This DR K-12 Exploratory Project conducted by Education Development Center, Inc.(EDC) and The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps) will address the question: In what ways can research on learning inform the design of interfaces and technology tools to be used by students accessing large scientific data bases? Expertise about this question is scattered among a variety of disciplines, including science education research related to geology, climate science, and ecology; mathematics and statistics education research; and educational psychology. Consequently, there is no synthesis of knowledge about how to support precollege students' and teachers' use of large scientific data bases. Oceans of Data will therefore (1) conduct a systematic survey of the widely-dispersed research literature and (2) develop and disseminate a knowledge status report, a resource offering guidance for making these large scientific data bases accessible to and usable by high school science classes. This report will inform the work of three target audiences: (1) large science cyberinfrastructure projects concerned with serving student users; (2) intermediary developers (e.g., publishers, research and development organizations, and software development companies) of digital interfaces and tools that can make cyberinfrastructure data appropriate for use by pre-college learners; and (3) education researchers. Most immediately, the project results will be applied directly to the NSF-funded Ocean Observatory Initiative (OOI) cyberinfrastructure project at Scripps.
The project design for developing this resource involves a multi-stage review, coding, and analysis of the literature. The domain matrix framing this effort consists of processes (engagement, data access, data viewing, data selection, data manipulation, and data interpretation) as related to interfaces and technology tools (visualizations, graphical representation, statistical analysis tools, and scaffolds). Work will be conducted under the aegis of an advisory committee: researchers and technology developers in the above-mentioned domains, expert teachers, and individuals representing the target audiences. Advisors will also evaluate the resulting product, as will an additional cadre of targeted end-users.
The Oceans of Data knowledge status report will present the literature review results; recommendations for designing effective interfaces and technology tools for students; guidelines, based on tenets of universal design for learning (UDL) for designing software for diverse student populations; and suggested avenues for future research to address identified gaps. The project therefore will enable the bridging of science cyberinfrastructure projects in a number of disciplines with pre-college education. Ultimately, students will have unprecedented opportunities to analyze and draw conclusions from cyberinfrastructure data and, thus, to engage in new modes of data-driven science practice.
Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), and The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps) completed a collaborative project to advance efforts to make large data sets accessible to and usable by students. A systematic review of literature and expert opinion from diverse fields was conducted and formed the basis for guidelines presented in the report Visualizing Oceans of Data: Educational Interface Design (see Figure 1). The knowledge gained from this 2-year exploratory project and presented in the project report has broad application to scientific programs in disciplines such as the geosciences, biology, and astronomy that intend to provide student access to and use of their data. As recognized by the NSF, the practice of science and engineering is being revolutionized by the increasingly widespread availability of digital, sharable data. As such, large investments are being made in the development of cyberinfrastructures (CI) for accessing near real-time and archived data, remotely controlling sampling and adaptively changing sampling strategies, collaborating in virtual laboratories, and much more. Through these innovations, large cyberinfrastructure projects have the potential to transform not only the way scientific research is done, but also the way science is taught in science classrooms by: • making enormous quantities of scientific data freely available on the Web to both researchers and educators. • giving students unprecedented opportunities to analyze and interpret authentic data, and engage in scientific practices as described in the Next Generation Science Standards. • allowing students to explore new kinds of questions that are beyond the scope of traditional science labs. • engaging students in new ways of doing science, which need to be communicated in the classroom in order to ensure a scientifically-literate public and to recruit and prepare future scientists (including data scientists). Educational research indicates that simply providing novice students (and teachers) with access to large data sets, without significant attention to how they are delivered and scaffolded, is not likely to be successful. Database interfaces developed for expert scientists are typically unintelligible to novices who are unfamiliar with scientific vocabulary and data analysis tools. Furthermore, education researchers have identified cognitive barriers that affect students’ perception and interpretation of maps and other data visualizations, recognition of trends in graphed data, and reasoning with scientific evidence. For data to be useful in the classroom, CI interfaces must be simple for the novice to use and understand. This allows students to focus on learning core concepts and data analysis skills rather than on learning expert jargon and how to manipulate unfamiliar software. The project report Visualizing Oceans of Data: Educational Interface Design summarizes relevant knowledge from diverse fields, from cognitive science to cartography to computer science (see Figure 1). The report presents cross-cutting and over 70 specific guidelines related to data access, geo-referenced data representations, graphs and animations, and also describes areas of priority for future research (see http://ltd.edc.org/resource-library/visualizing-oceans-data-educational-interface-design). The guidelines emphasize the importance of considering the following when designing educational interfaces to scientific data: Adjust cognitive load. The finite capacity of working memory limits the amount of information that the human brain can actively attend to at one time; for novices, it’s particularly important that interface and visualization design support the most effective use of the resources available by recognizing hurtful (and helpful) redundancies and eliminating unnecessary distractions. Draw attention to important features and patterns. When processing visual information, our visual perception system doesn’t simply record "pictures", but instead constructs a mental image composed of features that we notice or attend to (which are a small portion of the details that are actually there). The features that ultimately form our mental image are determined by our pre-conscious processing of features automatically detected by the human visual system, and our conscious decision to attend to certain areas of the display based on our goals, prior knowledge and experience. Novices will rely more heavily on the natural tendencies of the human visual system to automatically recognize and prioritize certain shapes, colors and forms and to interpret visual information in certain ways. Therefore, the design of data displays must use what is known about these natural tendencies to ensure that important features and patterns are noticed by students and incorporated into their developing understanding (see Figure 2). Enable customization. Students will exhibit diverse aptitudes, skills, difficulties, and preferences. They will also bring to learning tasks variations in prior knowledge, based on their previous educational experiences and ideas they’ve drawn from everyday life. Heterogeneity in users necessitates a software architecture designed to afford flexibility, and one that can "grow" as students gain proficiency. The results of the Oceans of Data project have informed the educational interface and tools design of the Ocean Observatories Initiative. In addition, copies of Visualizing Oceans of Data: Educational Interface Design are being broadly disseminated and have been requested by agencies such as NASA, NOAA, UNESCO and the World Ocean Council.
