Michael GubbelsGraduate StudentDepartment of Computer Science

dSINQScientific INQuiry

June Ahn, Ph.D.Assistant Professor

Social ComputingDecember 12, 2011

College of Information StudiesCollege of Education

Johnny WuGraduate StudentDepartment of Computer Science

The ProblemHow can children be encouraged to think about their authentic questions that arise in their day-to-day experience using an inquiry process rooted in scientific methods?

Challenges● Encouraging scientific thinking about authentic questions● Present conceputal model of scientific inquiry process

○ Not intimidating or boring○ Relevant

● Focusing on informal learning contexts

ExampleIn a grocery store, a parent answers their child's questions about UPC bar codes or food origins.

Characteristics1. Questions tend to arise organically, so their askers are automatically engaged2. Parents can present new concepts using a language that promotes understanding3. Learning tends to seemlessly follow questions

To design and build an online environment where we can take advantage of these characteristics and this informal style of learning can unfold.Goal

Informal Learning Context i.e., Situations that are informal in their setting and organization

Real Food FarmBaltimore, MD

"Why is this poop on fire?"

Project

Design an online environment that supports and scaffolds a collaborative inquiry process for questions that arise in day-to-day experience.

Contributions

1. Use of collective intelligence to provide instructional scaffolding

2. Explicitly incorporating instructional scaffolding into interface design

Not mutually exclusive

KidsTeam Co-Design Session

"I wonder why some people get hungry faster than others?"

Votes "I get hungry fast." "Solving this will help people feel better about themselves" "Curious about this tooI always wonder this every day" "I’m one of the people who gets hung. faster"

Observations of KidsTeam Session

● No votes against questions● Reasons for voting fall into three categories

1. I have also wondered about this.2. This affects me directly.3. I find this interesting.

● These form the basis of the voting mechanism in our prototype.

DemonstrationLink to SINQ

User Study Summary

● Interface functioned as expected● Easy to ask and contribute to questions● Users felt the interface helped them ask good questions

Some flow of site (expectations, badges) was unclear

Thanks

Questions?

ScreenshotDemonstration