Drill & Practice
In every subject area, there are skills and concepts that need to be automatic before students are ready for more advanced skills. A very traditional approach is to use worksheets or problems and questions form the textbook to gain the necessary practice, but this has several drawbacks which drill and practice software can alleviate. First, students doing a pencil and paper problem set usually need to wait for feedback on their performance and may solidify bad habits without realizing it. When using drill and practice software, students can find out immediately if they answered an item correctly and can adjust right away. Second, not every student needs the same amount of practice before they are ready for more challenging problems. It can be logistically difficult to identify where each student is at and to adapt accordingly when a textbook. Many drill and practice software packages have the ability to adapt to student performance. For example, the Minds on Physics modules from the Physics Classroom provide students with more questions of they type they previously got wrong to ensure mastery of all the objectives. Finally, some students may need more practice problems than the teacher has available. Many drill and practice options, such as those on the PhysicsLAB website, randomly generate values for calculations, making the practice exercises infinitely repeatable.Tutorial Software
While there is a lot of value in students "discovering" what they need to know, there are some pieces they need to be taught in a more direct way and tutorial software can play a powerful role in this. In my building, we spend a lot of time working with students on ways to actively engage with the textbook and explicitly teach strategies for students to stop and check their understanding. In many tutorials, such as those from the Physics Classroom or Khan Academy, checkpoints with immediate feedback are built directly into the software, providing students a concrete way to interact with the material as they learn. Even when students know how to actively engage with a textbook, tutorial software can offer significant advantages. In science, there are a number of complex concepts that are difficult to communicate using only words and static, two-dimensional illustrations. The online version of the textbook in my Conceptual Physics course overcomes this challenge by including animations, interactive simulations, and other dynamic elements to more clearly illustrate challenging, but important concepts.Simulations
In a room full of science teachers, simulations are the type of instructional software most likely to strike a nerve. While many simulations lend themselves well to inquiry and other constructivist methods, they do have important limitations. As the NSTA points out in a chapter on simulations from Technology in the Science Classroom, simulations are, by necessity, simplified models of the real world. In some cases, this can be an advantage. For example, students often struggle to understand concepts like inertia ("An object in motion stays in motion") and conservation of energy since friction makes it difficult to see these clearly in our everyday experience. A simulation offers the opportunity to turn off these distractions so students can focus on the key concept.Simulations are also useful when doing a hands-on lab would require students to learn peripheral skills. For example, when teaching electric circuits in my Conceptual Physics course, I've tried having students build circuits, then use multimeters to collect quantitative data. My students often struggle to use the multimeters correctly, loosing track of which setting to use or how to connect it to a circuit for a given measurement and, in the process, lose track of the key ideas the lab is intended to convey. A more effective approach in this course has been to have students conduct a simplified, qualitative lab using light bulbs and batteries, then follow it with a quantitative lab using a simulation from PhET. As an added advantage, students are often fascinated by extreme conditions and using the simulation allows them to overload the circuit, causing an electrical "fire" without damaging equipment or creating a safety hazard.
Instructional Games
Instructional games add a competitive element to more standard classroom activities. Most students don't take long to find standard drill and practice software boring, but something about the clock and scoreboard in PhET's Balancing Chemical Equations game motivates students to remain focused when they might otherwise reach for their phone. By the same token, I have many students who could care less that a skill will be on the test, but who will put forward an extraordinary effort to beat their peers. A more puzzle-based game, such as the Bridge Builder from PhysicsGames.net, can be used to engage students in the content. Students may not be interested in principles of stress, strain, and torque for their own sake, but will gladly think more deeply about these topics in order to beat the game.Problem-Solving Software
Problem-based learning is an important trend in science education as teachers try to find real-world challenges students can apply concepts in a relevant way. Problem-solving software provides opportunities to look at problems that would normally be unavailable in a standard classroom or to look at them in a depth that would otherwise be difficult. For example, a classic physical science project is to have students build a "roller coaster" for a marble or similar object, usually using paper cut-outs or some kind of tubing. The materials necessary make it expensive and time-consuming for students to experiment significantly with the variables of their track. Using software such as BrainPOP's Coaster Creator, students can not only try more variations than feasible in the lab, they can watch how velocity, which cannot be measured directly, changes along the track, giving them a chance to make more in-depth connections with the concepts of energy involved in roller coaster.Instructional Software Presentation
References
Bell, R. & Smetana, L. (2007). Using computer simulations to enhance science teaching and learning. In NSTA Press, Technology in the secondary science classroom (p. 23-32). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press. Retrieved from http://cs.explorelearning.com/docs/tech_sec_science_chapter_3.pdf
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