simulations in the classroom: creating an engaging pedagogy

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Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy Presented at the Computation and Science for Teachers Workshop held at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Pittsburgh, PA on 23-27 June 2008 Scott A. Sinex Department of Physical Sciences and Engineering Prince George’s Community College

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Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy. Scott A. Sinex Department of Physical Sciences and Engineering Prince George’s Community College. Presented at the Computation and Science for Teachers Workshop held at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Pittsburgh, PA - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Simulations in the Classroom:Creating an Engaging

Pedagogy

Presented at the Computation and Science for Teachers Workshop held at the Pittsburgh

Supercomputing Center, Pittsburgh, PA on 23-27 June 2008

Scott A. SinexDepartment of Physical Sciences and

EngineeringPrince George’s Community College

Page 2: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Students should…

• Deal with data and graphs from – experimental results – prepared data sets from Internet

• Look for trends

• Introduce mathematical modeling– Regression– Goodness of Fit

Page 3: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Use simulations…

• To examine microscopic interactions– NetLogo– Agent Sheets– Many Java applets on the Internet

• To explode mathematics of macroscopic interactions– Excelets– Vensim or Stella

Page 4: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Where do we start?

• Select a single basic modeling tool – Excel

• Learn some principles of mathematical modeling

• Develop computationally-based simulations

Page 5: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

An ideal approach…

Single variable experiment

Multivariable simulation

Develop an ideal mathematical model

Add error to make real-world

science process oriented

Page 6: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Guided instruction…

• Written guided-inquiry or discovery based instructions (think like your students when you pose questions!)

• Predict-test-analyze

• Try it and then revise/rewrite it!!!!!

Page 7: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Ultimately…

• Integrated mathematics and science

• A very science process oriented approach

• Your students could be developing models on their own

Page 8: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

This is just the beginning…

Computational science can study…

» Weather and climate» Disease spread» Engineering design

See the PSC Scientific Visualization Gallery http://www.psc.edu/research/graphics/gallery

Page 9: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Let the journey begin!!!!!but first some coffee

Page 10: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Resources

• Exercises developed by previous CAST participantshttp://www.psc.edu/eot/k12/cast.php (see previous years)

• Computational Resources by MVHS http://mvhs.shodor.org/CAST2008

• Developer’s Guide to Exceletshttp://academic.pgcc.edu/~ssinex/excelets

• Introduction to Computational Science Angela B. Shiflet and George W. Shiflethttp://wofford-ecs.org/IntroComputationalScience

Page 11: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Data analysis

• Graphing with Excel – LabWrite• http://www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/res/gt/gt-menu.html

• Using Excel for Handling, Graphing, and Analyzing Scientific Data:  A Resource for Science and Mathematics Students

• http://academic.pgcc.edu/psc/Excel_booklet.pdf

Page 12: Simulations in the Classroom: Creating an Engaging Pedagogy

Data sets

• Quantitative Environmental Learning Project (QELP) as Excel fileshttp://seattlecentral.edu/qelp/Data.html

• Exploring Data – datasets as Excel files

http://exploringdata.cqu.edu.au/datasets.htm

Email contact: [email protected]