Grounded and Transferable Knowledge of Complex Systems Using Computer Simulations

这个项目涉及使用交互式计算机模拟来教授管理复杂自适应系统的科学概念。作为这些系统基础的形式化原则适用于广泛的领域。尽管这些原则的广泛适用性说明了它们的重要性，但对教育者来说，以一种学生能够在足够抽象的层面上欣赏这些原则的方式来传达这些原则也是一种挑战，这样学生就可以在表面上不相关的领域中转移这些原则。目前的研究解决的问题是，学生何时以及如何将他们所学的科学原理转移到新的情况下。我们提出的研究探索了如何以一种既接地又可传递的知识的方式教授学生科学原理的方法。这一建议的一个核心问题是，通过表面的、具体的细节来呈现一种现象，与抽象的深层科学原理之间的关系。我们的实验探讨了基于感知的模拟在培养学生科学理解中的作用。通过观察对一个模拟的积极探索如何有助于理解基于同一原理的随后提出的模拟，我们可以评估科学原理是否已被成功抽象。实验将探讨图形具体性、叙事语境化、语言特异性和图表在学生内隐和外显科学原理知识中的作用。一项研究成果将是如何以及何时使用具体和高度情境化的材料，而不是理想化和非情境化的材料。其中一个研究方向是通过操纵单词的具体性和抽象性来研究伴随交互式计算机模拟的语言。这些实验探索如何最好地使用词汇来培养可转移的知识：通过逐渐引入越来越抽象的语言，通过将抽象语言与具体的视觉结合（反之亦然），或者通过使用具体但隐喻相关的词汇。第二组实验旨在为参与者提供科学原理的第一人称体验，以测试它们是否会促进在类似情况下的自发转移。利用信号检测理论的科学原理，我们将直接经验与具有明确指示的信号检测任务进行比较。进一步的实验将确定经验与指导的优势是否受到模拟的感知具体性和训练场景的叙述丰富性的调节。探究的科学目标是了解感知经验如何导致抽象的概念理解，以及概念理解如何改变感知经验。实际目标是将这种理解转化为将计算机模拟整合到课堂活动中的一般教育原则。

This project concerns the use of interactive computer simulations to teach scientific concepts governing complex adaptive systems. The formal principles underlying these systems are applicable across a wide range of domains. Although the broad applicability of these principles speaks to their importance, it also represents a challenge to educators to convey these principles in a way that students can appreciate the principle at a sufficiently abstract level that the student can transfer the principle across superficially unrelated domains. The current research addresses the question of when and how do have students transfer what they have learned about scientific principles to new situations. Our proposed research explores methods for teaching students about scientific principles in a manner that leads to grounded yet transportable knowledge. A central inquiry of this proposal concerns the relation between the superficial, concrete details through which a phenomenon is presented, and the abstraction of deeper scientific principles underlying the phenomenon.Our experiments explore the role of perceptually-based simulations in fostering students' scientific understanding. By observing how active exploration of one simulation benefits understanding of a subsequently presented simulation based on the same principle, we can assess whether the scientific principle has been successfully abstracted. Experiments will explore the roles of graphical concreteness, narrative contextualization, language specificity, and diagrams on students' implicit and explicit knowledge of scientific principles. One research outcome will be prescriptions for how and when concrete and highly contextualized materials should be used, compared to idealized and decontextualized materials. One line of research focuses on the language that accompanies interactive computer simulations by manipulating the concreteness and abstractness of words. These experiments explore how best to use words to foster transferable knowledge: by gradually introducing increasingly abstract language, by combining abstract language with concrete visuals (or vice versa), or by using concrete but metaphorically related words.A second line of experiments aims to give participants first-person experiences with scientific principles to test whether they promote spontaneous transfer across analogous situations. Using the scientific principle of Signal Detection Theory, we will compare direct experience with a signal detection task with explicit instruction. Further experiments will determine if the advantages of experience vs. instruction are modulated by the perceptual concreteness of the simulations, and the narrative richness of the training scenario.The scientific goal of the inquiry is to gain an understanding of how perceptual experience can lead to abstract conceptual understanding, and how conceptual understanding can change perceptual experience. The practical goal is to translate this understanding into general educational principles for integrating computer simulations into classroom activities.