Communication-Oriented and Process-Sensitive Planning Support

The complexity of the planning context has raised criticism against public participation for being a rigid top-down endeavour which does not recognize the different communicative needs and necessary working modes in the engagement of broad publics and collaborative small groups. Consequently, the problem is how to improve public participation so that it becomes more sensitive to the variety of communicative activities and knowledge needs involved in the design of urban planning processes. The aim of the article is to present and discuss, on the basis of two small case studies in the Finnish context, a revised model for a process-sensitive planning support system (PSS), with examples of several digital tools. The authors argue that besides broad public participation, more collaboration is needed to converge the diverse knowledge of planning in two-way communication and co-working settings which enable the analysis and design of living environments.

Towards Meaningful Learning through Inquiry

The purpose of this study is to develop and implement a study module including scientific inquiry based experiments in the context of the physical phenomenon of friction, and to assess the learning outcomes. The aim is to describe the levels of students’ understanding after instruction as well as to study where learning is situated on the continuum between meaningful and rote learning. This study is a qualitative case study and the participants of the study are sixth graders from a countryside school. The students studied the issue of friction by doing experiments in collaborative small-groups, following the principles of scientific inquiry. The data was collected firstly, by asking the students prior to the teaching intervention to explain what happens in a picture which shows someone slipping, and secondly, by using an open-ended questionnaire after the teaching intervention. Before instruction, students only used their prior experiences and perceptions in their explanations, whereas after it they also utilized the scientific knowledge and concepts which they had learned during the intervention. After instruction, the students’ answers reflected deeper understanding of the phenomenon, and of the five types of learners found, one type reaches the level of meaningful learning. The finding of five types of learners reflects the complexity of students’ understanding.

Group Collaboration in Assessment: Multiple Objectives, Processes, and Outcomes

Large-scale assessment programs are increasingly requiring students to work in collaborative small groups instead of, or in addition to, requiring them to work individually. This article considers theoretical and practical issues that need to be taken into account in the design, use, and interpretation of the results of such assessments. Theoretical issues include the compatibility of group work with different purposes of assessment and the way emerging group processes may work toward or against different purposes of assessment. Practical issues include designing and administering assessments to produce scores that are consistent with the goals of the assessment, composing groups so that the results are fair, and preparing students for collaborative group assessments.