Authors:
Pratim Sengupta
;
Gokul Krishnan
and
Mason Wright
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University and Peabody College, United States
Keyword(s):
Computational Thinking, Tangible Interfaces, Agent-based Programming, Visual Programming, K-12 Science Education, User-centered Design, Integrated STEM, Engineering Education.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Collaborative Learning
;
Computer-Supported Education
;
e-Learning
;
Instructional Design
;
K-12 Students
;
Learning/Teaching Methodologies and Assessment
;
Project Based Learning and Engineering Education
;
Social Context and Learning Environments
;
Technology Enhanced Learning
;
Ubiquitous Learning
Abstract:
We investigate how the integration of visual agent-based programming and computationally augmented physical structures can support curricular integration across STEM domains for elementary grade students. We introduce ViMAP-Tangible, a socio-technically distributed computational learning environment, which integrates ultrasonic sensors with the ViMAP visual programming language using a distributed computation infrastructure. In this paper, we report a study in which 3rd and 4th grade students used ViMAP-Tangible to engage in collaborative design-based activities in order to invent "drawing machines'' for generating geometric shapes. The curricular activities integrate engineering practices such as user-centered design, mathematical reasoning about multiplication, rates and fractions, and physical science concepts central to learning Newtonian mechanics. We identify the key affordances of the learning environment and our pedagogical approach in terms of the relationship between the st
ructural elements of students’ physical constructions and computational models, and their learning outcomes, both in terms of computational thinking, and the domain-specific, mathematical and scientific knowledge that they began developing.
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