Growing SAM: Bringing Animation into Informal STEM Educational Settings

成长的 SAM：将动画带入非正式的 STEM 教育环境

• 批准号: 0742069
• 负责人: Michael Cole
• 金额: $ 2.8万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2008-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0742069&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Growing; SAM; Bringing; Animation; into

Typically when a teacher wants to probe a student's understanding of a concept, she asks him to write about it. In science students write lab reports, in reading they write book reports; even in math, students often have to write how they solved the math problem. Unfortunately, many students do not enjoy writing and therefore do not necessarily give the teacher the insight she is looking for. In currently funded NSF work at Tufts University, researchers are developing a software toolset that allows students to build stop action movies (SAM) as a means for representing ideas about math and science. SAM is not meant to replace the standard reporting methods, but rather to augment them. Tufts investigators, looking at how students learn differently as a result of the difference in reporting mechanism, are finding that animation can even motivate and drive the learning (because students want to improve their movies). This ongoing work has reached the halfway point, and is starting to show preliminary successes in the classroom. Changing the reporting methodology has resulted in students being excited about coming to class. They willingly stay after class to complete their "reports", and will actively discuss the science they are learning with each other and with the teacher. This exploratory grant will allow the PI to join the Tufts team, as it were, so that the project can branch out into other learning environments while still in the development stage. The PI will extend the research to non-school-based learning environments, with particular concentration on reaching out to African-American and Latino communities. The timing of this work is critical for both institutions, and the results will be mutually beneficial. Outcomes of this exploratory project will enable Tufts to improve the user interface while their SAM software is still in development, and thereby potentially open up a new learning market. UCSD, on the other hand, will acquire new tools to teach logical thinking and elementary programming to disadvantaged populations, exploiting the substantial infrastructure and expertise they already have in place. Broader Impacts: This research will extend the SAM approach into non-traditional educational settings (e.g., the after-school learning environment) for disadvantaged students, and will further help our understanding in general of how kids learn in different environments.

一般来说，当老师想探究学生对一个概念的理解时，她会让他写下来。理科学生写实验报告，阅读学生写读书报告;即使是数学，学生也经常要写他们是如何解决数学问题的。 不幸的是，许多学生不喜欢写作，因此不一定能给老师她正在寻找的洞察力。 在塔夫茨大学目前资助的NSF工作中，研究人员正在开发一种软件工具集，允许学生制作停止动作电影（SAM）作为代表数学和科学思想的手段。 SAM并不是要取代标准报告方法，而是要增强它们。 塔夫茨大学的研究人员研究了学生们由于报告机制的差异而导致的不同学习方式，他们发现动画甚至可以激励和推动学习（因为学生们想改进他们的电影）。 这项正在进行的工作已经完成一半，并开始在课堂上取得初步成功。 改变报告方法导致学生们对来上课感到兴奋。 他们愿意在课后留下来完成他们的“报告”，并会积极地与彼此和老师讨论他们正在学习的科学。 这个探索性的补助金将允许PI加入塔夫茨团队，因为它是，使该项目可以分支到其他学习环境，而仍然在发展阶段。 PI将把研究扩展到非学校的学习环境，特别关注非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔社区。 这项工作的时机对两个机构都至关重要，其结果将是互利的。 这一探索性项目的成果将使塔夫茨大学能够在SAM软件仍在开发的同时改进用户界面，从而有可能开辟一个新的学习市场。 另一方面，UCSD将获得新的工具，向弱势群体教授逻辑思维和基本编程，利用他们已经拥有的大量基础设施和专业知识。 更广泛的影响：这项研究将SAM方法扩展到非传统的教育环境（例如，此外，我们亦会为弱势学生提供课后学习环境，以进一步了解儿童在不同环境下的学习情况。