Pedagogy for Conceptual Thinking in the Digital Age: Enhancing Learning Outcomes with Meaning Equivalence Reusable Learning Objects (MERLO) Formative Assessments
Título: Pedagogy for Conceptual Thinking in the Digital Age: Enhancing Learning Outcomes with Meaning Equivalence Reusable Learning Objects (MERLO) Formative Assessments
Autor: Etkind, Masha; Shafrir, Uri; Kenett, Ron; Roytman, Leo
Resumen: [EN] The research presented in this paper is the fruit of an ongoing international
collaboration with the goal of enhancing students learning outcomes by
implementing and sharing a novel pedagogy for conceptual thinking, and use
of an innovative didactical and methodological tool: Meaning Equivalence
Reusable Learning Objects (MERLO) that provide student-centered, weekly
formative assessments for exploring and discussing conceptual situations in
small groups. It was developed, tested, and implemented in Canada at
University of Toronto and Ryerson University, as well as in Israel, Italy,
Russia, and Australia, in different knowledge domains, including: physics;
biology; mathematics; mathematics teacher education; teacher training;
developmental psychology; English as a second language; architecture;
management; business; project management. Statistical analysis of MERLO
data collected since 2002, shows that conceptual thinking enhance learning
outcomes and deepens students’ comprehension of the conceptual content of
learned material. Conceptual thinking is learnable, and provide metrics to
document continuous increase in higher-order thinking skills such as critical
conceptual thinking, transfer of knowledge, and problem solving. Pedagogy
for conceptual thinking is currently implemented with Brightspace
(http://www.brightspace.com/), Integrated Learning Platform (ILP) offered
by D2L (http://www.d2l.com/) that supports customizable online pedagogy.