Re-defining learning experience for kids

Moupiya Ukil Department of Design

Indian Institute Of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India

moupiyaukil@gmail.com

Keyur Sorathia Department of Design

Indian Institute Of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India

keyur@iitg.ernet.in

Abstract— This paper presents a design case defining a shift in teaching methodology. On exploring the different teaching methods adapted by teachers in Indian schools, lack of interactivity and increasing disinterest was exposed. In order to overcome this, the focus was to introduce a fun and interactive environment in schools. While interviewing school students it was found that they face difficulties in visualizing the 3D solid shapes during blackboard teaching sessions. Hence, they are not able to grasp all the facts taught in the class. The design opportunities gathered a fter primary research lead to the key facts of this project. The target audience was middle school children and the aim was to teach 3D shapes such as cube, cuboid and cylinder using TUI (Tangible User Interface). The design constituted o f tokens with fiducial markers, w hich were used as educational tools on interacting with the tabletop interface. The outcome of the design motivated students for viewing, sharing and presenting the concepts behind the 3D shapes.

Keywords— Tangible user interface; education; 2D & 3D shapes; engaging; self-learning

I. INTRODUCTION

School is where a child is nurtured and nourished suitably to meet the demands of the society and the nation. But sadly today, I n d i a n s c h o o l s c r e a t e a 'robot-like' next g e n e r a t i o n whose learning is limited to mugging up facts and theories. This leads to a decrease in the child’s power of imagination and shuns his urge to create and discover. According to a survey done by the New York Times [17], India was ranked third in parents pressurizing their children for excellent academic results. This adds to the child’s anxiety to perform well.

The recent trends in e d u c a t i o n sector have observed massive changes. Due to the advent of technology, its penetration in education is increasing and students are becoming more adaptable to the same [4]. In the process of secondary research it was inferred that tangible interaction in education supports or improves learning as compared to the traditional methods [6]. Different examples show that TUI (Tangible user interface) encourages learning of abstract structures of dynamic behavior through an iterative process of hands-on modeling, simulating, and analogizing.

In the process of primary research an overview of the different subjects taught in middle school was done. Eventually the topic of interest was narrowed down to the subject that surrounds us all, mathematics [11]. The goal oriented design process that we followed directed us to start with contextual enquiry for understanding where and what are the difficulties that, teachers and students face in the conventional black board teaching. After a subsequent investigation we found that students faced difficulties in grasping facts about the 3D shapes. Thus, the aim was to explore a design possibility that tries to equilibrate play and learning using a novel approach with objective to teach 3D shapes: cube, cuboid and cylinder using TUI.

II. BACKGROUND

Tangible user interfaces “augment the real physical world by coupling digital information to everyday physical objects and environments”[6]. The researches conducted in the past in Tangible interaction have shown that many different designs have been conceptualized and implemented for educating children (for example, [7], [8], [13], [14]). Strong evidences are present to support the fact that TUI enhances user experience while supporting learning and developmental process [15]. However, designing educational tools to increase the visualization power of children in the area of mathematics through tangible interaction is minimal (for example, [5]). During the secondary research, while understanding the approach of designers, a number of interesting facts were cited:

Hybrid approach of combining TUI and GUI (Graphical User Interface) offers teachers and learners the flexibility to select the most appropriate interaction style to meet the needs of a specific situation [1]. It increases the ability to fluidly change from one interaction style to another. Combination of tangible and graphical interaction into one interface holds promise to an effective paradigm.

Tangible interaction is advantageous for informal science education [4].

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While figuring out the methodology children’s developing cognitive abilities such as the capability to verbalize and concentrate [2]

Pre- experimental unstructured interview gather information about the children and their experience with digital technology.

Dividing the whole task into smaller modules helps students.

Playability influences decision on type of feedback and level of abstraction [3].

Tangible systems can provide “conceptual leverage” which enables children to learn concepts and develop schemata, which might otherwise be difficult to acquire [15].

Tangible interface is a promising alternative and an appropriate interaction style to meet the needs of a specific situation.

