1. Microworlds, Case Based Learning and Semantic Technologies ENSEMBLE project Contribution to AERA symposium, 3 rd May 2010, Denver, CO Michael Tscholl (University of Cambridge) Patrick Carmichael (Liverpool John Moores University)

2. The ENSEMBLE project: supporting case-based pedagogies with the semantic web Semantic Web  at the very least, machine-readable ‘meaningful’ representations of content (~ Minsky’s fames, AI schemas), aggregation of heterogeneous (numeric, textual, video, graphics, etc.) resources, visual presentation, … Case-based learning how are cases used within a pedagogy and LE: studying current CBL practices 7 settings (maritime management, archaeology, dance, …) at 3 universities the effect of cases, where does it lie? generalization? boundaries? processes? practice? ‘reality’? “bringing reality into the classroom”? microworld?

3. Detailed classroom observations, interviews, document analyses teacher’s idea: “the cases are real situations, they are situations the students will need to be able to deal with once they are working” “the case has a point, a structure” “complexity is related to the amount of irrelevant information in a case text” Rather than reproductions of the real world, these teaching and learning environments must be understood as dynamically and discursively constructed students’ activities: setting correspondences between formal representations and the putative ‘real’ (the case) if problematic, they construct a situation from the text in order to do the mapping negotiating the meaning of formal representations relating the case to their experiences Ethnographic studies

4. a re-conceptualization ‘reality’: messiness, complexity, details, uniqueness of situations, unpredictability but: reality is designed; often ‘designed away’ reduction for learning (cf. microworlds): yes, but not modeling of the world microworlds are an insufficient analytical lens. Better: simulacra –superficial resemblance to the real only –what is learned is often very different from what the T&L environment is designed for, from what the espoused learning goals are –T&L environments are copies with no original, or all equally original (Deleuze, 1990) –cf. analogies something different is constructed by the teacher and by the students: working practices, industry-specific ways of seeing the world, discourse? what is constructed may be very different in dependence of students’ contributions yet, ‘realism’ is an influential rhetorical element of CBL. It influences students’ cognitive work, how they see their past experience and what they take away it also enrolls students and keeps them enrolled

5. conclusions the T&L environments serve the purpose of introducing students into the world of work by familiarizing them with formalisms, into shared ways of thinking they also partially produce in this formal site the future workplace they are environments where students construct something; opportunities for review and reconstruct experiences, to reflect on their future, etc. Implications for design (questions) increasing the similarity with the ‘real’, making (digital) T&L environments more ‘authentic’ may not lead to better learning supporting the students’ construction in the classroom? semantic technology offers the flexibility needed to support the wide varieties of knowledge/discourses/practices constructed

6. www.ensemble.ac.uk Team members: Patrick Carmichael, Uma Patel Fran Tracy, Agustina Martinez-Garcia, Katy Jordan, Michael Tscholl Rob Walker, Lawrence Solkin, Jonathan Raper, Nicky Solomon, Richard Edwards and others Institutions: City University London, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Cambridge