Education, Outreach, and Training Meeting

1
Education, Outreach, and Training Meeting

• Introduction to Chickscope
• July 1998
• Umesh Thakkar
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Champaign, IL 61820
• 217-333-2095
• uthakkar_at_ncsa.uiuc.edu

2
Outline

• In this introduction, I will summarize
• The first Chickscope project (Spring 1996)
• Illinois Chickscope, a professional development
  program for K-12 teachers
• Significance of remote scientific instrumentation
  in education

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What is Chickscope?(http//chickscope.beckman.uiu
c.edu/)

• Chickscope is a project to study chicken embryo
  development using a variety of educational
  resources, such as inquiry-based curriculum
  materials, interactive modules on egg
  mathematics, image processing, and remotely
  controlled magnetic resonance imaging instrument.
  
• It is being developed by educators and
  researchers from several UIUC departments in
  collaboration with inservice and preservice
  teachers, and the Image Processing for Teaching
  project at the University of Arizona.
• Inquiry-based materials by collaborating teachers
  are at
• http//www.ed.uiuc.edu/inquiry/.
• Chickscope overview for parents and teachers is
  at http//chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/about/overvi
  ew/.

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Remote scientific instrumentation

• Using a standard Web browser, researchers,
  teachers, or students in any location and at any
  time have the potential to access the latest
  scientific instruments without having to travel
  to a remote site or invest in the hardware
  themselves.
• Accordingly, the Web becomes a laboratory for
  many fields of research and educationa World
  Wide Laboratory (WWL).
• Chickscope is a working example of the WWL
  project.
• In addition to Chickscope, there are other
  innovative scientific instrumentation projects on
  the Web (e.g., Stardial, an autonomous
  astronomical camera).

Seventh-grade students learning about MRI
acquisitions during the first Chickscope project
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Overview of project design

• An interactive web site
• School pages
• MRI control interface and database
• Scratchings (observations and questions)
• Roost (expert responses, etc.)
• Designing for instruction and interaction
• Focus on interests, needs, and skills of
  participants
• Encourage exploration everyday
• Provide support for guiding the scientific
  inquiry process

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Participants in the first Chickscope project

• The ten participating classrooms during the
  spring of 1996 ranged from kindergarten to high
  school, including an after-school science club
  and an out-of-state home school.
• In all, there were 210 students, 9 teachers, and
  15 undergraduate students in the classrooms.
• Teachers selected based on their school or
  classroom access to the Internet, interest in the
  project, and plans for integrating it into their
  curriculum.
• Teacher training prior to and during the project.
• A Sample Scenario Primary School Classroom

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Primary school classroom

• 24 students (10 girls, 14 boys half
  kindergarten, half first grade)
• Undergraduate student assisting the classroom
  teacher
• 2 Macintosh IIsi with access to the Internet 1
  classroom incubator
• Sample activities Slice hard-boiled eggs to see
  how MRI would "slice" the egg. Identify the
  three available views (front, top, and side) on
  their acquired images. Write scratchings to
  share observations and ask questions.

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Sample primary classroom activities
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MRI acquisitions

• All classrooms had remote access to the MRI
  system twice a week for 20 minutes each day,
  except the after-school science club which had
  access once a week for 2 hours.
• Experts suggested good starting points to
  students everyday on the MRI control interface
  for acquiring images.
• Annotations and observations by experts to record
  the chick embryo development process for the
  benefit of all classrooms.

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Sample primary school image acquisition
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It is MRI time primary school classroom

• Six to eight primary students per group for image
  acquisitions.
• Look at quadrant F3. We are looking at the top
  view. What do you think we could do next? What
  do you think the white spots are? Teacher
  leading a discussion in the classroom
• The bright spots above and below it heart area
  are signals from the blood in the ventricle.
  These spots are in the wrong places because they
  are moving too rapidly. Expert observations and
  annotations

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Annotations
13
Annotations (cont.)
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Sample MRI explorations

• Primary schoolchildren made comparable attempts
  to manipulate parameters for MRI explorations.
• 722 actual acquisition requests from all
  participating classrooms.
• Online guide, Getting the Most out of MRI,
  developed to provide students with advice on
  image acquisition strategies.

