Abstract: The Idea Manager is a tool integrated into the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment to... more Abstract: The Idea Manager is a tool integrated into the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment to help students collect and organize their ideas before writing explanations. Findings from its implementation in high school science classrooms show how the Idea Manager supported students in articulating and documenting their developing ideas, and helped identify impacts of curriculum materials on students' learning. We describe our design rationale and our planned refinements to the tool, and discuss areas for further ...
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Open data programs have become increasingly established at national and local levels of governmen... more Open data programs have become increasingly established at national and local levels of government. While the degree of success these programs have had in achieving their objectives remains open to question, one factor that has been identified as important to any success is the role of open data intermediaries, individuals and organizations that help others to make use of open data. In this paper we investigate how people become engaged with open data, what their motivations are, and the barriers and facilitators program participants perceive with regard to using open data effectively. We interview participants from a variety of backgrounds with differing levels of experience and engagement with open data. Participants include students learning how to train others in open data techniques and tools; people who attend open data events and use open data for commercial or social benefit; and representatives from local government, municipal agencies and a civic tech non-profit. We identi...
Memes have become ubiquitous artifacts of contemporary digital culture that integrate visual and ... more Memes have become ubiquitous artifacts of contemporary digital culture that integrate visual and textual components in order to communicate about a topic. They can be used as forms of visual argumentation that draw on cultural references while facilitating critical commentary that typically results in humorous and caustic dialogue. In this paper, we investigate the meme creation tool, DataMeme where middle school students explore graphs then construct GIFs using existing Gyphy GIFs and overlay their own text onto them in order to communicate about the meaning behind the data. We explore the ways the students engaged in data reasoning and their argumentation practices as they communicate through their memes. Findings from our analysis of 56 data memes and the corresponding written explanations from the students, show that data memes allow students to evaluate data claims within their broader societal implications, while also expressing personal beliefs and attitudes about data. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Visualization; • Applied computing → Computer-assisted instruction; Media arts.
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Effective data literacy instruction requires that learners move beyond understanding statistics t... more Effective data literacy instruction requires that learners move beyond understanding statistics to being able to humanize data through a contextual understanding of argumentation and reasoning in the real-world. In this paper, we explore the implementation of a codesigned data comic unit about adolescent friendships. The 7th grade unit involved students analyzing data graphs about adolescent friendships and crafting comic narratives to convey perspectives on that data. Findings from our analysis of 33 student comics, and interviews with two teachers and four students, show that students engaged in various forms of data reasoning and socialemotional reasoning. These findings contribute an understanding of how students make sense of data about personal, everyday experiences; and how an arts-integrated curriculum can be designed to support their mutual engagement in both data and social-emotional reasoning. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Visualization; • Applied computing → Computer-assisted instruction; Media arts.
Automated feedback has the potential to provide significant assistance to student game creators. ... more Automated feedback has the potential to provide significant assistance to student game creators. Here, we present a system for generating automated, critiquelike feedback for students creating games in the StudyCrafter platform. We implemented a system that builds a personalized feedback report for students based on a templated format. This critique uses automated analysis of structural and interactive aspects of the game narrative and recommends alternate games for students to examine as inspiration. To test our system, we conducted a pilot study with 10 student groups developing narrativebased games. A key understanding from the study is that determining the appropriate depth of assessment and critique without overwhelming the student is important.
Sharing ideas can strengthen students’ science explanations. Yet, how to guide uses of peers’ ide... more Sharing ideas can strengthen students’ science explanations. Yet, how to guide uses of peers’ ideas, and what the impacts of those ideas are on students’ learning, are open questions. We implemented a web-based cell biology unit with 116 grade 7 students, and explored how peers’ ideas are used during explanation building, and how prompts to draw on peers to either diversify or reinforce existing ideas impacted the quality of students’ written explanations. Among other findings, exchanging ideas with peers led to all students improving their explanation quality upon revision; and students prompted to diversify their ideas showed greater learning gains by the end of the unit, while students prompted to reinforce ideas, who used more peer-generated ideas in preparation to write their explanations, produced higher quality explanations. This study builds our understanding of the influence of peer ideas on learning, and offers insight into supporting students in engaging effectively with ...
Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captur... more Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captures the processes learners use to build on their multiple ideas and refine their understanding. KI emerged 25 years ago from syntheses of experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic studies of learning and instruction. Advances in KI have resulted from partnerships that combine expertise in learning, instruction, classroom teaching, assessment, technology, and the disciplines. This structured poster session includes partnerships that have advanced design of instruction, assessment, professional development, learning technologies, and research methodologies. Participants report on new technologies, including games, to strengthen KI; instructional designs that take advantage of collaboration to support KI; and extensions of KI to integrate science with other disciplines. They summarize exciting results and identify promising opportunities for advancing STEM instruction to promote intentio...
The theory of evolution is recognized as one of the great unifying principles of science. Yet, it... more The theory of evolution is recognized as one of the great unifying principles of science. Yet, it continues to be widely misunderstood and contested by the public. Through an analysis of a selection of images about evolution from a range of historical and social contexts, this article discusses how the creation of illustrations and how viewers interpret them are often influenced by bodily experiences, by ancient philosophies of the natural world, and by the iconic power of images.
The projects in this interactive poster symposium explore ways of engaging learners with social j... more The projects in this interactive poster symposium explore ways of engaging learners with social justice issues through the design and study of data literacy interventions. These interventions span classroom to museum contexts, and environmental to social sciences domains. Together, they illustrate research and practice approaches for engaging learners with data to promote emancipatory activity.
Data logged within technology-based learning environments have the potential to support instructo... more Data logged within technology-based learning environments have the potential to support instructors’ orchestration of learner activities. Whereas many learning environments now feature student and teacher dashboards, which promote reflection on activities after the fact, the affordances of displaying these data in real time is only beginning to be explored. To be useful, however, these data must be made accessible and actionable. This interactive demonstration will showcase designs for technologies that visualize student activities in realtime during technology-enhanced activities, with the aim of supporting instructors’ orchestration. Together, they projects from various contexts with similar goals, it highlights common challenges, issues, and strategies with regard to the design and implementation of these tools.
I am a postdoctoral scholar with Marcia Linn at the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS... more I am a postdoctoral scholar with Marcia Linn at the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS, telscenter.org) center. I play leading roles in research, technology design, grant writing, and teacher professional development. I am particularly involved in the NSF-funded projects, Visualizing to Integrate Science Understanding for All Learners (VISUAL), and Continuous Learning and Automated Scoring in Science (CLASS). More on my work can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/cfmatuk/ Research Overview My current research is organized around two main questions, each concerned with the creative, collaborative, and learning processes surrounding educational technologies: (1) How can we best design tools that address the challenges of managing information during inquiry-based STEM learning and instruction? And (2) how can we support successful collaborations surrounding designing innovative educational technologies? I conduct designbased research into the cognitive, social, and representational issues surrounding the uses of technology in teaching, learning, and design, particularly among middle and high school students, science teachers, and learning scientists. Two main perspectives guide my work. One is Knowledge Integration (KI), a pedagogical framework that views students' initial understanding as fragmentary and idiosyncratic; and that specifies effective instruction as supporting the elicitation of ideas, the addition of scientifically normative ideas, and personally meaningful activities that help students sort, organize, and distinguish among those ideas toward an integrated conceptual understanding (Linn & Eylon, 2011). The second perspective integrates user-centered design (UCD) and Agile development (da Silva et al., 2011) to emphasize the early and regular involvement of users in rapid iteration between establishing requirements, designing alternatives, and building and evaluating prototypes. This dual approach enables me to simultaneously elaborate principles behind successful collaborative learning technologies; refine their design; and understand how they mediate learning and instruction within integrated socio-technical systems of practice.
