DaSH Home: Using Programmable Sensors to Support Student-Driven Investigations During Remote Learning

• In Event: Moving Making to Online and Homes Spaces: Lessons for Maker Education

Abstract

Objectives: The Data Sensor Hub (DaSH) is composed of a micro:bit and set of programmable sensors that enables students to collect and interpret, through physical displays, streams of environmental data such as magnetism, temperature, and carbon dioxide. Initially conceived as a tool to support students working in small groups to conduct personally relevant scientific investigations throughout their school, the COVID-19 Pandemic forced researchers and teachers to examine how to support students to use these tools in their homes during remote learning. This poster examines how two teachers in a large urban district implemented an instructional unit introducing the DaSH in a fully remote context with middle school students, explores how students were able to engage with the technology at home, and describes new possibilities that emerged that will influence instruction as students return to the classroom.

Theoretical Framework: This work builds on prior research exploring student engagement in place based science investigations (Anastopoulou et al., 2012) and the power of physical computing as a medium to support introductory computing (Blikstein, 2013). Researchers and teachers collaboratively designed a week-long unit where students use the DaSH to learn about and create their own displays of sensor data collected from the world around them.

Methods and Data Sources: Researchers attended and recorded the lessons using GoogleMeet. Classroom video was analyzed for student engagement around computational thinking practices (Weintrop et al., 2016) with a focus on classroom communication through both small group and whole class discussions. In addition to the classroom video, each teacher participated in a post implementation interview with a researcher.

Results: Students in these remote sessions demonstrated success by creating their own physical data displays and engaging with the DaSH technology in new and unanticipated ways.
Students collected meaningful data about their home surroundings that led to deep questions, comparisons, and engagement that could not occur if students only collected data from their classrooms. For example, students searched their homes for items to achieve the maximum reading from the magnetometer. In addition, students generated questions about temperature and carbon dioxide levels in their homes and wondered why variance existed between classmates’ homes.
Students engaged in different and perhaps more comfortable forms of communication by sharing results in the chat, sharing their screens, and using collaborative media such as Breakout Rooms in GoogleMeet and GoogleDocs.
Debugging took on a different process. Students either shared their screen or held their sensors and display up to the camera and talked through the issues they were having. They could not rely on someone else taking over the assembly and programming, but had to ask questions and get advice to get the DaSH to perform to their desired specifications

Significance: This poster describes how students successfully engaged with a complex physical computing system in their homes. Oftentimes, researchers and teachers are reluctant to send technology home with students, but this study illustrates how powerful investigations can be conducted in students’ own home and can be rich sources of conversations around the interpretation of data.

Authors

• Alexandra Gendreau Chakarov, San Jose State University

• Jeffrey Bush, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Quentin Biddy, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Jennifer Jacobs, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Tamara Sumner, University of Colorado

• Colin Hennessy Elliott, Utah State University

• Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University