Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments

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Participatory Simulations immersive learning
environments

• Emotionally engaging, first-person experience
• Identification with and use of tangible objects
• Collaborative participation and theory-building
• Synergy between physical and virtual worlds
• (Vanessa Stevens Colella)

Thinking Tag The top Tag has met two people and
is not sick. The bottom Tag has met six people
and is sick, as indicated by the five red LEDs.
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Augmenting intelligence through mediated
experience

• Facilitates more complex simulations
• Remember and monitor more information
• Identify complex patterns
• Enables you to move back and forth between the
  computer and the personal experience
• Alternative representations
• Various learning styles
• Supports early attempts at formalizing
  simulations
• Surface assumptions
• Develop coherent mental models
• (Vanessa Stevens Colella)

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The HubNet MissionSystems dynamics and
complexity learning for ALL students

• The problems our society faces are increasingly
  systemic in character
• The study of dynamic systems stands as a new form
  of literacy for all, a new way of describing,
  viewing and symbolizing phenomena in the world
• The world of dynamic experience and the world of
  static school representations stands as one
  source of student alienation from the current
  curriculum

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The HubNet Learning ProblemDeterministic/central
ized mindset

• Students have considerable difficulties in making
  sense of complex systemsemergent phenomena and
  global patterns that arise from distributed
  interaction
• Participatory simulations have previously been
  used in the social sciences but not in math and
  science

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The HubNet Learning ProblemWhat is different
about math and science?

• Lack of close integration of participatory
  simulation activities with modeling/analysis
  technologies
• Class discussions need to be supported with
  functions such as simulation replay, construction
  of alternative scenarios and assumptions, and
  alternative visualizations
• Technology must be available to support student
  participation

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HubNet A Participatory Simulation Architechure

• Innovative networked classroom-based
  technologies connect learners evolving
  intuitions with powerful tools for modeling and
  analysis
• Learners working in the networked environment
  make overt and visible their strategies in
  relation to generating different kinds of
  emergent behavior
• These tools enable them to analytically
  understand these systems, in effect working with
  the mathematics of change without needing to
  master the formalisms of differential equations.

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HubNet
The network-based activity will help make visible
learners ideas and ways of organization their
experiences, which should significantly advance
our understanding of these forms of emergent
learning
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Aggregate Modelingthe flow of bunnies (or beer)

• The first kind of tool enables the user to
  conceptualize the system as "flows" and
  "accumulations." For example, a changing
  population of rabbits might be modeled as an
  "accumulation" (like water accumulated in a sink)
  with rabbit birth rates as a "flow" into the
  population and rabbit death rates as a flow out
  (like the flow of water into and out of the
  sink). Other populations or dynamics--e.g., the
  presence of "accumulations" of predators-- could
  affect these flows. In the limit of the
  continuous case, this means dynamic systems are
  written in the language of differential
  equations.
• (http//www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/ps/part_sims
  .html)

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Object-Based Modelingbe a bunny

• The second kind of tool enables the user to model
  systems directly at the level of the individual
  elements of the system. For example, our rabbit
  population could be rendered as a collection of
  individual rabbits each of which has associated
  probabilities of reproducing or dying.
• The object-based approach, while perhaps less
  efficient at certain kinds of analysis (e.g.,
  translating its results into algebraic form), has
  the advantage of being a natural entry point for
  learners. It may well be easier to generate rules
  for individual rabbits than to describe the flows
  of rabbit populations. This is because the
  learners can literally see the rabbits and can
  control the individual rabbit's behavior. New
  computational media make this object-based
  approach practical as a tool for modeling
  population dynamics and other forms of highly
  interactive emergent phenomena.
• (http//www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/ps/part_sims
  .html)

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HubNet as Modeling Environmentbe a bunny and
watch the beer flow

• HubNet can itself be a powerful modeling tool. In
  particular, HubNet can be used as a new kind of
  object-based modeling environment.
• In contrast to languages such as StarLogo,
  Hubnet, as a modeling engine, depends on each of
  its nodes -- each calculator can be a turtle.
  While for very large numbers of turtles, StarLogo
  would be much more efficient, for smaller numbers
  (classroom-size) the advantage of students being
  able to test their intuitive behavior and to
  participate directly in the simulations has
  powerful learning possibilities.
• Because HubNet allows the user flexibility about
  what to pass from the calculators to the Hub,
  many hybrid architectures are possible as well.
  If the calculators pass average or aggregate
  quantities to the Hub, then a new mixed
  object-based hybrid architecture results. These
  new architectures open doors to many new kinds of
  simple classroom activities.

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HubNet Gridlock

• Meaningful scenario
• Real-time interaction
• Each student has an intersection
• Students try different strategies, from traffic
  cops to smart cars
• Students then analyze their strategies for a
  report of recommendations to the mayor of
  Gridlock
• The end report incorporates both object-based and
  aggregate analysis

Uncoordinated traffic
Traffic flow with no lights
Accidents quickly result
Lights synchronized
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Other HubNet Calculator Models
People Molecules
Regression
Disease
Elevators
Function Activity
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MIT PDA Participatory Simulations Site
http//education.mit.edu/pda/index.htm
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Activity NetLogo Participatory Simulation

• Set-up Orientation 15 minutes
• Play! 20 minutes
• Post Your Reflections
• Ken Future vision and CodeIT
• Whole-class discussion of posted reflections and
  general reflections

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Activity NetLogo Participatory Simulation

• Group Roles
• 1 Teacher (server)
• 2-4 Students (clients)
• 1-2 Observers
• with substitutions if necessary
•  
• Reference Guide to Computer PSAs
• http//ccl.northwestern.edu/ps/guide/comp-part-sim
  s-guide.html

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HubNet A Participatory Simulation Architechure

• Innovative networked classroom-based
  technologies connect learners evolving
  intuitions with powerful tools for modeling and
  analysis
• Learners working in the networked environment
  make overt and visible their strategies in
  relation to generating different kinds of
  emergent behavior
• These tools enable them to analytically
  understand these systems, in effect working with
  the mathematics of change without needing to
  master the formalisms of differential equations.