Sadhana Puntambekar

• University of Wisconsin–Madison

This study examined how teachers worked with a digital text tool (VidyaMap) to support students’ progressive inquiry and learning. Participants in this study included three experienced biology teachers (Alex, Bella, Chloe) and their eighth-grade students. We examined two sessions related to teachers’ support of students’ small group inquiry with Vi...

Computer-aided simulation-based platforms have been shown to be effective tools for teaching STEM concepts. At the same time, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) platforms encourage different viewpoints and approaches from the learners which can enrich the learning experience in STEM classrooms. The deployment in recent years of networ...

This study explored the Idea Wall, a collaborative knowledge-building tool to support students’ collaboration in small groups during a plant biology science curriculum. We examined the affordances and challenges of the Idea Wall and found the effective use of the tool's spatial organization capabilities by students, particularly the Yup Zone and th...

This study explored the Idea Wall, a collaborative knowledge-building tool to support students’ collaboration in small groups during a plant biology science curriculum. We examined the affordances and challenges of the Idea Wall and found the effective use of the tool's spatial organization capabilities by students, particularly the Yup Zone and th...

In this paper, we introduce an epistemic scaffolding framework for understanding the nature of support for epistemic growth in science. Our framework distinguishes between two patterns of epistemic scaffolding: implicit and explicit. Implicit epistemic scaffolding encompasses support integrated into contexts, activities, discourse, or tools, exerti...

The Institute for Student‐AI Teaming (iSAT) addresses the foundational question: how to promote deep conceptual learning via rich socio‐collaborative learning experiences for all students?—a question that is ripe for AI‐based facilitation and has the potential to transform classrooms. We advance research in speech, computer vision, human‐agent team...

We investigated how the level of variance in students’ prior knowledge may have influenced their collaborative interactions and science learning in small groups. We examined learning outcomes from 102 groups from seven science teachers’ classes and discourse from two contrasting groups: Homogeneous versus heterogeneous. We examined individual and g...

To assess student knowledge, educators face a tradeoff between open-ended versus fixed-response questions. Open-ended questions are easier to formulate, and provide greater insight into student learning, but are burdensome. Machine learning methods that could reduce the assessment burden also have a cost, given that large datasets of reliably asses...

Creating effective middle school STEM curricula requires a combination of individual and collaborative learning. Prior studies showed that finding a proper balance and providing uninterrupted knowledge transmission between different learning modes can be challenging in such mixed pedagogical approaches. In this paper, we present a multi-device inte...

Building causal knowledge is critical to science learning and scientific explanations that require one to understand the how and why of a phenomenon. In the present study, we focused on writing about the how and why of a phenomenon. We used natural language processing (NLP) to provide automated feedback on middle school students' writing about an u...

Classroom orchestration requires teachers to concurrently manage multiple activities across multiple social levels (individual, group, and class) and under various constraints. Real-time dashboards can support teachers; however, designing actionable dashboards is a huge challenge. This paper describes a participatory design study to identify and in...

In this study, we compared students’ learning from two conditions in a unit on inclined planes: Virtual-then-Physical (V-t-P) (n = 50), where students conducted a virtual lab followed by a physical lab, or vice versa in the Physical-then-Virtual condition (P-t-V) (n = 60). We analyzed students’ written explanations after each lab focusing on connec...

This paper traces the origins of the scaffolding construct, placing it in its theoretical-historical context. The paper discusses the connection between Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and the notion of scaffolding, and explicates the differences between scaffolding and scaffolds. The paper then presents a discussion of the changes t...

Research exploring students’ learning from physical and virtual labs has suggested that on the whole, students learn science content just as well, if not better from virtual labs as they do from physical labs. However, the affordances of physical labs might support the learning of specific skills and competencies that are just as crucial for learni...

Designing learning environments with distributed scaffolding—support distributed across different instructional tools, activities, and the teacher—can help support students’ different needs, but a critical question is how the design incorporates the hallmark feature of responsive support. While most material scaffolds in instructional tools are inh...

