| NSF Org: |
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 19, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1612744 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Robert Russell
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $299,827.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $315,827.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2018 = $16,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
5000 FORBES AVE PITTSBURGH PA US 15213-3890 (412)268-8746 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh PA US 15213-3819 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | AISL |
| Primary Program Source: |
04001819DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
The project will develop and research a new system that bridges the advantages of physical and virtual worlds to improve young children's inquiry-based science learning and engagement in a collaborative way. The project will use innovative technology and successful techniques developed for adaptive tutoring systems and bring this core research into informal learning settings where they haven't been applied before, with the goal of increasing engagement, learning and deep inquiry-based understanding in these environments. Museums and similar informal learning settings offer opportunities for children and families to learn together in an engaging way. However, without learning supports provided by people, signage, or technology, people often miss the point of the learning activity in museums. The project will develop a new genre of "intelligent" interactive science exhibits that combine proven intelligent tutoring system approaches with camera-based vision sensing to add a new layer to hands-on museum exhibits. This intelligent layer provides personalized interactive feedback to museum visitors while they experiment with physical objects in the real world. The project is a collaborative effort led by the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Science Center. It is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings, as a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments.
The project will research whether and how learning principles and adaptive, computer-based technologies that are effective in formal school learning be made effective in an informal museum experience with hands-on activities to enhance the learning and engagement of children and parents. The system will use intelligent camera sensing that tracks and notices children's interaction in physical and virtual spaces and provides adaptive personalized feedback via the help of an engaging character. It guides the children as well as the parents to engage in productive dialogue, helping shape a better parent-child interaction. To investigate this, the project will further develop an innovative mixed-reality system and smart adaptive system that gives personalized feedback to visitors based on their actions, guiding them to understand the world around them like a scientist. The project will gather data on learner behaviors in mixed-reality experiences in informal settings to inform how to better design intelligent science exhibits and derive patterns to support key outcomes, including learning, engagement, collaboration, and productive dialogue. The project will also research the application of these design patterns across different science content areas.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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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.
The goal of this project is to create a new genre of Intelligent Science Exhibits in museums, science centers and other informal learning spaces. Intelligent Science Exhibits combine proven intelligent tutoring system approaches with camera-based vision sensing to add a new layer to hands-on museum exhibits. This intelligent layer provides personalized interactive feedback and scaffolding to children and other museum visitors while they experiment with physical objects in the real world. We utilize innovative technology and successful techniques developed for adaptive tutoring systems and bring this core research into informal learning settings where they have not been applied before. We are evaluating where our first Intelligent Science Exhibit increases engagement and deep inquiry-based learning of science relative to alternative exhibit approaches. We are building a second Intelligent Science Exhibit and will engage in iterative design-based research to maximize its effectiveness.
We conducted experiments with our first Intelligent Science Exhibit (EarthShake) in the context of a museum setting (Carnegie Science Center), comparing visitors' learning and engagement outcomes for our Intelligent Exhibit compared to a Standard exhibit (matching current exhibits at the science center). We found evidence that the Intelligent Science Exhibit produces substantially better learning for both scientific and engineering outcomes, equivalent levels of self-reported enjoyment, and higher levels of engagement as measured by length of time voluntarily spent at the exhibit (publication under review).
We have also developed a second Intelligent Science Exhibit: SmartRamps, using iterative development and design based research.
Two experiments demonstrated intellectual merit. Our first experiment investigated which of scientific inquiry guidance or less guided 'hands-on' exploration produce better learning outcomes in the context of a mixed-reality environment (Yannier et al, under review A). The scientific inquiry guidance provides children engaging, but deliberate practice with feedback in making predictions and explaining observations. It employs evidence-based learning principles including self-explanation, contrasting cases, and personalized interactive feedback. The hands-on exploration condition involves more construction with some, but less overall, guidance as it is provided through challenge tasks and through feedback on whether constructed towers stay up. Children learning through guided inquiry, solely or combined with some hands-on construction, achieved greater understanding of the scientific principles than children learning through hands-on construction alone (4 times more pre-to-post test improvement). Interestingly, guided inquiry support leads to better learning of the very hands-on construction skills that are the sole focus of the hands-on exploration condition (with up to 10 times more pre-to-post improvement).
In a second experiment (Yannier et al., under review B), we compared the Intelligent Science Exhibit to a Standard Museum exhibit in the context of a Science Center at Carnegie Science Center. This 'Standard Exhibit' is a business-as-usual control condition in that it mimics an existing exhibit at the science center where we conducted our experiment, and is much like shake table exhibits in other museums. We found that adding the intelligent AI layer on top of physical experimentation in the Intelligent Science Exhibit improves learning for both scientific and engineering outcomes, equivalent levels of self-reported enjoyment, and produces higher levels of engagement as measured by length of time voluntarily spent at the exhibit (average of 1.5 minutes in standard exhibits vs. 6 minutes in Intelligent Science Exhibit).
More qualitatively, many parents pointed out that they liked the interactive character of the EarthShake intelligent science exhibit. They made comments such as: 'I especially liked the making predictions part of it, and then having to come up with an explanation of the results' and 'It employs inquiry learning, which is the heart of how kids learn. But it is also a play model so it doesn't seem like a learning activity.' When asked to compare with other exhibits in the museum, parents commented: 'For my kids age (5), it is a top exhibit. Minimal reading... so it is great to engage early elementary age kids, and still allows them to do science'; 'Similar to the other building/shaking tables, but more interactive with the prompts and monitor'; 'It held he attention just as long/longer than others. Just kept playing!'; 'Compared to similar exhibits, this one has 2-way communication. I think it's better'. Many parents said they would like to see it as a permanent exhibit. One of the parents said 'It is one of the most interesting exhibits' and she also suggested having more feedback on success and failure in the hand-ons construction mode.
These comments indicate the broad impact potential of Intelligent Science Exhibits as this kind of excitement is indicative of the enthusiasm for wider dissemination we have since seen. Toward wider dissemination and addressing more scientific content, we developed a second Intelligent Science Exhibit, called SmartRamps.
EarthShake (our first Intelligent Science Exhibit) is now in use at 13 school sites and SmartRamps (our second Intelligent Science Exhibit) is transitioning from pilot use to regular use at 4 schools.
Last Modified: 11/25/2019
Modified by: Nesra Yannier
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