Grounded and Transferable Knowledge of Complex Systems Using Computer Simulations

该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。这些系统背后的正式原则适用于广泛的领域。虽然这些原则的广泛适用性说明了它们的重要性，但它也对教育工作者提出了挑战，即如何以一种足够抽象的方式来传达这些原则，使学生能够在表面上不相关的领域中转移原则。目前的研究解决了学生何时以及如何将他们所学的科学原理转移到新环境中的问题。我们建议的研究探索以一种既扎实又可移植的知识的方式向学生传授科学原理的方法。对这一提议的一个中心调查涉及到呈现现象的表面的、具体的细节与现象背后更深层次的科学原理的抽象之间的关系。我们的实验探索了基于感知的模拟在培养学生科学理解方面的作用。通过观察对一个模拟的积极探索如何有助于理解随后提出的基于相同原理的模拟，我们可以评估科学原理是否已被成功抽象。实验将探索图形具体性、叙事语境化、语言特定性和图表对学生内隐和外显的科学原理知识的作用。一个研究成果将是如何以及何时使用具体的和高度情境化的材料，而不是理想化和去情境化的材料。其中一项研究集中在通过操纵单词的具体性和抽象性来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语言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相结合(反之亦然)，或者通过使用具体但具有隐喻意义的词语。第二条线的实验旨在给参与者提供科学原理的第一手经验，以测试它们是否促进了跨相似情景的自发迁移。利用信号检测理论的科学原理，我们将把直接经验与明确指导的信号检测任务进行比较。进一步的实验将确定体验相对于指导的优势是否受到模拟的知觉具体性和训练场景的叙事丰富性的影响。调查的科学目标是了解知觉经验如何导致抽象的概念理解，以及概念理解如何改变知觉经验。实践的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.