The aim of this study was to investigate how teachers interact with students in order to prepare them to conduct research with multiple online texts as part of the process of scientific inquiry in the classroom. The specific focus of this work was on understanding how teachers used classroom dialogue to create an environment that supports the use o...

Physical and virtual experimentation are thought to have different affordances for supporting students’ learning. Research investigating the use of physical and virtual experiments to support students’ learning has identified a variety of, sometimes conflicting, outcomes. Unanswered questions remain about how physical and virtual experiments may im...

Using models to explain phenomena is important in science. Virtual and physical models have different affordances that can be integrated to foster students’ learning. Integrating evidence from multiple models to justify explanations is challenging, and we know little about how students coordinate such information, especially in biology. This study...

This study compared middle school students' science learning and discourse patterns in physical and virtual labs. Students in virtual labs had significantly higher learning gains than students in the physical labs on a pre and post-test content knowledge test. To understand the difference in learning gains, we analyzed the discourse of the students...

This poster describes a pilot study that investigated how parents intervened with scaffolding, if at all, when children interacted with a hands-on archaeology exhibit. In particular, this study examined how parents mediated scaffolding provided by museum educators during interaction with the exhibit.

Currently of great significance to the study of reading and text comprehension is the fact that learners now encounter many texts in digital formats. While making navigation decisions during reading digital texts, readers need to comprehend both the individual texts and the relationships among sources in the overall structure of the digital text en...

While educators often assume that students working together in symmetrical groups support each other's learning, this scaffolding may look very different from scaffolding in asymmetrical relationships. Little is known about how students in symmetrical groups support one another to learn. We examined scaffolding interactions of two symmetrical group...

This poster describes how two instructors used different scaffolding strategies when teaching the same curriculum. In particular, the instructors differed in the amount and type of support provided when students received gradually reduced support from prompts in the student notebook.

The workshop about networked learning in the Learning Sciences is based on the ISLS initiative to establish a network for PhD and Master's programs in the Learning Sciences. The main objective of this network is to support the academic exchange for professors and students in Learning Sciences programs worldwide. An important question that has been...

This symposium is part of an NSF project to help The Learning Sciences community collaboratively envision a cyberinfrastructure for design-based research (DBR). Like numerous others before us, we argue that the educational research community would be well served by a mutually created cyberinfrastructure that would encourage and support engagement b...

Students tend to retain naïve understandings of concepts such as energy and force even after completing school and entering college. We developed a learning environment called the Virtual Physics System (ViPS) to help students master these concepts in the context of pulleys, a class of simple machines that are difficult to assemble and use in the r...

Current research on how gender composition within groups influences individual outcomes is both sparse and conflicting. We examined how gender composition within groups affects learning outcomes. Students from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classes from three US Midwestern public school districts with diverse demographic compositions (N=637, 314...

This study discusses the contribution of data mining of log file data to video and interview data for studying students' collaborative engagement with digital texts presented online. Given that reading is generally an individual activity, understanding this group process is important. Data analyses at multiple levels can reveal group processes of k...

Recent research results have found that students using virtual manipulatives perform as well or better on measures of conceptual understanding than their peers who used physical equipment. We report on a study with students in a conceptual physics laboratory using either physical or virtual manipulatives to investigate forces in pulley systems. Wri...

When asked about their experiences with collaborative learning, students typically mention (a) unequal participation by students - up to free-riding, and (b) dissatisfaction with the assessment of collaborative learning. In fact, as inequality of participation increases - especially when there is a free-rider in a group - the call for diversified a...

The goal of this workshop is to organize and synthesize the ideas of a team of researchers from a variety of fields into a web-based infrastructure to support design-based research (DBR). This work is supported by an NSF grant. This will be the first opportunity for selected team members to collaborate on a system design that will be developed and...

