A Case Study of Cooperative Inquiry Techniques in a Classroom of Children with Special Learning Needs Elizabeth Foss, Mona Leigh Guha, and Panagis Papadatos 5/22/12

What is Cooperative Inquiry? Druin, A. (2002). The role of children in the design of new technology. Behavior and Information Technology, 21(1),

Why Children with Special Learning Needs? Core belief of Participatory Design…. Expanding Cooperative Inquiry to a broader population 3

Can Cooperative Inquiry be successfully implemented in a classroom of children with special learning needs? 4

Maple School Private school for children ages 5-14 (grades K-8) Disorders represented include mild to moderate autism spectrum, learning disabilities, and attention deficits Two teachers and approximately 10 students per class 5

Project Design a sports game using technology 6

Design Sessions 7

8 Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity TechniqueSession PurposeActivity Big Paper Generate initial design directions Drawing and writing design ideas on large sheets of paper Mixing Ideas Combine multiple design directions Physically recombining artifacts from Big Paper Bags of StuffAllow a break from project Using arts and crafts supplies to plan for age-mates design project Storyboarding Refine ideas, visual design feedback Annotating paneled drawings of the games story Sticky Noting Generate feedback on prototype Writing feedback on post-it notes, which are then clustered by theme KidReporting Generate data, gather final feedback Students interviewing each other about the game using video cameras

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 9 Design Sessions Walsh et al., 2009

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 10 Design Sessions Guha et al., 2004

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 11 Design Sessions Druin, 2002

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 12 Design Sessions Orr et al., 1994

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 13 Design Sessions Walsh et al., 2009

Table 1: Techniques, Rationale, and Activity Technique Big Paper Mixing Ideas Bags of Stuff Storyboarding Sticky Noting KidReporting 14 Design Sessions Bekker et al., 2003

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Data Collection Design Artifacts Video and Photos Researcher Journal Interview Transcripts Adult Debriefing Notes Participant-observation Notes 18

Analysis Qualitative coding of all data collected using grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 2008) 19

Findings Cooperative Inquiry techniques were able to be used with a classroom of children with special learning needs with only minor modifications. 20

Cooperative Inquiry in a Classroom of Children with Special Learning Needs Informal Time High Adult-to-Child Ratio Written and Auditory Directions Plan for High Engagement 21

Ongoing Work 22

Acknowledgements Thanks to the students, teachers, and administration at the Maple School for their open-minded assistance with this project. Researchers contributing to the session planning and execution were Greg Walsh, Jason Yip, and Tamara Clegg, and we could not have had successful sessions without their expertise. 23