| NSF Org: |
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | December 27, 1999 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 6, 2003 |
| Award Number: | 9909744 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
John Cherniavsky
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | December 1, 1999 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2004 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,030,798.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,030,798.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2001 = $689,193.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
633 CLARK ST EVANSTON IL US 60208-0001 (312)503-7955 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
633 CLARK ST EVANSTON IL US 60208-0001 |
| 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): | EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH INITIATIV |
| Primary Program Source: |
app-0401 app-0400 |
| 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 goal of this project is to create a visual representation system with computer support that helps students learn how to articulate and reason with models of complex phenomena and systems. Learning to create, test, and revise models is a central skill in scientific reasoning. There is ample experience suggesting graphical representations can provide a natural expression and communication medium for modeling ideas. Three families of graphic representations have been used in educational modeling environments (concept maps, dynamic systems notations, and argumentation environments), each focused on different aspects if modeling, but none alone are sufficient for capturing the range of activities and knowledge involved in modeling. Moreover, none of them address three key issues in modeling: (1) The importance of broadly applicable principles and processes, (2) understanding when a model is revelent and (3) qualitative understanding of behavior.
This project will use ideas from qualitative modeling to create a suite of graphical notations, with computer support, that enables middle-school students to learn both particular areas of science and the process of modeling itself. Students will use the software to create, analyze, modify, discuss, and desseminate their models. The software will be modeling what word processors are to writing essays and spreadsheets are to mathematical analyses: A tool for creating, revising, and disseminating student ideas, creating an artifact
that captures their evolving understanding and that can serve as a focus for disscussion.
The software will use a "construction kit" metaphor for reifying abstractions, enabling students to express their knowledge in an ever-expanding collection of principles and processes, thus emphasizing the underlying
unity and systematic structure of scientific knowledge. The software will provide multiple levels of computer support, ranging from simple drawing and publishing tools to sophisticated coaches. Using a combination of analogical and qualitative reasoning, the software coaches will compare student models to normative models, point out discrepancies between the predictions of a student model and simulator behavior, and prepare assessment reports for teachers summarizing class progress and patterns of misconceptions. As many urban schools have outdated or minimal computer equipment, to make such software practical and scalable we are using a client/server architecture, with lightweight clients in the schoolroom communicating to server-based coaches and assessment software via email. At the end of the project, all software and documentation will be made available as open source.
This project interacts synergistically with the work we are doing in the NSF Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools. A key focus of the Center is creating and deploying an alternate middle-school science curriculum in the Chicago and Detroit public school systems that is inquiry-based and supports national standards, through the medium of work circles, collaborative arrangements involving researchers and teachers that support these efforts. We are currently operating two work circles that are developing currucula that will be used to explore these ideas, and already carrying out pilot studies with pencil and paper to explore design issues in visual notations for modeling. Initial deployment of our software will be in the 1999-2000 school year with our teacher collaborator's schools, and expanded in subsequent years to a broader range of schools (and curricula) in Chicago and Detroit plus other schools as appropriate.
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