[LON-CAPA-cvs] cvs: modules /gerd/alt2007 graphing.bib summary.tex

[www]

www		Sat Apr 14 12:25:48 2007 EDT

  Added files:                 
    /modules/gerd/alt2007	summary.tex 

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    /modules/gerd/alt2007	graphing.bib 
  Log:
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Index: modules/gerd/alt2007/graphing.bib
diff -u modules/gerd/alt2007/graphing.bib:1.7 modules/gerd/alt2007/graphing.bib:1.8
--- modules/gerd/alt2007/graphing.bib:1.7	Wed Apr  4 21:29:44 2007
+++ modules/gerd/alt2007/graphing.bib	Sat Apr 14 12:25:46 2007
@@ -455,7 +455,7 @@
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 28th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education",
    volume="2",
    pages="375-382",
-   title = {"Why doesn't it start from the origin?": Hearing the Cognitive Voice of Signs}
+   title = {``Why Doesn't it Start from the Origin?'': Hearing the Cognitive Voice of Signs}
 }
 
 @CONFERENCE{kennedy98,

Index: modules/gerd/alt2007/summary.tex
+++ modules/gerd/alt2007/summary.tex
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\begin{document}

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{\sc Project Summary: Online Assessment of Back-of-the-Envelope Graph Sketches in Introductory Physics}
\end{center}

Sketching is a skill that allows scientists to express general relationships with just a few strokes. When discussing concepts and phenomena, they quickly resort to sketches of one variable versus another, sometimes just three lines on a paper: two axes and a curve.

The goal of this project is to develop a scalable online tool to assess and give feedback on graph sketches in formative settings. The tool is able to randomize the scenarios, so different students have different answers and can thus freely discuss the problem without simply exchanging the solutions. We will particularly focus on large enrollment introductory physics courses, where appropriate feedback to students regarding the mastery of this skill and the associated concepts is oftentimes not possible using traditional written assignments.

The tool will be developed within an existing open-source and free learning management system to minimize development overhead, yet be kept modular enough so its algorithms and code can be transferred to other platforms and frameworks.

We will evaluate usability for both faculty and students, as well as impact on student problem solving strategies and conceptual learning.

{\bf Learning Goals:}
A sketched graph emphasizes the major features of a phenomenon while ignoring details that may be distracting or better represented in other ways.  Sketched graphs are regularly used by scientists and engineers in informal discourse, as means for describing and supporting claims.  The ability to sketch a graph and use it in an argument involves not only an understanding of the holistic characteristics of graphs, such as general shape, number and general location of intersections with axes, and asymptotes, but also the general behavior of the phenomenon being graphed.  As such, opportunities to sketch graphs and receive formative feedback on them should foster students' conceptual understanding of the phenomena being graphed, and it is expected that a better qualitative understanding of graphs will lead to improved quantitative generation and interpretation of graphs.

{\bf Technology Goals:}
This project develops algorithms that evaluate freehand input of graphs with various randomized constraints or scenarios. The constructed rule set and its tolerances will be adaptive and allow adjustment through feedback loops. Usability and accessibility testing is part of the design process, and scalability concerns will be strongly taken into account in order to develop a widely usable tool, not a laboratory-type proof-of-concept. The tools will be developed on top of an existing software infrastructure, but will be kept modular and be made available open-source, so they can be deployed in other contexts.

{\bf Intellectual Merit:}
A number of studies have investigated the importance of constructing, reading, and critiquing numerically-based graphs of physical phenomena and the difficulties that students face when engaging in these tasks.  However, systematic research on how to support students in distilling the key features of a phenomenon and representing them graphically without delving into numerical analyses is lacking. The proposed work will contribute to theories of learning in online environments and of the cognitive processes involved in sketching graphical representations based on textual descriptions or different graphical representations in the context of physics problems.

{\bf Broader Impact:}
Using sketches to describe physical phenomena is an important skill for every scientist and engineer, but one that is not presently supported in most online learning environments. The algorithms and methodologies we develop can be used by other developers to incorporate similar or other innovative formative assessment tools into their online environments. The platform that it is initially developed in is already used at over 100 institutions and by six major publishing companies.
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