Development of a Library of Animated Ranking and Sorting Tasks for Introductory Astronomy

天文学（11）该项目的目标是开发一个包含100多个新的动画排名和排序任务的图书馆，供中学后天文学入门课程使用。这些是电脑动画，呈现给学生一个问题，他们必须解决通过拖放的图标。这些图标可以表示各种各样的对象、特征、事件和概念。排名任务要求学生根据指定的标准对图标进行排序。根据排名标准的复杂性，可能会产生非常具有挑战性和吸引力的问题。排序任务要求学生将图标组织到标记的箱子中。当容器重叠时，这些任务也变得非常具有挑战性。这两种类型的任务都是广泛随机的，与所涉及的概念的完整背景信息打包，并提供反馈沿着正确的答案和分数。智力优点：该项目小组正在创造性地将天文学概念纳入研究知情的评估工具，创新地利用技术。每个动画任务都提供了一个完整的学习周期的机会，因为学生会收到关于他们表现的反馈，并且可以在尝试另一个随机版本的任务之前查阅背景材料。这个框架鼓励学生反复与任务互动，并建立对材料的掌握。学生发现这些任务具有挑战性和吸引力。该项目直接解决了STEM教育的两个强烈需求：1）学生需要在各种背景下多次接触概念，2）学生需要快速和有意义的反馈。更广泛的影响：这个任务库可能会被广泛采用。教师可以立即和方便地利用这些动画以各种方式。这些任务可以合并到网页、PowerPoint演示文稿或Flash交付系统中。它们也可以用于基于网络的评估引擎EDU或适用于其他平台。由于这些任务及其源代码将公开提供，大学和商业组织可将其纳入其天文学远程教育课程。该项目还仔细研究了这些动画任务的使用对学生态度，参与度和表现的影响，并寻找这些变量之间的相关性。该项目正在收集学生使用任务的实践数据。这两项研究的结果将以论文和会议发言的形式分发。

Astronomy (11) The goal of this project is to develop a library of more than 100 new animated ranking and sorting tasks for use in postsecondary introductory astronomy courses. These are computer animations that present students with a problem they must solve through the drag-and-drop of icons. These icons may represent a great variety of objects, characteristics, events, and concepts. Ranking tasks require students to order the icons according to specified criteria. Very challenging and engaging problems can be created depending upon the complexity of the ranking criteria. Sorting tasks require students to organize icons into labeled bins. These tasks also become very challenging when the bins overlap. Both types of tasks are extensively randomized, packaged with complete background information on the concepts involved, and provide feedback along with the correct answer and score. Intellectual merit: The project team is creatively incorporating astronomy concepts into research-informed assessment tools that make innovative use of technology. Each animated task provides the opportunity for a complete learning cycle as students receive feedback on their performance and can consult the background material before attempting another randomized version of the task. This framework encourages students to interact with the task repeatedly and build mastery over the material. Students find these tasks challenging and engaging. This project directly addresses two strong recognized needs for STEM education: 1) that students require multiple exposures to concepts in a variety of contexts and 2) that students require rapid and meaningful feedback. Broader impacts: This library of tasks is likely to be widely adopted. Instructors may immediately and conveniently make use of these animations in a variety of ways. These tasks can be incorporated into web pages, PowerPoint presentations, or Flash delivery systems. They also may be used in the web-based assessment engine EDU or adapted for use in other platforms. Since the tasks and their source code will be made publicly available, universities and commercial organizations may incorporate them throughout their astronomy distance education courses. The project is also carefully studying the effect that usage of these animated tasks has on student attitudes, engagement, and performance, and looking for correlations between these variables. The project is collecting data on student practices as they make use of the tasks. The results of both studies will be disseminated in papers and conference presentations.