Papers by Mike Tissenbaum
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
Creating effective middle school STEM curricula requires a combination of individual and collabor... more Creating effective middle school STEM curricula requires a combination of individual and collaborative learning. Prior studies showed that finding a proper balance and providing uninterrupted knowledge transmission between different learning modes can be challenging in such mixed pedagogical approaches. In this paper, we present a multi-device interactive educational platform named SimSnap to teach biology curriculum to middle school children. SimSnap facilitates interactions among touchscreen Chromebooks to perform in-class individual and group activities. We present a usability analysis study with eight middle school children where they learn about the influence of temperature on tomato plant growth. Our study demonstrated that SimSnap facilitates group discussions to complete collaborative tasks. It also creates seamless knowledge propagation between prior to current tasks to learn about more complex concepts from previous simpler activities. Middle school children gave overall high usability ratings and positive feedback on SimSnap. This study also helped to outline some design recommendations for future improvements of SimSnap.
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
We examined how Idea Wall, a collaboration spatially manipulable interactive note tool, supports ... more We examined how Idea Wall, a collaboration spatially manipulable interactive note tool, supports collaborative scientific reasoning among students. Through a design-based research approach, the study also aims to identify potential improvements to the tool that can better support collaborative interactions. The Idea Wall has the ability to facilitate spatial manipulation and interactive note-taking supported student engagement and collaboration. This paper contributes to the growing body of research on the use of interactive tools to enhance scientific reasoning skills in collaborative learning environments. By researching the affordances and challenges of the tool, this study provides valuable insights into the design considerations and potential improvements of such tools in building new norms of collaborative discussion for a knowledge community.
British Journal of Educational Technology
International Conference of Learning Sciences, 2020
Research has shown that supporting tinkering and exploration promotes a wide range of STEM relate... more Research has shown that supporting tinkering and exploration promotes a wide range of STEM related literacies. However, the open-endedness of tinkering environments makes it difficult to know whether learners’ exploration is productive or not. This is especially true in museum spaces, where dwell times are short and facilitators lack a history of engagement with individual visitors. In response, this study uses telemetry data from Oztoc – an openended exploratory tabletop exhibit in which visitors embody the roles of engineers who are tasked with attracting and cataloging newly discovered aquatic creatures by building working electronic circuits. This data is used to build Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to devise an automated scheme of identifying when a visitor is behaving productively or unproductively. Evaluation of our HMM was shown to effectively discern when visitors were productively and unproductively engaging with the exhibit. Using a Markov model, we identify common patterns ...
Research on scripting computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has recently received a lo... more Research on scripting computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has recently received a lot of attention. However, most findings within this research grew out of studies focusing scripting online collaborative learning activities that often had an asynchronous nature and were conducted in artificial settings. This symposium includes an international set of presenters from Belgium, Canada, Germany, and the USA and brings together four studies that focus on scripting face-to-face "classroom" activities, seeing the "classroom" as a formal physical learning environment. The common denominator of the contributions is that they are all field studies focusing on computer-supported science inquiry learning, aiming to investigate the optimal conditions for organizing these inquiry learning environments. Each paper will present the research context, method, data, and conclusions on how scripting can be implemented to support science inquiry learning. Broader implications of the findings of these studies will be discussed with the audience.
surfacelearning.org
Abstract: The work presented here is a product of a collaborative effort to develop a knowledge c... more Abstract: The work presented here is a product of a collaborative effort to develop a knowledge community and inquiry curriculum for elementary science, where students engage in extended investigations of simulated scientific phenomena presumed to occupy ...
British Journal of Educational Technology
This paper argues for a re-examination of the nature and goals of broad computing education initi... more This paper argues for a re-examination of the nature and goals of broad computing education initiatives. Instead of starting with specific values or goals, we instead begin by considering various desired endpoints of computing instruction and then work backward to reason about what form learning activities might take and what are the underlying values and principles that support learners in reaching these endpoints. The result of this exercise is a push for rethinking the form of contemporary computing education with an eye toward more diverse, equitable and meaningful endpoints. With a focus on the role that constructionist-focused pedagogies and designs can play in supporting these endpoints, we examine four distinct cases and the endpoints they support. This paper is not intended to encompass all the possible alternate endpoints for computer science education; rather, this work seeks to start a conversation around the nature of and need for alternate endpoints, as a means to re-evaluate the current tools and curricula to prepare learners for a future of active and empowered computing-literate citizens.
