Computer Science Education Research
Research Experience
Skills: Team Work; Research; Project Management
Overview
At Michigan Tech, I worked in two computer science education research labs. I worked on many projects, one of which I have highlighted below. Our work focused on getting students engaged in the material and helping to better utilize existing technologies. We used participatory design practices to include professors and students. These projects helped me to understand the design process and how to better work with those of different backgrounds. The lab spaces were designed to bring together people with different knowledge, so we were better able to help those who had not experienced computer science education in the past.
Modeler
In order to teach computational thinking skills in k-12 classrooms not based around computer science, we developed Modeler. Modeler serves to structure the experience of modeling a topic, one that might not normally be modeled such as the relationships in a novel. This is accomplished in three steps: diagramming the relationships through the use of different shapes, arrows, and labels; providing measurements or changes in the relationships; and a moving or changing simulation that is created by the system to display the relationships as defined. For this project, I defined the user work flow and created the user interface. This was accomplished by talking with computer science professors at Michigan Tech to understand what were the steps of learning computer science and what could be applied to other topics. The design was also based on the ideas and feedback of the primary investigator. The design is meant to invoke the feeling of more traditional educational software, but not feel outdated, but these are the early wireframes. An important aspect of the design was to have a place for students to reflect on their process and take notes about what they were doing. It was not enough for them to just mindlessly experience the simulation, but to reflect on the process.
I created an animation based on the early interface prototype to help understand the process and what using the system could actually look like, which can be seen here. It describes a basic photosynthesis process. This animation was meant to help the developers better understand the relationship between pages and what different components do.