III. CONTEXTUAL ENQUIRY

The contextual enquiry [12] was conducted in Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Guwahati that is senior secondary school under the central government of India. A mathematics lecture where in the teacher taught the methods to find surface area and volume of 3D shapes to standard eighth was observed. Also, sets of interviews were conducted with students and teachers of middle school. Ten students of the eighth grade having varying academic positions and four schoolteachers who teach mathematics and science to the middle school students were interviewed. The content gathered was analyzed by creating affinity diagrams [12].

Fig. 1. Affinity Diagram

This data mining technique when applied to the data collected during the interviews with students led to the following findings –

90% students admired coming to school. The reasons they specified were that they get a chance here to play outdoor games and meet their friends

60% students attended tuitions after school as they could not grasp all that was taught in school and sensed lack of personal attention

The rest of them did not attend tuition classes and were helped by their parents in their studies. Parents also adapted the conventional teaching methods

80% students appreciated group study as they could learn from their peers and saw it as a mode for growth in inter-personal relations with classmates

80% students did not find black board teaching as a very successful mode of delivering ideas

When the students were enquired about the basic facts of mensuration, 80% of them did not respond correctly

When enquired about the comfort level of the students with the idea of smart classrooms, 100% students showed enthusiasm. They wished to mix fun and learning and said that it acts as a driving force

The analysis of the interviews with the teachers led to the following findings–

Students are interested in activities conducted during the class but do not get involved in learning the facts behind them

The native language of most students is Assamese or Hindi. Thus, the students are not able to express themselves appropriately using English as a mode of communication

Cross age tutoring contributes towards better understanding

Teachers are not familiar with new multi media resources of teaching

In a group activity, students perform affectively. This promotes leadership and friendship with peers

Conducting an activity oriented teaching session takes longer than the regular time. This at times end in non-completion of the syllabus.

While using the conventional black board teaching, limitations exist in teaching the students understand via the 2D platform. Thus, the prime objective was teaching students about 3D shapes

IV. DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES

The analysis of secondary research inferred the following points to be considered in the design –

Increase a child’s understanding of the physical world to help them make a strong connection between virtual world and the real world

Use physical and digital aspects of tangible tokens to support reciprocal mappings between spatial and mental representation

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Learning process should be supported with a design to build up meaningful activity through exploration of the relationships between the mathematical concept and actual tokens being used.

The design should allow the child to manipulate and understand multiple levels of meaning.

Strong feedback would provide an opportunity of improvement

Design should encourage open ended activity

Fig. 2. System Task Flow

V. DESIGNING INSTALLATION

A. Idea Generation

First step was to decide on the content to be taught. After referring to the middle school mathematics book [16] and the previous findings the topics chosen was –

a) 3D shapes: Cube, Cuboid and Cylinder b) What does volume mean? How is it

calculated?

c) What does surface area mean? How is it calculated?

The idea generation started with exploring the various physical objects, which could be used as tangible tokens. It continued with an exploration focusing on generating ideas that are aesthetically pleasant and constitute an alternative path to the goal-oriented design. The context of usage was both, home and classroom. The platform used was TUI along with fiducial markers (as shown in fig. 5). The shapes explored were cube, cuboid, cylinder, circle, square, rectangle, etc. The aim was to use these to interact on a tabletop interface and learn about the 3D shapes, volume and surface area.

B. Final Conecpt

The entire teaching module was divided into four parts as it is mentioned before that dividing the whole task into smaller parts increases the level of understanding (as shown in fig. 2). MODULE A: How the 3D solids are formed through the exploded view of cube, cuboids and cylinder? (as shown in fig. 3). On placing cube / cuboid/ cylinder, the respective video tutorial is played. MODULE B: What does volume mean? How is it calculated for the respective 3Dsolids? Placing the sides of a cuboid one by one forms the cuboid on the screen. Similarly cube and cylinder is formed MODULE C: What does surface area mean? How is it calculated for the solids? When the tokens, cube/cuboid/cylinder are rotated on the tabletop change in length & breadth is seen which implies change in volume. MODULE D: Evaluation test to check how much have the participants understood. When the token with the questions on them is placed on the tabletop the hint appears. On moving towards right hand side, two more hints appear one by one.

