Project: Cross-Curriculum Representational Practices (CCRP)

The CCRP project has two main goals:

1. To further examine students’ understanding of complex systems related concepts in the context of honeybees collecting nectar.  In short, a follow-up to several aspects of the first BeeSign study with a modified curriculum to reflect lessons learned from the prior implementation.
2. To further our understanding of students’ representational practices by examining them in both science and language arts.  This will provide some important contrast and further unpack the influence of context upon students’ representational activities.

This is a collaboration with Kylie Peppler and David Phelps.

This project also makes use of the BeeSign simulation software.

Project: Semiotic Pivots and Activity Spaces for Elementary Science (SPASES)

Using computer vision, Wii remotes, RFID tags, and other sensing technologies, this project aims to engage first and second grade students in learning the physics of force and motion. Desktop simulations have made force and motion accessible to middle school students. Our goal is to use students’ physical actions in the world as an interface to computer simulations to make these ideas accessible to even younger students.

Young students are good at pretend play. The defining feature of pretend play is not that it is fun (although it often is). The defining feature of play is that it has both an imaginary situation and a set of rules. It is focus on a set of rules that makes play an interesting “pivot” and allow us to put play to work. Like play, the physical world (and computer simulations of force and motion) follow a set of rules. SPASES uses computer-enhanced, embodied play as a means for children to uncover the hidden rules of the physical world.

This project is a collaboration with Noel Enyedy, Fabian Wagmister, Jeff Burk, and Girlie Delacruz Adreani.

Project: BeeSign and Participatory Modeling

This project involved the implementation of a 10 week science curriculum unit for kindergarten and first grade which was designed to:

1. Examine students’ representational practices, and encourage students to be more reflective as they create representations in science.
2. Teach students about the process of honeybees collecting nectar from the perspective of complex systems, focussing on concepts such as emergence and interdependence in order to better understand how young students engage with and learn these complicated concepts.

To support these goals, the curriculum included a new form of activity called participatory modeling. Participatory modeling is an activity in which students engage in acting out their current understanding of the content in a way that leverages their ability to communicate well with their peers to help them focus on refining their model of the concepts. In addition, I developed a computer simulation called BeeSign to help students examine and experiment with the simulated behavior of a honeybee hive as it collects nectar.

Check out the related publications.

Project: Negotiated Representational Mediators (NRMs) and Meta-Representational Competence (MRC)

In a study of 5-7 year old students’ ideas about what makes for a good science representation, we synthesized the notion of Meta-Representational Competence (MRC)–the ideas and resources which enable and constrain students as they create, modify, select, critique, learn, and understand representations–with that of representation as a form of practice. Analysis of pre and post interviews as well as video analysis of students’ representational activities reveal that when creating or evaluating a representation, these students negotiate between their personal preferences, the constraints and affordances of the activity in which they are engaged, and their understanding of the content being studied. In addition, the rules that students come to follow, their understanding of the content, and the way in which they choose to represent their understanding of the content are all influenced by their ongoing participation within the classroom activities.

Check out the related publications.