Computer-Supported Graphical Representations for Learning Modeling

这个项目的目标是创建一个有计算机支持的可视化表示系统，帮助学生学习如何表达复杂现象和系统的模型并进行推理。学习创建、测试和修改模型是科学推理的核心技能。有充分的经验表明，图形表示可以为建模思想提供一种自然的表达和交流媒介。在教育建模环境中使用了三种图形表示法(概念图、动态系统符号和论证环境)，每一种都侧重于建模的不同方面，但没有一种单独的图形表示法足以捕捉建模所涉及的活动和知识的范围。此外，它们都没有解决建模中的三个关键问题：(1)广泛适用的原则和过程的重要性，(2)理解模型何时显露出来，以及(3)对行为的定性理解。本项目将使用定性建模的思想来创建一套图形符号，在计算机支持下，使中学生能够学习特定的科学领域和建模过程本身。学生将使用该软件创建、分析、修改、讨论和设计他们的模型。该软件将模拟文字处理程序之于撰写论文和电子表格之于数学分析：一种工具，用于创建、修改和传播学生的想法，创建一种人工制品，捕捉他们不断发展的理解，并可作为讨论的焦点。该软件将使用“构造工具包”比喻来具体化抽象，使学生能够在不断扩大的原则和过程集合中表达他们的知识，从而强调科学知识的内在统一性和系统结构。该软件将提供多层次的计算机支持，从简单的绘图和出版工具到复杂的教练。使用类比和定性推理相结合的方式，软件教练将比较学生模型和标准模型，指出学生模型和模拟器行为预测之间的差异，并为教师准备评估报告，总结课堂进展和误解模式。由于许多城市学校的计算机设备陈旧或最少，为了使此类软件实用和可扩展，我们正在使用客户端/服务器架构，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，所有软件和文件都将作为开放源码提供。这个项目与我们在NSF城市学校学习技术中心所做的工作具有协同作用。该中心的一个主要重点是在芝加哥和底特律公立学校系统中创建和部署一个备用的中学科学课程，该课程以探究为基础，并通过工作圈子的媒介、包括支持这些努力的研究人员和教师的合作安排来支持国家标准。我们目前正在运营两个工作圈子，正在开发将用于探索这些想法的Curucula，并已经在进行铅笔和纸张的试点研究，以探索建模的视觉符号中的设计问题。我们的软件将在1999-2000学年与我们的教师合作伙伴学校一起初步部署，并在随后几年扩展到芝加哥和底特律的更广泛的学校(和课程)，以及适当的其他学校。

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.