Designing Across Participant Groups and Participatory Contexts: The Case of SiMSAM

• In Event: 65.041 - Design-Based Research: Coming of Age for a Versatile Methodology Supporting Diverse Research and Learner Needs

Abstract

Objectives
We are designing SiMSAM: an integrated animation, simulation, and data analysis toolkit and associated curricula for middle school classrooms. SiMSAM seeks to engage learners in exploring unseen phenomena (sound, smell, evaporation) through constructing, revising, and testing models across representational forms. We draw inspiration from work on modeling practice (Lehrer & Schauble, 2004; Lesh & Doerr, 2003; Schwarz, et al. 2009), linked models (Frederiksen & White, 2002), and computational model construction (Louca, et al. 2011; Sherin, 2001; Wilensky, 2003).

As part of this work, we consult regularly with youth, teachers, and designers. Here we: (1) Expand conjecture mapping to account for the influence of these different participant contributions in design, and (2) Use this to explore our own design process.

Perspectives
Our approach reflects efforts in design-based research to directly involve participants in early phases of design (Bonsignore, et al. 2013). To do this well requires negotiating contributions from multiple stakeholders that hold different perspectives (Könings et al. 2005), challenge the values of designers (Fishman, 2014), and vary across context (Bielaczyc, 2006). Such negotiation influences the material and theoretical products of design-based inquiry.

Conjecture mapping articulates learning theories that underlie a design, how those theories are enacted in tools, materials, and social supports, and mediating processes through which learners achieve intended outcomes (Sandoval, 2014). We expand conjecture mapping to include participant groups, structures, and study contexts that inform iterations of a design.

Methods
Over three iterations of SiMSAM, we have engaged in consultations and studies with:

Pre-existing tools & tasks. Cooperative inquiry with youth, pre-service teachers, consultation with educational designers.

SiMSAM V1, revised tasks. Testing with designers, design review with teachers, classroom enactment facilitated by researchers.

SiMSAM V2, tasks, new participant structures. Youth workshops, classroom enactments, professional development.

Data sources
We have video and screencasts, written feedback, team notes, research findings, and design products for each iteration. We: (1) Map design decisions (in tools, tasks, discursive and social supports) to findings that inspired them, (2) Identify whether findings were directly suggested by participants or indirectly revealed through investigation of mediating processes, and (3) Identify whether findings came from a specific participant group or broader participatory context.

Results
For brevity, we preview patterns unveiled by our analysis (example maps at http://bit.ly/AERA15DBR). We received feedback about tool design, specifically the programming interface, from all groups. Our revisions were primarily informed by recommendations from youth, even though usability influences teachers’ readiness to use SiMSAM. Task structures, specifically modeling prompts, were revised according to research findings with youth participants. Those findings have revealed new mediating processes through which designed tasks and SiMSAM promotes sophisticated modeling practice. Participant structures, such as implementation of a gallery walk, emerged from both direct teacher consultation and research findings with youth and teachers in classroom contexts.

Scholarly Significance
Balancing needs of different participants is a critical component of the design process. We contribute a method for documenting and reflecting upon this process, and provide examples of how negotiating perspectives drives design and theory.

Authors

• Michelle Hoda Wilkerson, University of California - Berkeley

• Brian E. Gravel, Tufts University