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Scratchings

• Scratchings about classroom activities, chick
  embryo development, and MR images.
• Experts responded daily in the Roost and gave
  procedural guidance and cognitive guidance to
  students and teachers.

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Sample primary school scratching
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Sample expert response
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Sample scratching practices

• Each classroom had its own story in writing
  scratchings.
• Observations and questions also sent via a
  mailing list.
• Sample illustration of scratchings by selected
  classrooms from different grade levels.

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Impact in classrooms (http//www.ed.uiuc.edu/facs
taff/chip/Publications/chickscope/)

• Situated evaluation approach to examine how
  Chickscope is used across different classroom
  contexts.
• General questions to guide our understanding of
  the project
• How useful is MR imaging (with and without remote
  access) for understanding chick embryo
  development?
• What different modalities are available to
  students?
• What are students learning from this experience?
• What kinds of support structure is provided to
  teachers?
• What are some of the unexpected events?

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Situated evaluation of educational innovations

• Situated evaluation is focused on the
  innovation-in-use across contexts (Bruce and
  Rubin, 1993).
• Some of the purposes of situated evaluation
  include
• explain why the innovation was used the way it
  was
• predict the results of using the innovation
• identify similarities and differences across
  settings
• improve the use of the innovation
• improve the technology
• identify variables for later evaluation

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Situated evaluation process

• The situated evaluation process has three key
  aspects
• understand the idealization of the innovation
• examine the settings in which the innovation
  appears
• analyze the realizations of the innovation
• The guiding assumption in the process is that the
  innovation comes into being through use.

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Lessons learned

• Students working in groups were able to share
  computers and limited MRI time effectively to do
  serious science for an extended period.
• Students more involved in Chickscope when it was
  integrated into the classroom curriculum plans.
• In spite of the complexity of the technology,
  students and teachers across K-12 were able to
  benefit.

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Diverse range of benefits

• Exposure to a new way of using the Internet.
• Increased understanding of the process of
  gathering scientific data.
• Opportunity to interact with scientists from
  several disciplines.
• Motivation for learning science and sustained
  interest in the scientific enterprise (i.e., at
  least 21 days).
• Continuing sustained use of resulting project
  materials by classrooms that did not originally
  participate or have access to the remote
  instrumentation.

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Implications for K-12 outreach from the first
Chickscope project

• Access to new technologies should be possible
  through standard computer hardware and software,
  such as Web browsers.
• Online interactions with experts is essential for
  doing scientific investigations, especially for
  students in the lower grades who may need
  specific guidance as well as immediate feedback.

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Why Illinois Chickscope?

• The first Chickscope project was successful in
  immersing students and teachers in a small
  scientific community. Students and teachers
  learned much about how to collect and analyze
  data, how to ask questions, and how to
  communicate their findings with others (Bruce et
  al, 1997).
• Planned to scale this project up to provide
  further opportunities to students and teachers at
  state and national levels.
• Proposed a professional development program, now
  referred to as Illinois Chickscope (ILCS), for
  K-12 teachers during the spring, summer, and fall
  semesters of 1998 (Bruce and Thakkar, 1997
  Potter, 1997).
• ILCS was initially proposed as Champaign County
  Chickscope (CCC) before teachers from
  east-central Illinois got involved.

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Illinois Chickscope(http//www.ed.uiuc.edu/facst
aff/chip/Projects/Chickscope/ccc.html)

• Illinois Chickscope is building a community of
  teachers linking that community with scientists
  in a variety of disciplines promoting an
  integrated understanding in science and
  mathematics and teaching new ways of using the
  Internet.
• ILCS participants are 32 K-12 teachers (21
  elementary school teachers, 4 middle school
  teachers, and 7 high school teachers) from 15
  schools in Champaign County and
  Charleston-Mattoon area.
• ILCS started by introducing Chickscope to 57
  preservice teachers in fall of 1997 so that these
  teachers can take their new pedagogical knowledge
  into their student teaching, including in the
  classrooms of the ILCS teachers.

