The teaching materials our research group has elaborated are developed and implemented through ICTs. Theoretically, they are founded on constructivist theories of learning. Each of the educational activities carried out with these materials has specific cognitive demands. Therefore, the learning environment used, such as virtual learning platforms, must provide the students with the appropriate educational tools for these cognitive demands. The cognitive tools that are included in these e-learning or b-learning environments are ICT instruments, aimed at facilitating our students' acquisition of knowledge. Examples are materials used to display, represent, and organize content, fostering the effective transfer of knowledge between teacher and student and among the students themselves.
We have developed various types of educational tools. Some are used to better represent the hierarchy of the content, or the problem or experiment being dealt with in class (e.g., concept maps). A second group help to change the student's mindset by presenting a given physical phenomenon in different situations (for example, as traditional computer simulations and as hyper-realistic simulations). Others (e.g., virtual laboratories, explanatory instructional videos, video-tutorials, etc.) can help bring together in one place the information needed to solve a problem, do some given laboratory practical, or study a particular subject. According to Jonassen (as cited in Reigeluth, 1983), educational tools should be appropriate to the student's learning process, and have to be carefully selected to support the type of procedure needed for each cognitive task.
In teaching science (and physics in particular) as also in other disciplines, ICTs are commonly used to search for and communicate information, or to prepare teaching materials. Beyond this common usage, however, other resources offered by ICTs have proved helpful for science education. For example, Sims (Sims, 2000) notes that interactivity in e-learning is already accepted as implying a certain level of effectiveness and a guarantee of learning. Indeed, this assertion has been basic for us at the time of designing and implementing our computer simulations.
The use of ICTs in a cognitive-constructivist approach to education is the key to a more active, contextualized, authentic, and constructive learning process (Finol de Govea, 2007). Their use in simulating reality can facilitate meaningful learning by bringing the student and the real world closer together.
We consider that it is necessary in the teaching process to transform information into knowledge, e.g., through concept maps. This process requires the content to be selected, structured, and organized, which can be accomplished through virtual learning environments and the use of Internet (Linn, 2002).
Computers today play an important role in acquiring and applying scientific knowledge, thus facilitating science learning. Specifically, to speak of ICTs in teaching or learning demands that particular emphasis be placed on the means and resources needed for the activities, content, and educational objectives of any given topic. It is essential to consider carefully the type of materials that we shall use in our teaching practice to ensure its suitability for the transmission of the information contained in the topic, and its capacity to stimulate the students' mental activity and to connect to their cognitive characteristics.
Thus, in an essentially practical science subject such as optoelectronics, we consider that experimental work is an integral part of its character, so that one needs to implement educational materials that can meet these procedural objectives. For that, we have developed virtual laboratories and instructional videos of laboratory practicals which have provided students and teachers with new teaching models with which they can carry out laboratory experiments in virtual environments. From the perspective of teaching a scientific discipline, we therefore consider it necessary to design and elaborate learning situations in which laboratory practicals receive a specific treatment, and in which ICTs can make a significant contribution to the education of students in that area.
The goal pursued in the present research was to incorporate some of these learning tools into our teaching programs from a pedagogical perspective, and to validate their effectiveness after using them with our students.
Specifically, we propose a teaching model which is in accordance with the theories of cognitive learning. In particular, the teaching methodology of these theories has guided how we design, elaborate, and put into practice a learning process characterized by the use of the new technologies. Each of the teaching material proposals developed in this research will be described individually in the different sections of this chapter.
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