Embodied Explanatory Expressions for Facilitating Science Reasoning and Enhancing Interactive Simulations

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The project will research how student body movements support their reasoning and understanding about scientific concepts that involve hidden structures or unobservable mechanisms. Student and scientist descriptions and explanations often involve embodied expressions, such as body movements used to represent or symbolically manipulate components of scientific systems (e.g., turning the hands to an object's rotation, tilting the upper torso to demonstrate some type of imbalance, etc.). Exploring the embodied foundations of science reasoning is also timely because of recent advances in human-computer interfaces that allow people to interact with computers using expressive, natural movements as opposed to keystrokes and mouse-clicks. The project will initially research what types of body motion that support causal explanations for observable phenomena, which are called Embodied Explanatory Expressions (EEEs). Building on the research, the project will then explore whether identified EEEs can be integrated into the control structures of online simulations utilizing newly available motion sensing input devices (e.g., Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion). The research findings will enrich our basic understanding of science learning and have practical implications in curriculum design and in the development of new learning technologies.The project will research student gestures and body motion during explanation of such scientific concepts by recording and analyzed these gestures and motion not only to identify the embodiment of such knowledge, but also to design interventions and simulations based on such motions that could facilitate learning. Using interviews, available motion sensing input devices, and other methods, the project will validate the approach, investigate how students reason using body movements, and how their expressions change with interventions. This project will identify core EEEs for supporting scientific reasoning in three critical areas of science involving unobservable mechanisms: Molecular Interactions, Heat Transfer, and Earth Systems. The project will focus specifically on the types of embodied interactions that support students' construction of explanations, and explore whether these body movements can be integrated into the design of a new generation of online learning simulations that elevates the level of science reasoning exhibited by students who use them.