Using graphs in science is challenging as it requires both scientific and representational fluenc... more Using graphs in science is challenging as it requires both scientific and representational fluency. We examined how different graphing activities during science inquiry helped to develop these interrelated abilities in students. Grade 7 students (N=117) worked in pairs on a web-based cell biology unit to either generate or critique graphs of the effects of proposed cancer treatments on cell numbers. All students gained in their graph and science explanation abilities. While students who critiqued graphs gave better overall explanations within the unit, students who constructed graphs better applied their conceptual understanding of science to explain their graphs, both within the unit and later on the post test. We interpret these findings in terms of the relative affordances and constraints of critique and construction activities, and observe students’ common misunderstandings of graphs. This study has implications for designing instruction that supports students’ uses of graphs wi...
We explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a context for learning about the role of science in a global... more We explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a context for learning about the role of science in a global health crisis. In spring 2020, at the beginning of the first pandemic-related lockdown, we worked with a high school teacher to design and implement a unit on human brain and behavior science. The unit guided her 17 students in creating studies that explored personally relevant questions about the pandemic to contribute to a citizen science platform. Pre-/postsurveys, student artifacts, and student and teacher interviews showed increases in students’ fascination with science—a driver of engagement and career preference—and sense of agency as citizen scientists. Students approached science as a tool for addressing their pandemic-related concerns but were hampered by the challenges of remote schooling. These findings highlight both the opportunities of learning from a global crisis, and the need to consider how that crisis is still affecting learners.
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2019
Interactivity and player experience are inextricably entwined with the creation of compelling nar... more Interactivity and player experience are inextricably entwined with the creation of compelling narratives for interactive digital media. Narrative shapes and buttresses many such experiences, and therefore designers must construct compelling narrative arcs while carefully considering the effects of interaction on both the story and the player. As the narrative becomes more structurally complex, due to choice-based branching and other player actions, designers need to employ commensurately capable models and visualizations to keep track of that growing complexity. However, previous models of interactive narrative have failed to fully capture interactive elements with automated, operationalized visualizations. In this paper, we describe an algorithm for automated construction of a framework-driven, graph-based representation of interactive narrative. This representation more fully and transparently models structural and interactive features of the narrative than did prior approaches. We present an initial evaluation of this representation, based on modified cognitive walkthroughs performed by interactive narrative design and research experts from our research team, and we describe the takeaways for future improvement on interactive narrative modeling and analysis. CCS CONCEPTS • Computing methodologies → Knowledge representation and reasoning; Simulation evaluation; • Applied computing → Computer games; • Software and its engineering → Design languages.
International Journal of Designs for Learning, 2020
Transmedia design, which involves extending a narrative from one medium to another, offers a cont... more Transmedia design, which involves extending a narrative from one medium to another, offers a context for potentially rich, interdisciplinary learning. We explored these opportunities by creating a week-long workshop to guide 7th-grade student teams in designing games based on comic books about viruses. This design case describes the framework and rationale behind our design choices. It illustrates our experiences by drawing on field note observations and audio recordings, student-generated design artifacts, student and facilitator interviews, and planning documentation from across two iterations of the workshop. We reflect on our experiences in attempting to balance (1) the dual focus of the workshop on science learning and game design through our choices of comic and game genres; and (2) the ability for students to be both autonomous and to receive necessary guidance through our enforcement of design constraints and interdependent team roles. We also reflect on the contextual facto...