Multiple external representations (MERs) have been widely used in science teaching and learning. Theories such as dual coding theory and cognitive flexibility theory have been developed to explain why the use of MERs is beneficial to learning, but they do not provide much information on pedagogical issues such as how and in what conditions MERs cou...

Recent research results have failed to support the conventionally held belief that students learn physics best from hands-on experiences with physical equipment. Rather, studies have found that students who perform similar experiments with computer simulations perform as well or better on measures of conceptual understanding than their peers who us...

In previous studies, we have reported a difference in how physical and virtual manipulatives support students' understanding of the physics definition of work in the context of simple machines. We have shown that students who use the virtual manipulative (a computer simulation) before performing a physical experiment provided the correct response t...

Research has shown that the concept of force in a pulley is learned equally well by students using physical and virtual manipulatives. We report on a study in which students enrolled in a conceptual physics laboratory spent two weeks investigating pulley systems using either physical or virtual manipulatives. Students were given written materials w...

One of the affordances of hypertext environments is the freedom to choose the order of information presentation. However, learners may have difficulty self-regulating their learning in order to make navigation decisions that align with their goals. This chapter presents our work in helping students learn from hypertext using the CoMPASS hypertext s...

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether supporting sixth grade students to monitor and regulate their group navigation behavior while reading from hypertext would lead to a rich understanding of domain knowledge. Metanavigation support in the form of prompts was provided to groups of students who collaboratively used a hypertext system...

Collaborative learning provides opportunities to facilitate students' knowledge construction. However, students may face challenges while constructing meaning through dialogue. This study explored multiple forms of support to foster collaboration that would lead to a deeper understanding of science ideas and high-quality group concept maps. Ninety-...

Analyzing Collaborative Interactions in CSCL Methods, Approaches, and Issues Sadhana Puntambekar, Gijsbert Erkens, and Cindy Hmelo-Silver, editors In more than two decades of research in CSCL (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning), researchers have used several methods to understand how individuals learn in groups and how groups of learners co...

Minimal access surgery is an accepted treatment modality in cervical cancer. Despite the advantages of laparoscopy, the surgical technique of laparoscopic radical hysterectomy is not very commonly performed. Robotic surgery is an emerging field with rapid acceptance because of the 3-dimensional image, dexterity of instruments and autonomy of camera...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, complications, margin status, and functional outcome (on urinary and sexual functions) of nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy (NSRH) performed laparoscopically. Patients with cervical carcinoma of stage Ia2 and Ib1 underwent laparoscopic NSRH along with pelvic lymphadenectomy. We performed the t...

Often computer simulation environments present students with an idealized version of the real world which can affect students' conceptual understanding. In this study we investigate the effects of completing an experiment in mechanics using this ideal world as compared to an identical experiment in the real world. Students in three of five conceptu...

Our previous work has shown that experimentation with virtual manipulatives supports students' conceptual learning about simple machines differently than experimentation with physical manipulatives [1]. This difference could be due to the ``messiness'' of physical data from factors such as dissipative effects and measurement uncertainty. In this st...

This case study provides an account of three teachers' first attempts in implementing simulation experiments within a design-based inquiry science curriculum. We examined how three in-service teachers used simulations and physical models in the classroom to promote students' understanding of the nature of models. We found that teachers mostly talke...

With computers becoming more ubiquitous in our daily lives and in our classrooms, questions of how students interact and learn with physical experiments and computer simulations are central in science education. We investigated how students' ideas about pulleys were influenced by the use of physical and virtual manipulatives. We found that there we...

This article discusses the change in the notion of scaffolding from a description of the interactions between a tutor and a student to the design of tools to support student learning in project-based and design-based classrooms. The notion of scaffolding is now increasingly being used to describe various forms of support provided by software tools,...

This exploratory study examined how groups of sixth grade students worked together to create a collaborative concept map. We selected two contrasting cases based on their initial maps, one heterogeneous group with divergent maps and one homogeneous group with convergent maps. We analyzed group dialogue and collaborative and individual concept maps...

