1. QUALITATIVE MODELING IN EDUCATION Bert Bredweg and Ken Forbus Yeşim İmamoğlu

2. Computers and Education Using educational software Supports constructivism in education Allows multiple representations and interaction Serves to individual differences

3. Qualitative Reasoning and Education Qualitative reasoning is valuable for education because: Uses of conceptual knowledge  What happens, when does it happen, what effects it, what does it effect? Provides grounding and framework for quantitative and traditional mathematical models

4. Recent Applications Teachable Agents project (Vanderbilt University, Biswas et al. 2001)  Betty’s Brain-qualitative mathematics ALI (D’Sauza et al. 2001)  Based on qualitative process theory  Domain independent-can be attached to any quantitative simulation

5. Recent Applications Application of qualitative process theory in chemistry classes (Syedd, Pang and Sharifuddin, 2002)  Qualitative model is used alongside classroom experiment to determine optimal use of substances

6. Aspects of modeling that existing visual languages do not address The importance of broadly applicable principles and processes Understanding when a model is relevant Qualitative understanding of behavior

7. VModel Student friendly visual notation for qualitative process theory Creates a software environment that helps students express their qualitative, conceptual models

8. VModel Visual notation is based on concept maps Nodes represent entities and properties of entities Each node has a specified type such as Thing, Multiple Thing, Substance or Process Quantities are used to describe the continuous properties of entities Links represent relationships, labels are drawn from a fixed set of relationships

10. VModel Small, fixed set of structural relationships  Touches, Contains, Part of... Ordinal relationships  Greater Than, Less Than, Equal To ‘Requires’ relationship links a process to the conditions that enable it Casual relationships  Increases, Decreases: direct influences (I+/I-)  Influences, InfluencesOpposite: qualitative proportionalities

11. VModel Two coaches:  Qualitative simulation to help the students see how well their model make predictions  Modeling equivalent of spelling and grammar checking Three sources of feedback:  Visual step-by-step animation of the simulation  English summary of behavior predicted by the model  Assessment of how well the model supports the hypothesis

12. VModel Model library: contains all the models that the students have created Students can build their own domain theory

13. HOMER and V ISI G ARP Allow learners to use a qualitative reasoning engine for running and inspecting simulations They work on top of the domain independent qualitative reasoning engine GARP Use diagrammatic reprsentations for buliding and inspecting qualitative models and simulations

14. Model Building with HOMER Organized set of builders and tools Builders:  Capture knowledge and use diagrammatic representations  Used for creating building blocks (entitiy hierarchy, quantities, quantity spaces...) Tools: Interactive dialogues for modifying the content of builders Constructs:  Model fragments and scenarios  Assembled from building blocks

15. Model Building with HOMER Task:  Create a set of model fragments (stored in library)  Specify one or more scenarios (structural description of the system) Model Building:  Simulator uses the model fragments to predict the behavior of the system defined in the selected scenario  For each of the specified scenarios, the simulator generates the intended behavior graph

17. HOMER Prevents learners from making syntatically incorrect models The user interface restricts user actions based on  Content  Current selections in the builder that the user is working on Investigates each user action with respect to side-effects Notifies the user Gives user the option either carry on with the action or cancel it

18. Problems encountered using HOMER Homer was tested on two researchers and two master students from a computer science department Problems caused by poor use of the tool Problems caused by subjects not fully understanding how to perform a task (model building problems)

19. Model building problems Model scope:  Determining which features of the real-world sytem to include in the model Model Structure:  Determining what to put where in the model Model Building Concepts:  Understanding the meaning and difference between the concepts provided by the tool Model Representations:  Knowing the concept, what to represent but not knowing how to represent it

20. V ISI G ARP Provides a graphic interface to for running and inspecting qualitative simulations Simulations might use models constructed by  teachers  domain experts  the learners (for example, by using HOMER)

22. V ISI G ARP Visual container: All model ingredients belonging to a particular area are grouped into a single box Ingredients relating aspects from different entities cross the border of the boxes

24. Usability of V ISI G ARP Experiment was conducted to 30 first year university (psychology) students Pretests and posttests were conducted on domain knowledge and icon language of V ISI G ARP Treatment: Prediction exercises using simulations Subjects were asked to evaluate V ISI G ARP after treatment

25. Usability of V ISI G ARP Results indicate that: There was significant difference between pre/post tests in domain knowledge No significant difference between pre/post tests in icon language Most icons were easy to learn: ≤, <, =, ≥, P+, P-, I+, I- A few icons were hard to understand: Q^, Q, V^, V (they were not used much during simulation) V ISI G ARP did not always produce insighful graphs for comlex models Attitude test revealed that subjects evalated the usefulness of V ISI G ARP quite positively

26. Conclusion Importance of conceptual knowledge in education Reasoning about system behavior Two qualitative models: VModel and H OMER / V ISI G ARP combination Both foster learning as a constructive process

27. Comments Experiments are done with subjects at the university level Further adjustments may be needed if it is going to be used in high-middle school level (more user friendly) Suitable for the new curriculum in Turkey, but not easy to put into practice