Interactive Software Helps Students Learn

With a $400,000 U.S. Education Department grant, several universities will design interactive software to help children with different learning abilities and needs learn about science.

The Interactive Field Investigation Guide (iFIG) software will meet the needs of all learners, particularly urban students who struggle to learn with traditional text-based instruction. And those children will access digital content and analyze real-world data with mobile devices that run on Apple's iOS platform.

Over the next six months, the Steppingstones of Technology Innovation Grant will allow University of Cincinnati researchers to build a prototype of the software with peers from Washington State University and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. For the rest of the two-year project, they'll test the software in schools that partner with the FUSION Center at the University of Cincinnati.

Teachers deliver authentic learning experiences

With the iFIG digital handbook, students can not only read about topics such as water filtration in developing countries, but also watch short video clips and simulations, said James Basham, an assistant professor and a researcher in the FUSION Center who is the project's principal investigator. And that's important, especially for kids who struggle to read or who need enrichment.

By using the iFIG digital notebook, students can search for five fossils and record observations about them.  They could take photos with a handheld device or camera, measure the fossils and use digital microscopes to see different views of them, Basham said.

Through the iFIG assessment system, teachers will assess what the kids discovered during their authentic learning experience. And because the software will be in the cloud, they can access it from anywhere, including their computer or mobile device.

“What teachers are going to be able to do is basically kind of shrinkwrap these projects, set them up to deploy them to the kids via the cloud onto these mobile devices, engage the kids in this content, then have the kids engage in this authentic learning experience, and then have this assessment system that builds this assessment at different levels of understanding,” Basham said.

Software includes top-notch design framework, curriculum

The researchers plan to create the software around the Universal Design for Learning instructional design framework. This nationally recognized framework focuses on three principles: 

• Provide multiple ways to present information to students
• Provide multiple ways students can engage with educational content
• Provide multiple ways students can show that they understand the content

Most science textbook authors write curriculum at a high reading level, which poses problems for students who don't read well, said Maya Israel, assistant professor and a researcher at the FUSION center. But with the iFIG digital content, teachers and students can access material that's at an appropriate reading level, has the right language and includes multimedia.

The framework is good, but hard for teachers to implement, Basham said. That's why the researchers plan to provide them with a flexible mobile structure to spark project-based and problem-based learning.

Along with the design framework, the software incorporates the most widely used STEM curriculum in the United States: Engineering is Elementary from the Boston Museum of Science. The combination of the design framework, STEM digital content and mobile platform gives teachers a feasible way to set up a project-based learning experience for their classes.

“The idea is to make it easier for the teachers to use in the classroom and have it make sense to them within their own instructional design framework,” Basham said.

Israel also noted that even the best curriculum available isn’t particularly intuitive in terms of providing instruction to students of various abilities and background knowledge.

"When you have a system that takes quality curriculum to begin with, and then integrates ways of really making it accessible to students across their learning abilities, then you’re saving teachers time," she said, "and they’re getting something that they know is scientifically research validated.'”