Fig. 3. Exploded view of cube, cuboid and cylinder

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VI. PROTOTYPING

This stage was an investigation about the design practicality. The sub technology used was ReacTIVision [9]. ReacTIVision is an open source, cross-platform computer vision framework for the fast and robust tracking of fiducial markers (as shown in fig. 5) attached onto physical objects, as well as for multi-touch finger tracking. This technology was used along with TUIO [10]. TUIO is an open framework (as shown in fig. 4) that defines a common protocol and API (Application programming interface) for tangible multi-touch surfaces. The TUIO protocol allows the transmission of an abstract description of interactive surfaces, including touch events and tangible object states. The protocol encodes control data from a tracker application (e.g. based on computer vision) and sends it to any client application that is capable of decoding the protocol.

Fig. 4. TUIO Frameworks [17]

Fig. 5. Fiducial Markers [16]

The Last stage was prototyping of the installation. Animated tutorial videos were created to teach the above-mentioned 3D shapes: cube, cuboid and cylinder. The video had animations showing the formation of the solids from their respective 2D shapes like square, rectangle and circles. It continued with the derivation of surface area and volume for the 3D shapes. The next step was to prepare the graphics to be displayed and the wooden token blocks. The complete kit contained tokens of a cube, cuboid & cylinder for module A and C; six squares, three pairs of different sized rectangles for module B; three rectangle shaped tokens with questions printed on them for module D. At the end, the tabletop set-up was prepared (as shown in in fig. 7).

Fig. 6. ReactiVISion screenshot when fiducial markers are placed on tabletop

In Fig. 7 the camera-projector set up which was used for interactions along with the tokens is shown. The interactions with the tabletop started with the initial welcome screen. The modules could be interacted without any particular sequence. Fig. 8 shows on placing the cube/cuboid/cylinder, respective tutorials are played. Fig. 9 shows placing the sides of a cuboid one by one eventually forms the cuboid on the screen. Similarly cube and cylinder is formed. The exploded views would combine and form the respective shape. Fig. 10 shows that when the cube/cuboid/cylinder is placed as a token on the table and is rotated change in length and breadth is seen which implies change in volume. Anticlockwise rotation increased the volume and vice-versa. On the screen the volume was also shown in textual format. This would change as the 3D token was rotated. Fig. 11 shows the token with the question on it being placed on the table. As soon as it is places a hint appears on the screen. In case the participant is not able to solve the problem with a single hint he can move the token towards his right hand side on the table, one bye one and more hints would appear.

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Fig. 7. Tabletop set up

Fig. 8. Video tutorials played on the interface

Fig. 9. Learning module surface area

Fig. 10. Learning module for volume

Fig. 11. Evaluation module

VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

The research conducted with the middle school students and teachers encouraged us to come up with a teaching methodology, which involved interactive activities. Eventually, a set of tokens divided in a module of four was designed to teach properties of cube, cuboid and cylinder. The connection between the physical and the imaginative world that the students have been trying to do was implemented in this design. The installation was tested with the students interacted during the contextual enquiry. Overall, our design introduced fun and learning through physical interaction, scope of improvement is present and content can be extended. In future, we plan to experiment this with more number of students and increase the interaction modalities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to thank our friends Mehul Agarawal, Anvay Mesharam, Sourabh Kumar, Denny George and Fabin Rashid for lending helping hands whenever it was required. Also, we are highly grateful to the teacher and students of Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Guwahati for cooperating with us during the secondary research.

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[16] National council of educational research and training committee, mathematics book for class X, N.C.E.R.T Publications (2006). [17] Rampell, C., ‘Do parents put too much pressure on students?’, Economix blog, New York times, September 1, 2011.Available on http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/211/09/01/do-parents-put-too-much- pressure-on-students/

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