International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 2019
A CSCL perspective on real-time classroom data This special issue on real-time orchestrational to... more A CSCL perspective on real-time classroom data This special issue on real-time orchestrational tools for CSCL classrooms arises from both a need and an opportunity. Increasingly, CSCL classrooms are turning toward open-ended inquiry learning, in which students' trajectories can be divergent and unanticipated. At the same time, classroom sizes are expanding beyond what many teachers can reasonably manage. The task of knowing how and when to provide timely and specific guidance is becoming increasingly challenging for teachers (Dimitriadis 2012; Tissenbaum and Slotta 2015; Roschelle et al. 2013). Particularly in CSCL classrooms, teachers must monitor group progress on time sensitive tasks, coordinate students' changing group roles, provide group and individual guidance and assessment, and differentiate resources to groups that are working in tandem (Tissenbaum and Slotta 2015; Dimitriadis 2012). To support their students' growth, teachers must quickly access and interpret data on their students' learning (Kuhn 2005; Shute 2008), and make decisions about how to guide them both conceptually and logistically (Dillenbourg et al. 2009; Dillenbourg 2011; Schwarz et al. 2018). Yet, typical assessments do not provide teachers with the information that they need to address students' learning in a timely manner, and that would impact those students' outcomes (Pellegrino et al. 2001). Meanwhile, dashboards are now common features of most learning platforms. These digital displays of data streams and feedback loops typically offer overviews of learners' states and interactions after they have completed classroom activities (Verbert et al. 2014). While these are valuable for informing curricular adjustments between classes, they do little to help instructors with the many real-time tasks of teaching with technology (Baker and Inventado 2014). In contrast, real-time dashboards offer data on activities as they are occurring. This
Advances in technology, science, and learning sciences research over the past 100 years have resh... more Advances in technology, science, and learning sciences research over the past 100 years have reshaped science education. This chapter focuses on how investigators from varied fields of inquiry who initially worked separately began to interact, eventually formed partnerships, and recently integrated their perspectives to strengthen science education. Advances depended on the broadening of the participants in science education research, starting with psychologists, science discipline experts, and science educators; adding science teachers, psychometricians, computer scientists, and sociologists; and eventually including leaders in cultural studies, linguistics, and neuroscience. This process depended on renegotiating power structures, deliberate funding decisions by the National Science Foundation and others, and sustained, creative teamwork. It reflects a growing commitment to ensure that all learners are respected and that all students learn to address the complex scientific dilemma...
Equitable learning opportunities are critical to the goals of science education. However, major c... more Equitable learning opportunities are critical to the goals of science education. However, major curriculum standards are vague on how to achieve equity goals, and educators must often develop their own resources and strategies to achieve equity goals. This study examines how educators used a comic book series designed to interest youth in virology as a way to make science more broadly appealing to their diverse students. We begin with the notion of Pedagogical Design Capacity, which describes a dynamic relationship between teachers and their tools and the ability for teachers to perceive and leverage affordances of artifacts as tools in their curriculum design. In a qualitative analysis of 18 interviews with educators, survey responses, instructional artifacts, and classroom observations, we describe the potential that educators saw in the comics and the strategies they used to take advantage of that potential to promote equitable science teaching. Notably, we observed how the comics enabled educators to incorporate multiple literacies and disciplinary lenses into their lessons, thereby expanding traditional views of science literacy. We documented the range of techniques by which they used comics and fictional narratives to support specific scientific practices, such as modeling. We also observed digitalcommons.unl.edu
Inquiry instruction often neglects graphing. It gives students few opportunities to develop the k... more Inquiry instruction often neglects graphing. It gives students few opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to take advantage of graphs, and which are called for by current science education standards. Yet, it is not well known how to support graphing skills, particularly within middle school science inquiry contexts. Using qualitative graphs is a promising, but underexplored approach. In contrast to quantitative graphs, which can lead students to focus too narrowly on the mechanics of plotting points, qualitative graphs can encourage students to relate graphical representations to their conceptual meaning. Guided by the Knowledge Integration framework, which recognizes and guides students in integrating their diverse ideas about science, we incorporated qualitative graphing activities into a seventh grade web‐based inquiry unit about cell division and cancer treatment. In Study 1, we characterized the kinds of graphs students generated in terms of their integrati...
