Computer-Supported Graphical Representations for Learning Modeling

用于学习建模的计算机支持的图形表示

• 批准号: 9909744
• 负责人: Kenneth Forbus
• 金额: $ 103.08万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-12-01 至 2004-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9909744&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Computer; Supported; Graphical; Representations; Learning

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 artifactthat 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 underlyingunity 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.

该项目的目的是通过计算机支持创建一个视觉表示系统，以帮助学生学习如何通过复杂现象和系统模型来表达和推理。 学习创建，测试和修改模型是科学推理的核心技能。 有足够的经验暗示图形表示可以为建模思想提供自然表达和交流媒介。 图形表示的三个家族已在教育建模环境（概念图，动态系统符号和论证环境）中使用，每个家族都集中在不同方面，如果建模，则不足以捕获建模所涉及的活动范围。 此外，它们都没有解决建模中的三个关键问题：（1）广泛适用的原理和流程的重要性，（2）理解何时陶醉于模型以及（3）对行为的定性理解。该项目将使用定性建模的想法来创建图形符号，并通过计算机支持，使中学学生能够学习中学学生，以了解科学和特定的科学领域和模型的建模。 学生将使用该软件来创建，分析，修改，讨论和破坏其模型。 该软件将模拟编写论文和电子表格的文字处理器对数学分析的建模：一种用于创建，修订和传播学生的想法的工具，创建一个人工捕获他们的理解，可以将其焦点置于障碍。强调科学知识的基础和系统结构。 该软件将提供多个级别的计算机支持，从简单的绘图和发布工具到复杂的教练。 软件教练将使用类比和定性推理结合在一起，将学生模型与规范模型进行比较，指出学生模型的预测和模拟器行为之间的差异，并为教师准备评估报告，总结班级进步和误解的模式。 由于许多城市学校已经过时或最少的计算机设备，为了使这种软件实用且可扩展，我们正在使用客户/服务器体系结构，而教室中的轻量级客户端通过电子邮件与基于服务器的教练和评估软件进行通信。 在项目结束时，所有软件和文档将作为开源提供。 该项目与我们在城市学校的NSF学习技术中心所做的工作协同互动。 该中心的一个重点是在芝加哥和底特律公立学校系统中创建和部署替代的中学科学课程，该课程是基于询问的，并通过工作界的媒介，涉及支持这些工作的研究人员和教师的协作安排来支持国家标准。 我们目前正在运营两个正在开发Currucula的工作圈，这些工作圈将用于探索这些想法，并已经使用铅笔和纸进行了试点研究，以探索视觉符号中的设计问题。 我们的软件的初步部署将在1999-2000学年与我们的教师合作者的学校一起，并在随后的几年中扩展到芝加哥和底特律的更广泛的学校（和课程）以及其他学校。