Aim. To describe a new technique of uterine manipulation in laparoscopic management of pelvic cancers. Material and Methods. We used a novel uterine hitch technique in 23 patients from May 2008 to October 2008. These patients underwent pelvic oncologic surgery including laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (n = 7), laparoscopic anterior resection (n =...

The teaching/learning interview has been used to investigate student learning. The aim of the teaching/learning interview is to model a natural learning environment while allowing more direct access to a student's or group's thinking and reasoning. The interview typically involves one to four students working with a researcher'interviewer while bei...

The use of a hypertext environment within an inquiry science curriculum is explored, comparing two conditions of group collaboration: one in which students explore the environment individually prior to a group discussion, and one in which students use the hypertext as a group while discussing the content. Student discourse is analyzed to compare th...

Using as data videotapes of archaeologists working to see and map structure in the dirt they are excavating, meaning-making in the home of a man with severe aphasia, and sequences of actual talk-in-interaction, this talk will investigate action, cognition, ...

This exploratory study investigated the interplay between science discourse and group dynamics of two groups of 6 th graders over time as they learned in a technology-rich, inquiry-based science environment. Analysis showed that the group with problematic dynamics engaged in less science talk and failed to improve over time. Despite dynamics and di...

The use of a hypertext environment within an inquiry science curriculum is explored, comparing two conditions of group collaboration: one in which students explore the environment individually prior to a group discussion, and one in which students use the hypertext as a group while discussing the content. Student discourse is analyzed to compare th...

In this paper, we discuss how students enrolled in a conceptual physics class for future elementary school teachers progress through the CoMPASS (Concept Map Project-based Activity Scaffolding System) curriculum for inclined planes. The curriculum challenges students to design the best inclined plane to lift a pool table into a van. We have found t...

Discovering knowledge from raw data is one of the goals of data mining. Yet, it is not always clear how this knowledge is used in educational computing systems and how exactly it is integrated with other knowledge like the pedagogy used. We present a case study where the use of the data mining results was initially described, to a large degree, at...

Examining how teachers structure the activities in a unit and how they facilitate classroom discussion is important to understand how innovative technology-rich curricula work in the context of classroom instruction. This study compared 2 enactments of an inquiry curriculum, then examined students' learning outcomes in classes taught by 2 teachers....

Examining how teachers structure the activities in a unit and how they facilitate classroom discussion is important to understand how innovative technology-rich curricula work in the context of classroom instruction. This study compared 2 enactments of an inquiry curriculum, then examined students' learning outcomes in classes taught by 2 teachers....

The purpose of this study was to understand how individual and group characteristics interact to produce a rich understanding of domain knowledge. Metanavigation support in the form of prompts was provided to groups of students who collaboratively used a hypertext system called CoMPASS to complete a design challenge. Multilevel analysis techniques...

Finding patterns in data collected from interactions with an educational system is only useful if the patterns can be meaningfully interpreted in the context of the student- system interaction. To further increase the chance of flnding such meaningful patterns, we extend the mining process with domain and problem speciflc representations and the pa...

One of the most important facets of collaborative learning is the interaction between individual and collaborative learning activities – between divergent perspectives and shared knowledge building. Individuals bring divergent ideas into a collaborative environment. While individuals bring their own unique knowledge and perspectives, the second imp...

In this paper, I present a synthesis of the lessons learned from a research program aimed at understanding how students learn from the multiple linked texts in hypertext environments in the context of scientific inquiry. I started with a research agenda intended to systematically understand the importance of several variables that affect learning f...

In this paper, we present two studies designed to help students navigate effectively and learn from a hypertext system, CoMPASS. Our first study (N = 74) involved an analysis of students’ navigation patterns to group them into clusters, using a k-means clustering technique. Based on this analysis, navigation patterns were grouped into four clusters...