Abstract: The Idea Manager is a tool integrated into the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment to... more Abstract: The Idea Manager is a tool integrated into the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment to help students collect and organize their ideas before writing explanations. Findings from its implementation in high school science classrooms show how the Idea Manager supported students in articulating and documenting their developing ideas, and helped identify impacts of curriculum materials on students' learning. We describe our design rationale and our planned refinements to the tool, and discuss areas for further ...
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Open data programs have become increasingly established at national and local levels of governmen... more Open data programs have become increasingly established at national and local levels of government. While the degree of success these programs have had in achieving their objectives remains open to question, one factor that has been identified as important to any success is the role of open data intermediaries, individuals and organizations that help others to make use of open data. In this paper we investigate how people become engaged with open data, what their motivations are, and the barriers and facilitators program participants perceive with regard to using open data effectively. We interview participants from a variety of backgrounds with differing levels of experience and engagement with open data. Participants include students learning how to train others in open data techniques and tools; people who attend open data events and use open data for commercial or social benefit; and representatives from local government, municipal agencies and a civic tech non-profit. We identi...
Memes have become ubiquitous artifacts of contemporary digital culture that integrate visual and ... more Memes have become ubiquitous artifacts of contemporary digital culture that integrate visual and textual components in order to communicate about a topic. They can be used as forms of visual argumentation that draw on cultural references while facilitating critical commentary that typically results in humorous and caustic dialogue. In this paper, we investigate the meme creation tool, DataMeme where middle school students explore graphs then construct GIFs using existing Gyphy GIFs and overlay their own text onto them in order to communicate about the meaning behind the data. We explore the ways the students engaged in data reasoning and their argumentation practices as they communicate through their memes. Findings from our analysis of 56 data memes and the corresponding written explanations from the students, show that data memes allow students to evaluate data claims within their broader societal implications, while also expressing personal beliefs and attitudes about data. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Visualization; • Applied computing → Computer-assisted instruction; Media arts.
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Effective data literacy instruction requires that learners move beyond understanding statistics t... more Effective data literacy instruction requires that learners move beyond understanding statistics to being able to humanize data through a contextual understanding of argumentation and reasoning in the real-world. In this paper, we explore the implementation of a codesigned data comic unit about adolescent friendships. The 7th grade unit involved students analyzing data graphs about adolescent friendships and crafting comic narratives to convey perspectives on that data. Findings from our analysis of 33 student comics, and interviews with two teachers and four students, show that students engaged in various forms of data reasoning and socialemotional reasoning. These findings contribute an understanding of how students make sense of data about personal, everyday experiences; and how an arts-integrated curriculum can be designed to support their mutual engagement in both data and social-emotional reasoning. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Visualization; • Applied computing → Computer-assisted instruction; Media arts.
Automated feedback has the potential to provide significant assistance to student game creators. ... more Automated feedback has the potential to provide significant assistance to student game creators. Here, we present a system for generating automated, critiquelike feedback for students creating games in the StudyCrafter platform. We implemented a system that builds a personalized feedback report for students based on a templated format. This critique uses automated analysis of structural and interactive aspects of the game narrative and recommends alternate games for students to examine as inspiration. To test our system, we conducted a pilot study with 10 student groups developing narrativebased games. A key understanding from the study is that determining the appropriate depth of assessment and critique without overwhelming the student is important.
Sharing ideas can strengthen students’ science explanations. Yet, how to guide uses of peers’ ide... more Sharing ideas can strengthen students’ science explanations. Yet, how to guide uses of peers’ ideas, and what the impacts of those ideas are on students’ learning, are open questions. We implemented a web-based cell biology unit with 116 grade 7 students, and explored how peers’ ideas are used during explanation building, and how prompts to draw on peers to either diversify or reinforce existing ideas impacted the quality of students’ written explanations. Among other findings, exchanging ideas with peers led to all students improving their explanation quality upon revision; and students prompted to diversify their ideas showed greater learning gains by the end of the unit, while students prompted to reinforce ideas, who used more peer-generated ideas in preparation to write their explanations, produced higher quality explanations. This study builds our understanding of the influence of peer ideas on learning, and offers insight into supporting students in engaging effectively with ...
Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captur... more Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captures the processes learners use to build on their multiple ideas and refine their understanding. KI emerged 25 years ago from syntheses of experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic studies of learning and instruction. Advances in KI have resulted from partnerships that combine expertise in learning, instruction, classroom teaching, assessment, technology, and the disciplines. This structured poster session includes partnerships that have advanced design of instruction, assessment, professional development, learning technologies, and research methodologies. Participants report on new technologies, including games, to strengthen KI; instructional designs that take advantage of collaboration to support KI; and extensions of KI to integrate science with other disciplines. They summarize exciting results and identify promising opportunities for advancing STEM instruction to promote intentio...
The theory of evolution is recognized as one of the great unifying principles of science. Yet, it... more The theory of evolution is recognized as one of the great unifying principles of science. Yet, it continues to be widely misunderstood and contested by the public. Through an analysis of a selection of images about evolution from a range of historical and social contexts, this article discusses how the creation of illustrations and how viewers interpret them are often influenced by bodily experiences, by ancient philosophies of the natural world, and by the iconic power of images.
The projects in this interactive poster symposium explore ways of engaging learners with social j... more The projects in this interactive poster symposium explore ways of engaging learners with social justice issues through the design and study of data literacy interventions. These interventions span classroom to museum contexts, and environmental to social sciences domains. Together, they illustrate research and practice approaches for engaging learners with data to promote emancipatory activity.
Data logged within technology-based learning environments have the potential to support instructo... more Data logged within technology-based learning environments have the potential to support instructors’ orchestration of learner activities. Whereas many learning environments now feature student and teacher dashboards, which promote reflection on activities after the fact, the affordances of displaying these data in real time is only beginning to be explored. To be useful, however, these data must be made accessible and actionable. This interactive demonstration will showcase designs for technologies that visualize student activities in realtime during technology-enhanced activities, with the aim of supporting instructors’ orchestration. Together, they projects from various contexts with similar goals, it highlights common challenges, issues, and strategies with regard to the design and implementation of these tools.
I am a postdoctoral scholar with Marcia Linn at the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS... more I am a postdoctoral scholar with Marcia Linn at the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS, telscenter.org) center. I play leading roles in research, technology design, grant writing, and teacher professional development. I am particularly involved in the NSF-funded projects, Visualizing to Integrate Science Understanding for All Learners (VISUAL), and Continuous Learning and Automated Scoring in Science (CLASS). More on my work can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/cfmatuk/ Research Overview My current research is organized around two main questions, each concerned with the creative, collaborative, and learning processes surrounding educational technologies: (1) How can we best design tools that address the challenges of managing information during inquiry-based STEM learning and instruction? And (2) how can we support successful collaborations surrounding designing innovative educational technologies? I conduct designbased research into the cognitive, social, and representational issues surrounding the uses of technology in teaching, learning, and design, particularly among middle and high school students, science teachers, and learning scientists. Two main perspectives guide my work. One is Knowledge Integration (KI), a pedagogical framework that views students' initial understanding as fragmentary and idiosyncratic; and that specifies effective instruction as supporting the elicitation of ideas, the addition of scientifically normative ideas, and personally meaningful activities that help students sort, organize, and distinguish among those ideas toward an integrated conceptual understanding (Linn & Eylon, 2011). The second perspective integrates user-centered design (UCD) and Agile development (da Silva et al., 2011) to emphasize the early and regular involvement of users in rapid iteration between establishing requirements, designing alternatives, and building and evaluating prototypes. This dual approach enables me to simultaneously elaborate principles behind successful collaborative learning technologies; refine their design; and understand how they mediate learning and instruction within integrated socio-technical systems of practice.
