| NSF Org: |
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | August 22, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 22, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1441291 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Edward Berger
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2014 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $179,999.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $179,999.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
926 DALNEY ST NW ATLANTA GA US 30318-6395 (404)894-4819 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
225 Norht Avenue, NW Atlanta GA US 30332-0002 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): | Cyberlearn & Future Learn Tech |
| Primary Program Source: |
|
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Cyberlearning Exploration (EXP) Projects explore the viability of new kinds of learning technologies by building examples and studying their possibilities for fostering learning as well as challenges to using them well. This project examines whether technology can support learning to freehand sketch. Sketching has been demonstrated to play an important role in a number of domains, including engineering, and the ability to quickly sketch has been shown to improve creativity by making it easier for engineers to generate ideas and communicate them. This project will modify artificial intelligence tools that support recognizing sketches to directly help teach undergraduate engineers how to sketch well. Research studies will examine whether the tool helps students learn sketching skills, and importantly how it influences their spatial reasoning ability. Thus, if successful this research will not only create tools to allow people to learn to sketch better, but also will advance our understanding of how spatial reasoning and sketching are linked, and could eventually lead to more effective engineering education.
The project proposes two interconnected strands of work: developing the software tool and conducting research studies in the context of undergraduate engineering courses. The software tool will use a heterogenous set of classifiers to help provide feedback to learners as they perform a sequence of sketching exercises on tablets. The design process will iterate on the tool to explore what types of feedback are most helpful and how different classifiers can be used to detect different levels of sketching skill. The program of research will include studying whether sketching training leads to advances in spatial reasoning skills, whether it affects design self-efficacy and attitudes towards sketching, transfer of spatial skillsets to design activities in other courses, and how sketching skills correlate to success on spatial reasoning tasks. In addition, through iterative development including user-centered design processes, design principles for sketching based tools will be derived. Data sources will include both qualitative and quantitative data such as pre- and post-test spatial reasoning tasks, structured interviews, surveys, and artifact analysis. Additionally, students (N=approximately 30-40) using the new tool in class will be compared to control cohorts of approximately 30 students who either use traditional engineering curricula (little free-hand sketching and some isometric drawing) and a sketching curriculum without the AI tool.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
Note:
When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external
site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a
charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from
this site.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Competent, Communicative, and Effective Engineers through Perspective Sketching
SketchTivity is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that utilizes pen and tablet technology to teach students sketching through a series of sketching exercises with feedback. The goal of this program is to enhance the sketching ability of students with less instructor interaction. The ability to free-hand sketching is critical for communicating and creating in engineering and design. The system is broken into several modules that allow users to master simple skills such as drawing consistent straight lines and more advanced exercises such as sketching primitives in perspective space (Figure 1). SketchTivity provides immediate feedback to users on the accuracy of their lines through colored lines indicating where the line was intended to be drawn versus where the user drew the line (Figures 2 and 3). After completing a set of exercises, the system provides additional feedback to the user indicating their average accuracy, line quality (smoothness), and speed when completing the exercises (Figure 4). At the present time SketchTivity includes modules on basic 2D and 3D primitives as well as creative challenges (Figure 5) and a game for practicing line work called ZenSketch (Figure 6).
A large amount of data was collected on how students learn to sketch that resulted in over a dozen publications and impact on hundreds of high school and undergraduate students who piloted the SketchTivity software over the past four years. SketchTivity was tested in the Intro to Engineering Graphics Course and Introduction to Sketching Course at Georgia Institute of Technology. Feedback from the students helped improve and update the system as it was being developed.
The project provided ample opportunities for training and professional development to undergraduate and graduate students. Graduate and undergraduate students gained experience in working with data analysis, experimental design, presenting their results, with some of their papers receiving the awards. It empowered many undergraduate and graduate students to learn artificial intelligence as well as hone their research skills.
Key research outcomes include the following:
This work demonstrate that learning to sketch in perspective provides two key skills simultaneously to engineering students, the ability to free hand sketch and improvements to their spatial visualization skills. Improvements to spatial visualization skills while learning perspective sketching are at similar levels as a more traditional approach to engineering drawing that does not improve free hand sketching as effectively. This means engineers can gain two critical skills in the same amount of time, spatial visualization and free-hand sketching.
Free-hand sketching in perspective is not typically taught in engineering and SketchTivity provides a critical avenue for feedback and learning with the large classes typically seen in engineering. We learned that the SketchTivity software could help students improve accuracy, smoothness, and speed as they practiced basic sketching fundamentals. We also found that gamification and game-based learning approaches were successful in motivating students to practice sketching skills.
Through the comparison of sketching samples from students before and after taking the Intro to Engineering Graphics course, we found that the Perspective Method of the course has a significantly higher impact on students' sketching abilities when compared to the Traditional Method.
We also analyzed how experts sketch as compared to novices and found that improvements in skill involve much more than just accuracy, and include metrics such as speed, speed fluidity, the order in which sketches are approached, and many other factors.
Overall, we believe that the SketchTivity software shows great promise for improving sketching ability, confidence, and motivation in engineering students. We believe it can influence students to pursue a career in STEM, as well as motivate STEM students to be more efficient visual thinkers and visual communicators.
Last Modified: 10/08/2018
Modified by: Julie S Linsey
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
