EXP: Local Ground: A Contextually Grounded Approach for Learning Data Science Skills

在这个网络学习：教育转型探索项目中，研究人员将重点放在帮助四年级到六年级的学生培养数据科学技能的挑战上——理解数据的重要性及其来源，培养操纵数据的能力，并利用数据得出结论，做出明智的决策。研究人员正在开发和完善名为Local Ground的软件，旨在让学习者收集与当地科学或社会科学挑战相关的数据，并帮助学习者操纵这些数据并使用它们来实现挑战，在此过程中开发图表，图形和叙述与他人共享。该系统旨在提供脚手架，帮助学生迭代地开发和改进表示，并理解他们的数据所代表的内容。它被设计成在各种不同的表示之间显示和翻译。目的是将Local Ground作为一种“辅助刺激”——一种介于学生naïve思维方式和表现思维的自发倾向之间的文化形式。研究小组正在使用Local Ground作为研究与发展数据科学技能相关的基本问题的背景，包括儿童如何将naïve表示转换为更可用和可交流的形式，这些形式如何以及是否适合其他人，这些过程如何支持对核心数学，统计和计算结构的理解，以及当地收集的相关数据对学习这些能力的影响。理解、操纵和使用数据是21世纪公民的基本技能。该项目的研究人员正在探索一种新的方法，帮助学龄前儿童开始发展数据技能，并设计一个名为Local Ground的软件平台，支持四到六年级的学生在他们关心的社区项目中工作，这些项目需要大量的数据收集、处理、分析和应用。教学方法让学生以复杂的方式使用数据来解决对他们社区重要的问题；该工具帮助他们成功地收集、分析和使用数据。在这种背景下，研究人员正在进行的研究将增加关于如何帮助年轻学习者理解对数据使用和分析重要的核心数学，统计和计算结构的已知内容。

In this Cyberlearning: Transforming Education Exploration project, researchers focus on the challenge of helping students in grades 4 through 6 develop data science skills -- understanding the significance of data and where it comes from, and developing capabilities involved in manipulating data and using it to draw conclusions and make informed decisions. The researchers are developing and refining software, called Local Ground, designed to allow learners to collect data relevant to local scientific or socio-scientific challenges and to help learners manipulate those data and use them to achieve the challenge, in the process developing charts, graphs, and narratives to be shared with others. The system is designed to provide scaffolding that helps students iteratively develop and refine representations and understandings of what their data represent. It is designed to display and translate between a variety of distinct representations. The intention is that Local Ground will act as an "auxiliary stimulus" -- a cultural form wedged between students' naïve ways of thinking and spontaneous inclinations to represent that thinking. The research team is using use of Local Ground as a context for investigating fundamental questions associated with developing data science skills, including how children convert naïve representations into more usable and communicable forms, how and if those forms are appropriate by others, how those processes support understanding of core mathematic, statistical, and computational constructs, and the impact of locally collected and relevant data on learning these competencies.Understanding, manipulating, and using data are essential skills for 21st century citizens. The researchers in this project are exploring a new approach to helping pre-teens begin to develop data skills and designing a software platform called Local Ground that supports 4th through 6th graders as they work on community projects they care about that require significant data collection, manipulation, analysis, and application. The pedagogical approach has students using data in sophisticated ways to address issues of importance to their communities; the tool helps them successfully gather, analyze, and use the data. In this context, the researchers are engaging in research that will add to what is known about how to help young learners understand core mathematical, statistical, and computational constructs important to data use and analysis.