Using graphs in science is challenging as it requires both scientific and representational fluenc... more Using graphs in science is challenging as it requires both scientific and representational fluency. We examined how different graphing activities during science inquiry helped to develop these interrelated abilities in students. Grade 7 students (N=117) worked in pairs on a web-based cell biology unit to either generate or critique graphs of the effects of proposed cancer treatments on cell numbers. All students gained in their graph and science explanation abilities. While students who critiqued graphs gave better overall explanations within the unit, students who constructed graphs better applied their conceptual understanding of science to explain their graphs, both within the unit and later on the post test. We interpret these findings in terms of the relative affordances and constraints of critique and construction activities, and observe students’ common misunderstandings of graphs. This study has implications for designing instruction that supports students’ uses of graphs wi...
We explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a context for learning about the role of science in a global... more We explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a context for learning about the role of science in a global health crisis. In spring 2020, at the beginning of the first pandemic-related lockdown, we worked with a high school teacher to design and implement a unit on human brain and behavior science. The unit guided her 17 students in creating studies that explored personally relevant questions about the pandemic to contribute to a citizen science platform. Pre-/postsurveys, student artifacts, and student and teacher interviews showed increases in students’ fascination with science—a driver of engagement and career preference—and sense of agency as citizen scientists. Students approached science as a tool for addressing their pandemic-related concerns but were hampered by the challenges of remote schooling. These findings highlight both the opportunities of learning from a global crisis, and the need to consider how that crisis is still affecting learners.
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2019
Interactivity and player experience are inextricably entwined with the creation of compelling nar... more Interactivity and player experience are inextricably entwined with the creation of compelling narratives for interactive digital media. Narrative shapes and buttresses many such experiences, and therefore designers must construct compelling narrative arcs while carefully considering the effects of interaction on both the story and the player. As the narrative becomes more structurally complex, due to choice-based branching and other player actions, designers need to employ commensurately capable models and visualizations to keep track of that growing complexity. However, previous models of interactive narrative have failed to fully capture interactive elements with automated, operationalized visualizations. In this paper, we describe an algorithm for automated construction of a framework-driven, graph-based representation of interactive narrative. This representation more fully and transparently models structural and interactive features of the narrative than did prior approaches. We present an initial evaluation of this representation, based on modified cognitive walkthroughs performed by interactive narrative design and research experts from our research team, and we describe the takeaways for future improvement on interactive narrative modeling and analysis. CCS CONCEPTS • Computing methodologies → Knowledge representation and reasoning; Simulation evaluation; • Applied computing → Computer games; • Software and its engineering → Design languages.
International Journal of Designs for Learning, 2020
Transmedia design, which involves extending a narrative from one medium to another, offers a cont... more Transmedia design, which involves extending a narrative from one medium to another, offers a context for potentially rich, interdisciplinary learning. We explored these opportunities by creating a week-long workshop to guide 7th-grade student teams in designing games based on comic books about viruses. This design case describes the framework and rationale behind our design choices. It illustrates our experiences by drawing on field note observations and audio recordings, student-generated design artifacts, student and facilitator interviews, and planning documentation from across two iterations of the workshop. We reflect on our experiences in attempting to balance (1) the dual focus of the workshop on science learning and game design through our choices of comic and game genres; and (2) the ability for students to be both autonomous and to receive necessary guidance through our enforcement of design constraints and interdependent team roles. We also reflect on the contextual facto...