international conference of learning sciences, 2018
While interest in computational thinking (CT) education has grown globally in the past decade, th... more While interest in computational thinking (CT) education has grown globally in the past decade, there lacks a single unified definition of CT. This can pose significant challenges for researchers, teachers, and policy makers trying to decide which assessment methods are appropriate for their specific CT interventions. Rather than trying to create a single unified definition of CT, this symposium brings together a broad spectrum of leading CT researchers to share what CT means for them, how it influenced their learning designs, and the methods for assessing CT learning. This interactive session will showcase these different views of CT in a single place and serve as a rich opportunity for comparison and discussion.
This special interactive session highlights the how the theory of computational action – which ar... more This special interactive session highlights the how the theory of computational action – which argues for an approach to computing education that is founded on the idea that, while learning about computing, young people should have the opportunity to do computing in ways that have direct impact on their lives and their communities – has informed the development of MIT’s App Inventor, a blocks-based programming language for building native mobile apps. Using examples from our work and from partner institutions, we will show how App Inventor has enabled learners from around the world to collaboratively engage in computational action. With an eye towards furthering App Inventor’s support of computational action, this session will also highlight: 1) The recently developed support for real-time collaboration between students working at different computers; and 2) How different App Inventor components allow students to engage in embodied, enactive, extended and embedded learning.
Communications of the ACM, 2020
Exploring goals, perspectives, and challenges.
There is increasing recognition amongst learning scie nces researchers of the critical role that ... more There is increasing recognition amongst learning scie nces researchers of the critical role that the body plays in thinking and reasoning across contexts and across disciplines. This workshop brings ideas of embodied learning and embodied cognition to the design of instructional environments that engage learn ers in new ways of moving within, and acting upon, the physical world. Using data and artifacts from participants’ research and designs as a starting point, this workshop focuses on strategies for how to effectively leverage embodiment in learning activiti es in both technology and non-technology environments. Methodologies for studying/assessing the body’s role in learning are also addressed.
This design-based study describes the implementation and evaluation of a technology framework to ... more This design-based study describes the implementation and evaluation of a technology framework to support smart classrooms and Distributed Technology Enhanced Learning (DTEL) called SAIL Smart Space (S3). S3 is an open-source technology framework designed to support students engaged in inquiry investigations as a knowledge community. To evaluate the 5.4 Analysis of KCI Principle #3: Collaborative Inquiry activities are designed to address the targeted domain learning goals, using the knowledge base as a primary resource and producing assessable outcomes. .
This paper describes PLACE a 12-week cross-contexts curriculum for grade 11 physics that engaged ... more This paper describes PLACE a 12-week cross-contexts curriculum for grade 11 physics that engaged students at home, in class, in their neighbourhoods, and in a smart classroom setting. Using a design-based research approach we introduce a smart classroom infrastructure (SAIL Smart Space; S3) and investigate its role in supporting students in the curriculum as a knowledge community. The present paper focuses on the culminating smart classroom activity, where students use the community knowledge base to scaffold their solving of ill-structured physics problems involving popular Hollywood movies. We examine the efficacy of the tools and the environment, including software agents and data mining approaches that serve to define S3, and help orchestrate the flow of activities, materials, and students during the activity’s enactment. We conclude with a set of design principles that support collaborative inquiry in smart classrooms and across learning contexts. Supporting Knowledge Communiti...
While here is ample research on how youth are connected in online spaces and how youth participat... more While here is ample research on how youth are connected in online spaces and how youth participate online via sharing and reviewing artifacts, yet less is known about how these social connections and contributions emerge, especially in the context of physical making and what can they contribute to learning and assessment. Thus, our symposium primarily addresses two questions: (1) How do youth connect and learn in online maker communities? and (2) How can we design online maker tools for learning in and out of schools? We share efforts examining how sharing artifacts, documenting design processes, and providing feedback via online tools can support young makers in creating physical artifacts and offer insights to new assessment models.
Uploads
Papers by Mike Tissenbaum