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。其目标是通过让孩子们能够用可用的工具来创作定格动作和3d动画电影来表达想法，并通过开发将这些工具纳入科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育的方法，扩大学生群体，使他们不仅接触到技术，而且还参与到技术中来。这一努力充分利用了公众对计算机动画的迷恋，以及最近的技术进步，这些技术进步已经将昨天价值百万美元的可视化超级计算机的图形处理能力带入了每一台台式电脑。其中一名项目负责人以定格动画为基础，对这种方法的概念进行了验证，初步试验令人鼓舞。在一节为不上大学的高年级学生开设的高中物理课上，那些通常逃课的学生现在都来上课了，有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审视自己对物理的理解，并更有效地将这种理解传达给老师。（同样的方法也被用来教7岁的孩子阅读，教9岁的孩子生物学，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，该项目将分为两个部分：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），另一个是创建新的3D计算机动画工具，可用于课堂（在普林斯顿大学）。技术教学工具往往是在缺乏强有力的教育研究的情况下开发出来的；在这个项目中，pi将使用公认的指标（并开发新的指标）来量化使用动画对高中物理STEM学习的改善，比较学生在传统“动手”物理课上的理解与包括电影日记的物理课上的理解。这项工作的结果不仅有助于我们理解学生如何学习物理和计算，而且还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发展将使学生从静止动作世界的不稳定动画转向现代计算机图形学的流畅动画。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。该项目将通过开发廉价而强大的3D扫描硬件、点击动画界面和程式化（如卡通）3D动画渲染方法来解决这一研究挑战。更广泛的影响：来自原型系统的轶事证据（过去三年在五个教室收集的）已经表明了这项工作的潜在重大影响。有科学恐惧症的学生和不愿使用电脑的老师们热情地争论着基础物理学，以改进他们的电影。电影制作为教师提供了一个评估学生学习和测试学生先入为主模式的多媒体组合。如果正式评估与这一经验一致，该项目的结果有可能改变学生在各个年龄段学习科学的方式，为学生展示他们的理解和测试他们的假设开辟了一个新的渠道。这可能会导致计算机、数学、生物、化学、工程，甚至讲故事和文学教学的创新。（尽管如此，本研究选择强调物理教育，因为这一主题的评估指标已经建立。）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——这是令人信服的，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动画更容易被儿童，更广泛地说，是动画行业以外的每个人所接受。让这项技术更广泛地使用有可能影响我们所有人交流、学习、工作和娱乐的方式，把我们变成媒体开发者，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.