Circuit City : Classroom
Using Urban Planning
Techniques and Movement of
Traffic To Teach Electric Theory
Eric Bailey
Tamecia Jones
Jennifer Steinman
ED 342 – Final Project
Agenda
• Prototype
• Demonstration
• Understanding the Prototype
• User Scenario for the Classroom
• The Landscape / Immersion in Problem
• Prior Experience
• Tech Challenge Observation
• Literature Review
• Design Process
1
Prototype Overview and
Objectives
• The prototype is an interactive exhibit which helps
students to understand circuit current theory and
transfer to real world
• Here we will use the social, cultural, and physical
metaphor of city planning and cars traveling over
streets or within a larger context of a city to
explain the flow of current through a circuit
• The form is both a physical artifact and a minicurriculum on electricity
2
Relation to Elementary Science
Education
General Skills Across K-12 Span
Early Elementary
Upper
Elementary/Middle
Secondary
Recognition
Recognition
Recognition
Categorization
Categorization
Categorization
Explanation
Explanation
Conceptualization
Mathematical Proof
Target skills of the prototype
3
How does the project
accomplish the objective?
• Uses cars and streets to help students
understand the concepts of electricity
• Cars symbolize electricity flow
• Problem-solving can occur within the urban
planning context
• Expandable to learner’s competency growth
4
Prototype Affordances
• Visualization of concepts of electricity
• Typical electrical instruction uses batteries and light bulbs but
the flow of electricity can not be seen because it is invisible
• Inquiry based context
• Drives conversation between students and teachers
• Sensory motor
• Based on real-world experiences
5
User Scenario Overview
• Ages:
Ms. Saraniti’s 5th Grade Class
• Context:
Single lesson in science class
Parallel vs Series Circuits
Part of electricity unit
• Scenario:
Ground in real-world problem
Explain theory of electricity
Use prototype to highlight concept
Prototype is highly contextual
6
Full Circuit City Curriculum
Concept
Visible Example of
Circulating Current
Electric Particle Car
Road loop with cars moving in one
Circuit
direction
Switch
Current
Battery
Road block, bridge; road open or closed
# of cars passing a point per unit of time
Gas; mechanism injecting energy
Resistance
Road conditions; hazards, curves, potholes
7
Agenda
• Prototype
• Demonstration
• Understanding the Prototype
• User Scenario for the Classroom
• The Landscape / Immersion in Problem
• Prior Experience
• Tech Challenge Observation
• Literature Review
• Design Process
8
Immersion in Problem
• Experience with Engineering Summer Camp
• Tutoring engineering students in electrical
engineering coursework
• Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose
• Furby Surgery Workshop
• Tech Challenge Engineering Workshops
• Observations / videos of workshops
9
Key Findings From Tech
Challenge Workshop Video
• Switching between a representation and actual
elements or analogy is hard for all grade levels
• Manipulation alone is not enough for understanding
• Students have problems understanding series and
parallel beyond battery example
• Students can do series circuit and parallel circuit,
but not combinational; this shows students do not
grasp concepts
10
Salient Literature
• Gibbons, P., McMahon, A., Weigers, J. 2003.
Hands-On Current Electricity: A Professional
Development Course. Journal of Elementary
Science Education, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 1-11.
This article describes a teacher professional
development on how to teach electrical circuits to
their students. It begins with understanding their own
misconceptions, correcting them, and then expanding
their models to create lessons for their students. It
confirms our traveling car analogy.
11
Learning Theories
• Theory of Conceptual Change
• Structure Mapping Theory of Analogical Thinking
• Mental Models
12
Conceptual Change Model
•
Science education learning theory
•
Instructor facilitates a discrepant event that contradicts the
learner’s existing conceptual framework and provides a teaching
moment through reactions of surprise or motivation to correct the
discrepant events.
•
These four conditions must occur:
1. Dissatisfaction with existing conceptions
2. A new (alternative) conception must be intelligible
3. A new (alternative) conception must be appear initially feasible
4. A new (alternative) concept should suggest the possibility of
fruitful research (testing) program.
Posner et al. (1982)
13
Conceptual Change Variations
• A process that enables students to synthesize models in their
minds, beginning with their existing explanatory framework,
(Vosniadou, 2002)
• Repair of misconceptions, (Chi and Roscoe, 2002)
• The reorganization of diverse kinds of knowledge into complex
systems in students’ minds, (diSessa, 2002)
• Conceptual change results from changes in the way that
students use the tools in various contexts, and the change
actually occurs at the societal level, (Ivarrson, Schoultz, and
Saljo, 2002)
Suping, S. Conceptual Change Among Science Students. 2003.
14
Structure-Mapping Theory
• The structure-mapping analogy asserts that identical operations and
relationships hold among nonidentical things. (Gentner & Gentner, 1983).
• Base domain = known domain
• Target domain = domain of inquiry
• Analogy has components:
- Object Relationships
- Object Attributes or surface features
• This is successful under these two conditions:
– Preservations of relations – relational predicates, and not object attributes,
carry over into analogical mappings
– Systematicity – predicates are more likely to be imported into the target into the
target if they belong to a system of coherent, mutually constraining
relationships, the others of which map into the target.
15
Instructional Analogies and
Mental Models
• Di Vesta, F., Zook, K. (1991). Instructional Analogies and
Conceptual Misrepresentations. Journal of Educational
Psychology. Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 246-252.
This article discusses the issues around young/novice and
adult/expert learners in successfully mapping from the base
domain to the target domain, and how constraints will help the
learner see the goal of the analogy. It is important to
discriminate between relevant relations and superficial attributes
of the object.
16
Mental Model Resources
• Clement, J., Steinberg, M. (2002). Step-Wise Evolution of
Mental Models of Electric Circuits: A “Learning-Aloud” Case
Study. The Journal of the Learning Sciences. 11 (4). Pp 389452.
• Gentner, D., & Gentner, D. (1983). Flowing Waters or Teeming
Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity. In D. Gentner and A. L.
Stevens (Eds.), Mental Models. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
• Hadzigeorgiou, Y., Savage, M. 2001. A Study of the Effect of
Sensorimotor Experiences on the Retention and Application of
Two Fundamental Physics Ideas. Journal of Elementary Science
Education. Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 9-21.
17
Agenda
• Prototype
• Demonstration
• Understanding the Prototype
• User Scenario for the Classroom
• The Landscape / Immersion in Problem
• Prior Experience
• Tech Challenge Observation
• Literature Review
• Design Process
18
Design Structures
• Sensori-motor Experience
• Visualizations
• Real-World Application
• Embed in Community Context
• Problem-Based Learning
19
Integration of Theory into Design
Objective
Developmental
/Learning
Theory
Design
Structures
Sensori-motor
Experience
Develop
understanding
of concepts of
electricity and
allow transfer to
real world
Conceptual Change
Structure-Mapping
Mental Models
Visualizations
Real-World
Application
Embed in
Community
Context
Solution
Interactive
Expandable
Interchangeable
Problem-based
Activities
Problem-Based
Learning
20
Prototype Sketches
• First Pass at Analogy Sketch
• Interchangeable components
21
Prototype Sketches
• Conceptual Sketches for Parallel
Unit of Instruction
22
Prototype Sketches
23