Future University Hakodate, Japan

Learning by TKF Michael VallanceYuta Goto

43rd International Conference on Engineering Pedagogy. World Engineering Education Forum. 20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy.

Dr. Michael Vallance.Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Mech EngineeringEd.D - Doctorate in Education

MSc Computer Assisted Learning

PGCE - Post-secondary Education

iVERG lab | mvallance.net

http://mvallance.net

Motivation

Japanese education

Japan is in top 3 OECD countries for maths, science & reading. PISA (2012).

Yet students lack confidence, have high anxiety & no interest (in Maths, in particular). PISA (2012).

Good at test-taking. But lack creativity, willing to take

risks, leadership & poor modern (re. digital) literacy. Business book ref.

Educating students for the 21st century

In STEM and Arts & Humanities courses, students need to be provided with meaningful and relevant opportunities to

engage with problems that require the retrieval of prior knowledge,

offer multiple perspectives of problems and solutions,

and facilitate a challenging process

which results in achievable, diverse outcomes.

Learning should not occur in isolation but involve communication, cooperation and collaboration with fellow learners and experts to foster long term understanding and transference of learned concepts [12].

Design-based learning for engineering

Mima & Yamauchi [2] and Honey & Kantor [13] suggest Design-based Learning can engage students as critical thinkers to solve challenges within the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

The emerging Maker Movement is informed by Piagets approach to learning where learners personally and sometimes collaboratively construct solutions, gaining experience and, over time, calling upon their own embedded heuristics [14].

Subsequent cognitive engagement supports students psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, mastering the knowledge, skills or craft that the academic work is intended to promote [15].

This leads to a more self-determined learner [16] who becomes more autonomous through the development of his/her meta-cognitive knowledge [17].

This can be seen in conflict with the desire of universities though who wish to focus on content delivery and quantitative assessment.

But Turkle & Papert [18] have argued for epistemological pluralism where multiple ways of learning and knowing are valued.

Creativity then becomes a valued, personal asset that can be nurtured throughout a learners whole educational experience.

Creativity is not in the knowledge itself but in exploiting those multiple ways of knowing [19].

Creativity spiral

Mitch Resnick, Director of the MIT Media Lab in 2007

creativity - the way people deal with problems

a cycle of imagine create - play share reflect imagine.

to promote computational participation an interpretation of Mitch Resnicks Creativity Spiral, termed TKF:

Tsukutte (Create) Katatte (Share) Furikaeru (Reflect). T (Tsukutte ) is Making/ Creating.

K (Katatte ) is Talking/ Sharing. F (Furikaeru ) is Reflecting/ Discussing.

LEGO EV3 Mindstorms robot tasks to engage students in a collaborative, creative cycle where students built, programmed, discussed and reflected upon their actions.

EV3 program solutions can be used as a metric to determine students learning as characterized by TKF.

Learning by TKF to promote a more constructionist, participatory learning environment for programming students of all ages.

Method TKF approach to test its efficacy in a Japanese university.

a progressive pedagogy within a traditional, conservative Japanese education environment.

a number of iteratively designed tasks, informed by the Successive Approximation Model (SAM) and involving the programming of LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robots.

post-task survey data from participants to determine evidence of learning and creativity.

Implementation 10 specific tasks conducted once-a-week over one semester.

The participants were five (N=5) Japanese male university undergraduate students studying Information Systems.

Closed and highly defined tasks needed to be designed in order to provide the necessary comparability and empirical data to determine the success of task completion from tangible and quantifiably measured outcomes. [20] [21].

To satisfy these criteria, the programming of a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot to navigate mazes of measurable complexity [22] was adopted.

