Mike Tissenbaum

Designing visible engineering: supporting tinkering performances in museums

Interactive technologies like multi-touch tables enable museum exhibit designers to support visitors learning with a wide range of resources (from multimedia to dynamic feedback to the presence of other visitors). Designers must decide, though, how best to align the affordances of these resources with the learning activities they are trying to support [23]. This work examines a multi-touch table exhibit designed to support an activity, tinkering, which has been identified as a form of interaction that may offer special benefits to novices learning about engineering [e.g., 4]. When a learner is tinkering, he or she is engaged in a process of iterative adjustment to a constructed artifact, making use of just in time resources and feedback to guide the next steps in their exploration of the problem space. The exhibit studied in this work provided several resources for supporting tinkering, and this paper presents a detailed case showing how these different resources (some technical, some social, and some sociotechnical) were or were not used by learners. A key design goal we identified was the need to transform the tacit engineering practices of visitors into visible engineering performances, such that those performances could serve as cultural tools [35] for mediating the learning of other visitors.

DCLM framework: understanding collaboration in open-ended tabletop learning environments

There is a growing understanding of the unique ways that tabletops support effective collaboration; however, this research mostly focuses on environments in which learners work towards a single shared goal. Underpinning this perspective, either implicitly or explicitly, is the theory that collaborative learning is a process of attaining convergent conceptual change. However, this model of collaboration may not apply to all scenarios where learners are working together. In particular, informal, open-ended exploratory environments support (and often promote) shared activities where the goal may not be for all participants to emerge with a single, shared understanding. There is increased interest in understanding the efficacy of designs that support (and encourage) learners to collaborate while seeking divergent goals, ideas, and conceptions. This paper advances a framework (Divergent Collaboration Learning Mechanisms - DCLM) for recognizing and coding collaboration and divergent learning in such environments. We apply the DCLM framework to an informal tabletop environment (Oztoc) as a means of highlighting how DCLM may reveal new productive interactions environments that support divergent forms of collaboration, mentorship, and learning. Analysis of participants’ interactions within Oztoc revealed that participants who have non-aligned goals can still productively collaborate, and in many cases can provide insight and feedback that would not be possible in shared-goal activities. We conclude with an examination of how open-ended exploratory environments can support communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation, and the importance of divergent inquiry and divergent conceptual change across a range of learning environments.

What are visitors up to?: helping museum facilitators know what visitors are doing

In this paper, we describe a tablet application designed around an interactive game-based science museum exhibit. It is aimed to help provide museum docents useful information about the visitors actions, in a way that is actionable, and enables docents to provide assistance and prompts to visitors that are more meaningful, compared to what they are typically able to do without this interface augmentation.

Connected Spaces: Helping Makers Know Their Neighbors

This paper presents Connected Spaces (C-S) -- a tool designed to promote collaboration in makerspaces. It also describes a pilot study designed to test C-Ss effectiveness in enabling people to seek help from peers. In our pilot, some (but not all) students were able to leverage C-Ss affordances. We explore both supporting and mitigating factors, and highlight design features for environments as well as tools to support divergent, open-ended exploration and learning.

Critical computational empowerment: Engaging youth as shapers of the digital future

While there is growing recognition of the need to support young learners as they develop computational thinking (CT) skills, this paper advocates for an increased focus on computational identity (CI) and digital empowerment (DE) in particular, as we posit that these CT skills will help young learners become self-motivated, innovative creators. When nurturing identity and empowerment, it is a persistent challenge to provide youth with real-world experiences and suitable development tools. This paper advances two key approaches to address these issues: 1) A critical computational literacy approach to engage youth in developing personally meaningful applications that have impact in the real world; 2) the use of a tool, like MIT App Inventor, that lowers barriers to creating useful, impactful technology. Using two case-based studies, we show how these two approaches have supported youth in developing applications that respond to meaningful challenges in their communities and helped them to establish their computational identities and digital empowerment.