Sasha Barab, Indiana University, Instructional Systems Technology
Kenneth E. Hay, University of Georgia, Learning and Performance Support Laboratory
Richard Duschl, Vanderbilt University, Science Education
Kirsten Ellenbogen, Vanderbilt University, Science Education
Anne Ray, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
The Digital Weather Station (DWS) is an exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. The goals of the DWS are to develop students' understanding of the weather as a three-dimensional system and their skills in the scientific process of visualization. The DWS runs on three high-end SGI Workstations and utilizes an interface that we designed to enable young children to manipulate sophisticated, expert level scientific visualization tools (VIS5D). The tool supports learner's immediate creation of 3D interactive, dynamic visualization of standard weather parameters. These tools are not scaled down tools visualizing fictitious data, rather they are built on the same tools and data that hundreds of scientists use everyday. We have designed and developed a learner's interface that almost eliminates the technical and domain learning curve these tools create for novices. This tool provides an unprecedented opportunity for inquiry-based and problem-based learning activities where the technology can visualize a 3D phenomenon. Starting in May, we will be conducting experiments with this tool to explore how learners appropriate this new lens on the world of meteorology. The DWS represents a major commitment in terms of programming time by IU Center for Innovative Computer Applications.
The research program will explore the abilities of the learner using this tool in a variety of contexts. We have three major goals for this research program. First is the establishment of a research base on dynamic 3D visualization by learners of a broad age range. This project is the first known by the authors to make dynamic 3D visualization tools publicly available to learners as young as 8 years old and will give us unprecedented opportunities to develop this research base. Second we will explore small group construction of knowledge about visualization and atmospheric phenomena through a series of studies where the DWS is used in a variety of situations adopting various pedagogical strategies. These strategies will include open exploration, challenge questions, guided discovery, and anchored instruction. Third, we are interested in tool design issues for learners. We would like to develop and test LCD features that are empirically derived, refined, and then generalized within the aforementioned instruction strategies.
First, is the recognition of the central role tools have in the community of scientific practice and the powerful role they have in the enculturation process. Based on the theories of situated cognition, this project centers around a notion developed by Lave and Wenger called "technologies of practice." Lave and Wenger make the case that tools embody a community's practice in an unique way and give learners an immediate and powerful method of connecting to a community. Visualization tools are a vital part of current scientific practice and can have a significant role in learning science. The DWS creates a powerful authentic learning opportunity where a set of computational tools from a community of practice of atmospheric scientists can become a powerful enculturation inducement for "newcomers" into the community of practice.
Second, this project builds on the work to develop a Learner Centered Design (LCD) paradigm to design computational learning tools. LCD was developed at University of Michigan's HICE lab by Soloway, Guzdial, and Hay. The notion is that increased computing power has created a opportunity to make tools easier to use. Additional computing power should now attend to issues of learning. Visualization and atmospheric science are challenging for the learner in terms of both knowledge and skills. We have designed a learner interface that supports the process of visualization; a tool that supports learners to explore the concepts of visualization in a powerful and relevant way.
Third, we will incorporate the actor-network theory to trace the evolution and diffusion of student's understandings as they emerge and diffuse while using the tool (Latour, 1987; Roth, 1996). The visualization tool simply presents 3D representations of the complex phenomena, students will then have to hypothesize beyond the information given (Perkins, 1991) to develop explanations regarding the phenomena underlying the on-screen representations. By examining dyadic interactions, our research team intends to capture a rich picture of the learning that is occurring. Also, by tracing the evolution of these understandings we expect to show how student understandings are "constructed" out of and "contextualized" in the concrete particulars of the situation in which they are being developed and used; potentially, providing more empirical support for theories regarding the situated nature of knowing and providing insights to the design of robust learning environments.
Fourth, weather is a domain where a three-dimensional and systems perspective is vital for deep understanding. In general, the research has shown that learners have many misconceptions about such complex phenomena.
Fifth, and central to this proposal, is the development of a macrocontext to help anchor students' weather experience within a context that is meaningful to students (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV, 1990]). An anchor is essential to the CTGV's notion of anchored instruction, which refers to instruction in which the material to be learned is presented in the context of a specific topic that serves to anchor or situate the material, and, further, allows it to be examined from multiple perspectives. Founded on theories of problem-based learning, complex, video-based macrocontexts are intended to overcome inert knowledge by anchoring learning within the context of meaningful problem-solving activities.
Hay and Barab have been working together for the last year and have both found this collaboration to be fruitful in terms of projects developed, papers submitted, and preliminary grant funding received. We plan to continue this partnership this summer in which Ken Hay will be spending through July here in Bloomington to continue our collaborative efforts. Although the DWS tool is 95% complete and already up-and-running at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, preliminary findings suggest that a macrocontext will need to be developed so as to increase its effectiveness. With this goal in mind, Hay and Barab have asked Richard Duschl and Kirsten Ellenbogen to collaborate on this project.
We see this grant as providing the resources to initiate this partnership. More specifically, we intend to bring the partners here to Bloomington for discussions around and specifications of the macrocontext parameters. Our goal is to actually produce a prototype for the video that will be used in situating the DWS tool into a meaningful context. Duschl has extensive experience developing macrocontexts (the anchored instruction work at Vanderbilt), and Ellenbogen has experience working with informal science education contexts (i.e., the Children's Museum). Ann Ray is currently the technology director at the Children's museum and has experience with the population, as well as instructional development experience. An exciting opportunity for this macrocontext is that is will be web-based, and linked into the DWS.
To support this macrocontext various data sets will have to be developed and archived so that we can manipulate the weather patterns available to the user. In addition, it is necessary to develop a digital interface connecting the video-based macrocontext to the DWS. This will require the assistance of the IU Center for Innovative Computer Applications in terms of supplying and supporting a programmer familiar with the 5D interface.
We also intend to outline classroom lessons so that teachers can have supporting materials from which to engage whole classes of students before bringing them to the museum. It is here that we hope to take advantage of Ellenbogen's experience with informal education environments.
Finally, grants will have to be submitted to carry out the museum ready version, and research related to its use. We have already submitted a letter of intent to KDI and will complete this KDI proposal, as well as use our time to research and secure other funding.