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ILCS objectives

• ILCS objectives include
• To demonstrate what is required to scale up a
  successful local project to a larger community.
• To build collaborations between teachers,
  preservice teachers, and scientists in order to
  promote and facilitate scientific investigations
  using the Internet.
• To test the information infrastructure by
  providing a diverse range of classrooms with
  access to the interactive MRI database.
• To assess the effectiveness of Illinois
  Chickscope in motivating and preparing teachers
  for incorporating inquiry-based learning and
  teaching in science and mathematics classrooms.

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ILCS inservice schedule

• ILCS teachers are expected to attend 11 inservice
  days. Each
• day includes interactive discussions, hands-on,
  and computer-
• based activities related to chick embryology and
  MR imaging.
• During the spring semester, the teachers were
  learning about Chickscope through five inservice
  days.
• During a week-long summer inservice, the teachers
  focussed on developing inquiry-based curriculum
  materials for use in their classrooms.
• During the fall semester the teachers will return
  for one day of inservice, where they will
  introduce the ILCS project to new preservice
  teachers and other interested teachers.

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Inquiry themes

• Inquiry themes during inservice focus on a broad
  question
• How do we build a community for inquiry learning?
• How do we get students to engage in inquiry?
• How do we ensure that all students are involved
  in inquiry activities?
• How do teachers link to other teachers and
  student teachers to facilitate inquiry learning
  and teaching?
• What are the roles for scientists in supporting
  inquiry in the classroom?
• How can teachers study their own inquiry practice
  and share what they learn with others?

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ILCS evaluation procedures

• ILCS evaluation questions will focus on the
  project objectives. For instance, what is
  required to scale up? Is collaboration among
  classroom teachers, preservice teachers, and
  scientists supported? How well does the
  information infrastructure work? Are teachers
  supported in inquiry-based teaching?
• A formative evaluation is being conducted to
  guide the project development.
• A summative evaluation during the summer and fall
  semesters will assess the overall impact of the
  project.
• A variety of data is being collected for
  evaluation. Appropriate consent from teachers,
  preservice teachers, school, and university has
  been obtained before the start of the project.

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ILCS and scientific instrumentation?

• The goal for the Chickscope project was not only
  to provide students and teachers with access to
  the MRI instrument, but also to provide them with
  the supporting infrastructure that is usually
  reserved for scientists.
• It is difficult to sustain the infrastructure of
  both the people and the underlying technology for
  a long duration.
• ILCS teachers (and their students) will be using
  images from the MRI database to learn about
  embryonic development and growth for instance,
  studying the change in the yolk occurring between
  24 to 72 hours of development (see, for example,
  http//chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/explore/biologi
  cal_imaging).
• The database includes MR images acquired by
  students during the first Chickscope project.

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Significance in education

• Remote scientific instrumentation is part of the
  daily practice in research and industry (e.g.,
  Mars Pathfinder mission).
• Students at all levels may need to learn more
  about this new technology for doing science, and
  that it is likely to be less costly in the future
  (e.g., electronic mail).
• The particular instruments and scientific domains
  may change, but understanding the principles
  underlying this mode of learning through projects
  like Chickscope should be generalizable to other
  domains, such as cell biology, involving new
  technologies, such as transmission electron
  microscope.

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Current directions

• I am working on a review of scientific
  instrumentation projects in many domains, such as
  radio astronomy, cell biology, and nanomaterials.
• My interest is in evaluation of WWL technologies
  to understand their impact in research and
  education for instance,
• What effect WWL technologies have on student
  learning?
• How WWL technologies support scientific
  collaboration and expand participation in science?

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Acknowledgements

• I wish to acknowledge UIUC collaborators
• Illinois Chickscope
  (Dr. Bertram
  C. Bruce, Maureen P. Hogan, Alexis P. Benson,
  Dean J. Grosshandler, Jonathan A. Moore)
• Remote scientific instrumentation
• (Clint S. Potter, Dr. Bridget O. Carragher,
  Dr. Peter R. McCullough, Dr. Ray L. Plante)
• Clint Potter initiated the first Chickscope
  project and continues to
• direct its present development. Chickscope is
  funded in part by the
• Illinois Board of Higher Education, the UIUC
  Campus Research
• Board, and the Lumpkin Foundation and the
  Illinois Consolidated
• Telephone Company.