Task process

Examples

a sample solution

LEGO EV3 program

Strongly Agree Agree Disagree

Strongly Disagree

1. I used some experiences from previous tasks or class. (K F)

2. I found new functions in EV3 today. (T/K)

3. I had a new idea today. (T/K)

4. I had to think deeply and analyze todays task. (K)

5. I had to explain something to another student or my instructor. (K/F)

6. I had to solve a technical problem (hardware or software or circuit). (T)

7. I implemented the EV3 program successfully. (T)

8. I had fun. (F)

9. Feel free to write anything about todays activities. (F)

Survey

Data: TKF from survey

Data: EV3 program block counts

Data: TKF & EV3 program

T (Tsukutte ) is Making/ Creating.

Observed that T (Creating/ Making) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 1 EV3 program blocks and TEAM 2 EV3 program blocks for TT1 to TT7.

Also, T (Making) has a corresponding pattern to utilization of EV3 program loop/switches for TT1 to TT6 and TT8 for both TEAM 1 and TEAM 2.

K (Katatte ) is Talking/ Sharing.

K (Sharing) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 1 EV3 program blocks for TT1 to TT5 and TT8, but not TT6 and TT7. This pattern was quite similar for TEAM 2. K (Sharing) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 2 blocks for TT1 to TT5 but not TT6 to TT8.

For the inclusion of EV3 program loops and switches, K (Sharing) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 1 and TEAM 2 loop/switches for TT1 to TT5 for TT1 to TT5 and TT8, but not TT6 and TT7.

F (Furikaeru ) is Reflecting/ Discussing.

F (Reflection) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 1 EV3 program blocks for TT1 to TT5 but not TT6 to TT8. This is quite similar to TEAM 2 where F (Reflection) has a corresponding pattern to TEAM 2 blocks for TT1 to TT5 and TT8 but not TT6 to TT7.

For the inclusion of EV3 program loops and switches, F (Reflection) has a corresponding pattern to both TEAM 1 and TEAM 2 loop/switches for TT1 to TT6 but not TT7 to TT8.

Observations

Hypothesized and demonstrated that if LEGO Mindstorms program blocks represent student solutions in solving the given task problem, then the EV3 program solution can be a metric of the students learning outcome [22].

Data graphs illustrate that in both participant teams in this project the EV3 programmed blocks and students TKF data were consistent.

From the comparably patterned data it may be stated that TKF illustrate creativity and are possible indicators of learning.

Limitations Number of participants was low (N=5). It was decided to engage only five participants

in order to gain a more thorough understanding of the value (if any) of the TKF model.

Secondly, the use of LEGO Mindstorms may appear to be too basic for university undergraduates but, as stated in this paper, many Japanese students enter Systems Information Science related courses with little, if any, programming experience. This lack of digital literacy emphasis is quite widespread throughout Japan.

Thirdly, the iterative design and build process described may not initially appear to add new knowledge to the existing literature. However, the projects procedure informed by the TKF model is certainly unique among the more traditional pedagogies generally employed in Japanese education.

Finally, the paper does not claim to provide a solution to all the current challenges facing Japanese education, but offer TKF as a model to create constructionist, participatory learning environments.

Conclusion The goal of this paper was to determine the efficacy of the TKF model when used

to develop the declarative (knowing what), procedural (knowing how) and meta-cognitive (knowing why) knowledge of Systems Information Science students programming robots to complete set tasks.

The TKF approach encouraged students to create physical solutions for robot related tasks, participate in the communication and sharing of their solution processes, and finally reflect upon their actions and perceived learning.

It was found that the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 program solutions could be used as a metric to determine students creativity and learning as characterized by TKF.

With 21st century education aimed at developing students knowing, doing and being, from our research we have shown that task implementation utilizing the TKF model is epistemologically and ontologically meaningful.

Future University Hakodate, Japan

Learning by TKF Michael VallanceYuta Goto

iVERG labwww.mvallance.netEmail: michael@fun.ac.jp

ReferenceVallance, M. & Goto, Y. (2015). Learning by TKF to promote computational participation in Japanese education. In Proceedings of 18th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning and 43rd International Conference on Engineering Pedagogy. World Engineering Education Forum. 20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy.

mailto:michael@fun.ac.jp