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Design Group, Class Project - Design of Interactive Learning Environments For our Independent Project, our design team comprising Nick Joseph (joseph@colorado.edu), Nathan Balasubramanian (nathan.bala@bvsd.org), Isaac Sanders (Isaac.Sanders@colorado.edu), and Jodi Kiefer (jodi.kiefer@colorado.edu) are researching articles that facilitate learning in K-16 settings. For our Project, we would like to develop a prototype for STRONG to introduce the concepts of force, motion, and energy to middle school students. Hands-on inquiry learning without domain knowledge merely entertains students and results in their inadequate conceptual understanding. Many resource-deprived students reach schools with limited cognitive skills and are consequently less motivated. Direct instruction to impart domain knowledge in sterilized learning environments leaves learners unenlightened and unable to see its real-world relevance. To cope with this reality, we describe a framework that seeks to immerse all learners in a progression of guided inquiry hands-on activities to facilitate their conceptual STEM understanding, starting with STRONG. Our modular self-contained easily accessible multi-player online games are called STRuctured-scenario ONline Games (cited as STRONG) because they use challenging scenarios to engage middle-school students and provide them control over their learning environment. The interactive learning environments are referred to as games in our design because of their unique features that can direct, facilitate, and assess middle-school students learning of specific domain knowledge and concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Besides members from our design team, the knowledge engineers for STRONG include a small focus group of middle and high school students and teachers. Using developmentally appropriate STEM concepts and standards outlined in the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (1993), we develop appropriate scenarios that might interest both resource-deprived and resource-affluent learners in their preparation for active inquiry learning.
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