A Plant Simulation Tool for Collaborative Biology Experiments in Middle-school Classrooms: An In-the-wild Study
Letter Of Changes: We thank the AC and the reviewers for their insightful comments. We list our changes and responses to the reviewers in the following paragraphs:
As advised, we added a subsection (Section 2.2) on computer-supported simulation tools for school-level Biology curriculum in our related work section.
We revised our subsection on how to run a plant growth simulation to add more clarifications on how the system works when a group runs a plant growth simulation collaboratively. To show the distinctions between the individual and group experiments, we created two new subsections in Section 3.1.1 to describe how to run a plant growth simulation individually and how to run a plant growth simulation in a group. We also clarified the differences in running a plant growth simulation between individual and group experiments. Moreover, we added more clarifications to distinguish the application features that are mirrored to provide a shared view and the ones that give individual access during the group experiments. We also added more clarifications on the scenario when more than one student from the same group tries to run simultaneous plant growth simulations, including who gains the simulation control in such a scenario.
As advised, we clarified in Section 4.1 that the same seventeen students from both classrooms participated in both the post-study questionnaire and post-study interview.
As advised we added quotes from our participants in the findings section (Section 5) to clearly communicate our results. In this study, we did not collect any application log data. We thank the reviewer to bring that up. We will consider collecting such data in our future studies.
We added in our discussion section (Section 6.2) that we will run a future in-the-wild study comparing an experiment group using our mirrored collaborating features and a control group using traditional collaborative features to investigate how the mirrored features improve collaboration.
Keywords: Collaborative learning, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, CSCL, classroom learning, middle school STEM education, Biology curriculum, collaborative simulation, Biology simulation, plant growth simulation, multi-device platform, cross-device interaction, in-the-wild classroom study.
TL;DR: Findings from an in-the-wild study of a Compute Supported Classroom Learning (CSCL) tool for middle-school Biology curriculum that evaluated the usability and collaboration of the tool.
Abstract: Computer-aided simulation-based platforms have been shown to be effective tools for teaching STEM concepts. At the same time, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) platforms encourage different viewpoints and approaches from the learners which can enrich the learning experience in STEM classrooms. The deployment in recent years of networked personal devices such as Chromebooks in classrooms has motivated educators to design collaborative learning tools for these devices. However, prior work has shown that using one-on-one devices may discourage students from talking among each other, which hinders collaboration. To understand the affordances of personal devices for CSCL tools within Biology curricula, we designed a collaborative plant growth simulation application that provides mirrored plant growth simulation views for every group member to facilitate a common visualization. In this paper, we present our findings from an in-the-wild study that evaluated the affordance and usability of the plant growth simulation application and investigated the nature of collaboration and engagement aided through the simulation mirroring feature. Our study results showed that the plant simulation application had high usability and acceptance. Moreover, mirroring the plant growth simulation improved collaboration, generated excitement, and stimulated conversation. We also identified episodes where collaboration was hindered due to off-task activities, troubleshooting, group dynamics, and lack of understanding that led us to outline some potential guidelines to improve the collaborative learning experience for the students in Biology classroom.
Submission Number: 56
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