of the system (text editing, data base capabilities, etc.), most particularly, synergy between programming and learning scientific principles. Two new generalizable models of educational practice based on the use of a computational medium will be built. The first will teach about motion by developing a product-oriented community practice in the classroom. That practice will grow out of a carefully designed and integrated set of exercise microworlds, and its effectiveness in promoting deep conceptual change will be assessed by the capability of students to learn more on completion of the course. The second model will teach topics in fact-intensive sciences like biology by using the medium to display the hidden structure of knowledge in the domain, and by supporting learning and problem solving activities specifically appropriate to such domains.