International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 2019
A CSCL perspective on real-time classroom data This special issue on real-time orchestrational to... more A CSCL perspective on real-time classroom data This special issue on real-time orchestrational tools for CSCL classrooms arises from both a need and an opportunity. Increasingly, CSCL classrooms are turning toward open-ended inquiry learning, in which students' trajectories can be divergent and unanticipated. At the same time, classroom sizes are expanding beyond what many teachers can reasonably manage. The task of knowing how and when to provide timely and specific guidance is becoming increasingly challenging for teachers (Dimitriadis 2012; Tissenbaum and Slotta 2015; Roschelle et al. 2013). Particularly in CSCL classrooms, teachers must monitor group progress on time sensitive tasks, coordinate students' changing group roles, provide group and individual guidance and assessment, and differentiate resources to groups that are working in tandem (Tissenbaum and Slotta 2015; Dimitriadis 2012). To support their students' growth, teachers must quickly access and interpret data on their students' learning (Kuhn 2005; Shute 2008), and make decisions about how to guide them both conceptually and logistically (Dillenbourg et al. 2009; Dillenbourg 2011; Schwarz et al. 2018). Yet, typical assessments do not provide teachers with the information that they need to address students' learning in a timely manner, and that would impact those students' outcomes (Pellegrino et al. 2001). Meanwhile, dashboards are now common features of most learning platforms. These digital displays of data streams and feedback loops typically offer overviews of learners' states and interactions after they have completed classroom activities (Verbert et al. 2014). While these are valuable for informing curricular adjustments between classes, they do little to help instructors with the many real-time tasks of teaching with technology (Baker and Inventado 2014). In contrast, real-time dashboards offer data on activities as they are occurring. This
Advances in technology, science, and learning sciences research over the past 100 years have resh... more Advances in technology, science, and learning sciences research over the past 100 years have reshaped science education. This chapter focuses on how investigators from varied fields of inquiry who initially worked separately began to interact, eventually formed partnerships, and recently integrated their perspectives to strengthen science education. Advances depended on the broadening of the participants in science education research, starting with psychologists, science discipline experts, and science educators; adding science teachers, psychometricians, computer scientists, and sociologists; and eventually including leaders in cultural studies, linguistics, and neuroscience. This process depended on renegotiating power structures, deliberate funding decisions by the National Science Foundation and others, and sustained, creative teamwork. It reflects a growing commitment to ensure that all learners are respected and that all students learn to address the complex scientific dilemma...
Equitable learning opportunities are critical to the goals of science education. However, major c... more Equitable learning opportunities are critical to the goals of science education. However, major curriculum standards are vague on how to achieve equity goals, and educators must often develop their own resources and strategies to achieve equity goals. This study examines how educators used a comic book series designed to interest youth in virology as a way to make science more broadly appealing to their diverse students. We begin with the notion of Pedagogical Design Capacity, which describes a dynamic relationship between teachers and their tools and the ability for teachers to perceive and leverage affordances of artifacts as tools in their curriculum design. In a qualitative analysis of 18 interviews with educators, survey responses, instructional artifacts, and classroom observations, we describe the potential that educators saw in the comics and the strategies they used to take advantage of that potential to promote equitable science teaching. Notably, we observed how the comics enabled educators to incorporate multiple literacies and disciplinary lenses into their lessons, thereby expanding traditional views of science literacy. We documented the range of techniques by which they used comics and fictional narratives to support specific scientific practices, such as modeling. We also observed digitalcommons.unl.edu
Inquiry instruction often neglects graphing. It gives students few opportunities to develop the k... more Inquiry instruction often neglects graphing. It gives students few opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to take advantage of graphs, and which are called for by current science education standards. Yet, it is not well known how to support graphing skills, particularly within middle school science inquiry contexts. Using qualitative graphs is a promising, but underexplored approach. In contrast to quantitative graphs, which can lead students to focus too narrowly on the mechanics of plotting points, qualitative graphs can encourage students to relate graphical representations to their conceptual meaning. Guided by the Knowledge Integration framework, which recognizes and guides students in integrating their diverse ideas about science, we incorporated qualitative graphing activities into a seventh grade web‐based inquiry unit about cell division and cancer treatment. In Study 1, we characterized the kinds of graphs students generated in terms of their integrati...
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Papers by Camillia Matuk