Conceptual Understandings of Students with Visual Impairments about Biodiversity across Ecosystems

[摘要] Researchers have documentedthe instructional value of conducting summer science camps for blind orvisually impaired students (Wild, Hilson, & Farrand, 2013a; Wild, Hilson,& Hobson, 2013b.) In the summer of 2013, shortly after the Next GenerationScience Standards (NGSS) were officially released, a week-long summer camp forvisually impaired high school-aged students was conducted. The theme of thecamp was biodiversity across ecosystems. Inspiration was drawn from A Framework for K-12 Science Education:Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National ResearchCouncil, 2012) which was the guiding document for composing NGSS. Researchers usedsemi-structured interviews using the questions provided by the NGSS (NRC, 2012)to understand and describe the conceptual understandings of the conceptspresented in the camp before and after instruction. Before instructionstudents’ conceptual understandings of biodiversity and ecosystems were variedand scientifically incomplete. After instruction students’ conceptualunderstandings were expanded but still scientifically incomplete; there weremore than double the initial number of scientific understandings, but there remainednearly as many scientific fragments as before instruction. While thefield-based curriculum used in the study provided for some additionalscientific understandings for the students, further instruction on the topicspresented in this camp utilizing a variety of pedagogical methods appear to bein order.

[学科分类] 眼科学

[关键词] simple game;power indices;influence relation;power relation;performance relation