IDEA: Identifying design principles in educational applets

Abstract

The Internet is increasingly being used as a medium for educational software in the form of miniature applications (e.g., applets) The Internet is increasingly becoming a vehicle to design, develop, and publish educational software in the form of miniature applications (e.g., applets) that can be used to explore specific problem contexts or concepts in a domain. The design of technology tools has the potential to dramatically influence how students interact with tools, and these interactions in turn may influence students' content area understanding and problem solving. However, the rapid development and dissemination of such tools in many cases occur without an explicit set of design principles in place. The purpose of this article is to describe the process that IDEA (Identifying Design principles in Educational Applets) participants used to cull design principles from a library of applets developed for mathematics education. We view the process of extracting these design principles as a first step in a broader methodology of proposing, refining, vetting, and using design principles.Design principles published for educational software range in their specificity depending on the tools being analyzed. For example, Sinclaire (2003) studied student interactions with javabased dynamic geometry sketches that are accompanied by a set of questions to guide student exploration of the objects in the sketches. From her analysis of student work with the sketches, she has extracted a set of guiding principles that should inform future development (e.g., questions should aim to focus student attention on aspects of the sketch, whereas the 99sketch must provide the visual stimulus to draw attention through color, motion and markings).One example of a general list of design principles is published in Clements's (2000) review of research of the use of computers in mathematical problem solving, in which he suggests several contributions that the use of computers can make to facilitate students' problem solving. As another general example, Schoenfeld (1985) contributed a framework of factors that affect student abilities to solve problems, which in turn could inform the design of educational software for problem solving. For example, as students are solving a problem, they need to implement strategies, use resources, and evaluate their progress so that they are aware of and critically examining their own decision making. In a technological environment, the resources available to students include their knowledge of concepts, facts, and procedures, as well as those offered by the technology. Students need knowledge of how to use the technology, and how the various objects and actions on those objects can aid their problem solving. The presence of a particular technology tool also affects the available strategies a student may use during problem solving, since a tool may afford or constrain certain actions, which make some strategies more accessible than others.The National Science Foundation-funded Educational Software Componen...

Digital Tools for Algebra Education: Criteria and Evaluation

“…Others were based on design choices reported by the designers of the software Aplusix (Nicaud et al 2004;Nicaud et al 2006). General criteria for educational applets were found in Underwood et al (2005). Principles on authoring facilities for teachers, addressing the needs of the 'neglected learners', were addressed by Sangwin and Grove (2006) and are in line with Dick's opinion that the possibility for teachers to author content themselves could bring tool and pedagogical content together (Dick 2007).…”

Students’ use of technological features while solving a mathematics problem

“…Some of the principles Clements has suggested that are relevant to our work include recommendations that technology should provide tools for students that allow them to test ideas and receive feedback, engage in playful mathematical exploration, and directly manipulate objects. Underwood et al (2005) agree with these suggestions and also recommend that technological tools should support multiple solution strategies and approaches, employ multiple representations, and make links between representations obvious. In working with interactive diagrams (applets) that are embedded in digital textbooks, Yerushalmy (2005) suggests different functions of such diagrams -which typically include multiple representations of a concept -to narrate, complement or elaborate text found in the digital textbooks.…”

“…For example, a design principle that is often suggested is that students should have access to multiple representations (e.g., Underwood et al, 2005) because these representations may enable students to focus on different aspects of a mathematical idea (DuFour-Janvier, Bednarz, & Belanger, 1987). The designers of the Fish Farm tool included the pie graph and ratio count in anticipation that students could use these representations in complimentary ways (Ainsworth, 1999) to reason about the part-whole or part-part relationships.…”

“…A few researchers have suggested principles to guide the development of technological tools to support students' learning of mathematics and students' mathematical problem solving (e.g., Clements, 2000a;Underwood et al, 2005;Yerushalmy, 2005). Some of the principles Clements has suggested that are relevant to our work include recommendations that technology should provide tools for students that allow them to test ideas and receive feedback, engage in playful mathematical exploration, and directly manipulate objects.…”

Output-Classes for Faculty-Based Design-Oriented Research on Digital Learning Resources in Higher Education

“…The concept of Design Pattern has been introduced by Alexander and Ishikawa (1977) in architecture. Later, design patterns were adopted in other fields such as software engineering (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, & Vlissides, 1994) and more recently in the field of learning and instruction (Baggetun, Rusman, & Poggi, 2004;Cristea & Garzotto, 2004;Derntl, 2004;Dimitrova & Suthcliffe, 1999;Draaijer & Hartog, 2007;Goodyear, 2005;Mislevy et al, 2003;Underwood et al, 2005) For different subject matter disciplines, it makes sense to describe design patterns. Some of these design patterns may be recognized in more than one subject matter discipline.…”