Collaborative Research: Telling the Story - Learning Math, Science and Engineering Through Animation

这个项目将探索新的和潜在的强大的技术教学工具，向儿童(和教师)介绍计算和物理的概念。其目标是扩大学生的阶层，这些学生不仅接触技术，而且还参与其中，通过使儿童能够用创作定格动作和3D动画电影的实用工具来表达想法，并开发将这些工具纳入科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育的方法。这项工作利用了公众对计算机动画的新兴迷恋，以及最近的技术进步，这些技术进步已经将昨天价值数百万美元的可视化超级计算机的图形能力转移到了每台台式PC中。基于定格动画的这种方法的概念验证由其中一个PI进行了原型验证，初步试验令人鼓舞。在一堂面向非大学高年级学生的高中物理课上，通常逃课的学生现在开始上课，一些人甚至在空闲时间来完成他们的电影。通过动画，学生们能够批判性地检查他们对物理的理解，并更有效地将这种理解传达给老师。(同样的技术也被用于教7岁的孩子阅读，教9岁的孩子生物，用动画故事和纪录片取代读书报告和实验笔记本。)根据这一经验，该项目将有两个分支：一个是开发和评估基于电影制作的教学方法(在塔夫茨大学)，另一个是创造可在课堂上使用的新的3D计算机动画工具(在普林斯顿大学)。技术教学工具通常是在缺乏强有力的教育研究的情况下开发的；在这个项目中，PI将使用公认的度量标准(并开发新的度量标准)来量化由于使用动画而在高中物理中STEM学习的改善，比较学生在传统的“动手”物理课堂上与包括电影日记在内的学生的理解。这项工作的结果不仅有助于我们了解学生如何学习物理和计算，而且还将有助于将学生的经验和直觉与现代科学理论联系起来。电影制作工具的进一步开发将允许学生从静止动作世界的急速动画转移到现代计算机图形的流畅动画。不幸的是，现有的动画系统几乎不能被专业人士使用，更不用说小学生了。这个项目将通过开发廉价和强大的3D扫描硬件、点击式动画界面和风格化(例如卡通般的)3D动画渲染方法来应对这一研究挑战。博德影响：来自原型系统的轶事证据(过去三年在五个教室收集)已经表明了这项工作的潜在和重大影响。害怕科学的学生和不喜欢电脑的老师热衷于讨论潜在的物理知识，以改进他们的电影。电影制作为教师提供了一个多媒体资料包来评估学生的学习情况，并测试学生先入为主的模型。如果正式的评估与这一经验一致，这个项目的结果有可能改变所有年龄段的学生学习科学的方式，为学生打开一条新的渠道，展示他们的理解并检验他们的假设。这可能会导致计算机、数学、生物、化学、工程学甚至讲故事和文学教学的创新。(尽管如此，这项研究选择了对物理教育的重视，因为这门学科的评估标准已经确立。)更广泛地说，动画代表了一种新的表达媒介--视觉而不是文字--令人信服，但目前仅限于高技能的专业人士。PI计划在这个项目中开发的工具将使儿童更容易接触到动画，更广泛地说，对动画行业以外的每个人来说都是如此。让这项技术得到更广泛的应用，可能会影响我们所有人的沟通、学习、工作和娱乐方式，使我们成为媒体开发者，而不是媒体消费者。

This project will explore new and potentially powerful technological teaching tools for introducing the concepts of computing and physics to children (and teachers). The goal is to broaden the class of students who are not merely exposed to but rather engaged with technology, by empowering children to express ideas with usable tools for creating stop-action and 3D-animated movies, and by developing methodologies for incorporating such tools into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. This effort leverages emerging public fascination for computer animation, as well as recent technological advances that have moved the graphics power of yesterday's million-dollar visualization supercomputers into every desktop PC.A proof of concept of this approach, based on stop-motion animation, was prototyped by one of the PIs, and initial trials were encouraging. In a high-school physics class for noncollege-bound seniors, students who typically skipped class were now attending, some coming even during free time to complete their movies. Through animations, students were able to critically examine their own understanding of the physics and more effectively convey that understanding to teachers. (The same technique is also being used to teach reading to 7 year olds and biology to 9 year olds, replacing book reports and lab notebooks with animated stories and documentaries.) Informed by that experience, this project will have two arms: one to develop and evaluate teaching methodology based on moviemaking (at Tufts University), the other to create new 3D computer animation tools useable in the classroom (at Princeton University). Technological teaching tools are often developed in the absence of strong educational research; in this project, the PIs will use accepted metrics (and develop new ones) to quantify the STEM learning improvement in high school physics as a result of using animations, comparing student understanding in conventional "hands-on" physics classes with those that include movie journaling. Results from this work will not only contribute to our understanding of how students learn physics and computing, but will also help bridge the student's experience and intuition with modern scientific theory. Further development of moviemaking tools will allow students to move from the jerky animation of the stop-action world to the smooth animations of modern computer graphics. Unfortunately, existing animation systems are barely usable by professionals, let alone grade-school students. This project will address that research challenge by developing inexpensive and robust 3D scanning hardware, point-and-click animation interfaces, and methods for stylized (e.g. cartoon-like) rendering of 3D animation.Broader Impacts: Anecdotal evidence from the prototype system (gathered over the last three years in five classrooms) already suggests the potential significant impacts of the work. Science-phobic students and computer-shy teachers enthusiastically argue about the underlying physics to improve their movies. Movie making gives teachers a multi-media portfolio to assess student learning and test student preconceived models. If formal evaluations agree with this experience, the results of this project have the potential to change the way students learn science at all ages, opening up a new channel to students to show their understanding and test their hypotheses. This may lead to innovations in teaching computing, math, biology, chemistry, engineering, and even story telling and literature. (Nonetheless, this study chooses an emphasis on physics education because of established metrics for evaluation in this subject.) Even more broadly, animation represents a new medium of expression - visual rather than written - that is compelling but currently limited to highly skilled professionals. The tools the PI plans to develop in this project will make animation more accessible both to children and, more generally, to everyone outside the animation industry. Making this technology more widely available has the potential to affect the way we all communicate, learn, work, and play, turning us into media developers rather than media consumers.