Abstracts - Earli

University of Toronto, Canada describes college courses in nanoscience. Bat-Sheva Eylon,Weizmann Institute, Israel discusses university courses in design. Marcia C. Linn, UC Berkeley,and Hee Sun Lee, Tufts, United States discuss precollege science courses. Jan van der Meij andTon de Jong, Twente, Netherlands, discuss precollege physics instruction. The presentations helpexplain the debate in the field by showing that visualizations often need iterative design to becomeeffective–typically researchers test and refine the visualization in several cycles before showingthe benefit– and that some visualizations succeed only when accompanied by other instructionalactivities. Simply "showing" how things work or presenting an expert visualization is notsufficient to improve learning. The presentations demonstrate that successful visualizations have aclear role in instruction such as bridging everyday and atomic models of scientific phenomena orenabling learners to test their conjectures and get feedback. In addition, visualizations succeedwhen embedded in inquiry activities that include eliciting student ideas, developing criteria, andsupporting student reflection. The symposium will be introduced by Rich Duschl, Rutger’sUniversity, the lead editor of the recent National Academy of Science book entitled TakingScience to School. Duschl will set the stage by summarizing the role of visualizations in scienceeducation. Ken Koedinger, Carnegie Mellon University, will discuss the presentations, drawing onhis groundbreaking research on the Cognitive Tutor and thoughtful approach to experimentaldesign.Implementing a framework for conceptual change in engineering scienceJames Slotta, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, CanadaThis paper builds on work by Chi and Slotta to address issues of conceptual change in engineeringscience for topics such as those encountered in nano science (e.g., microfluidics). In partnershipwith engineering educators, Slotta is developing a new technology enhanced system that helpsengineering students build an ontological understanding of topics in engineering science. Thesystem supports a special kind of training to establish an "ontological schema" for a category ofconcepts. All instructional materials are constructed on a technology platform called the ScalableArchitecture for Interactive Learning (SAIL), and employ rich simulations and visualizationswithin a highly interactive java-based learning environment. The platform is open source, and wasco-developed by the Technology-Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) center. The author willpresent details of the study design, the materials and technology environment, and results of trialswith engineering students. Through the application of basic cognitive research to new topicdomains and ecologically valid settings, this study illustrates the powerful synergies that can occurbetween cognitive psychology and educational research.Sequencing Multiple Dynamic Representations: Supporting students’ learning with multiplerepresentations in a dynamic simulation-based learning environmentJan van der Meij, University of Twente, NetherlandsTon de Jong, University of Twente, NetherlandsIn this study we examined the effect of sequencing multiple dynamic representations, combinedwith explicit instruction to relate and translate between representations, on learning outcomes.Two versions of the same simulation-based inquiry learning environment on the physics topic ofmoments were compared: A learning environment providing the representations step-by-step,where the instructional support focused on relations between the variables in the domain as well asrelations between the representations (experimental condition) and A learning environmentproviding all representations at once, where the instructional support focused solely on relationsbetween the variables in the domain (control condition). The subjects were 106 students from– 173 –