FMP Proposal Eveline Brink 2009

8/6/2019 FMP Proposal Eveline Brink 2009

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FMP proposal Alles maalt

Eveline Brink (s041262)

Oscar Tomico Plasencia

Discovery and Learning

December the 17th 2009

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Vision

I am a user-centred designer; to create successful prod-

ucts I do not only work for but also with the user. My

slogan is: design is creang new experiences. I want

to give a product more value through rich (tangible) in-

teracons, t it to the user and the context and make

it meaningful to the user. To achieve this I involve the

user many mes and make sure the design is a balance

between funcon, form and interacon.

To achieve a well balanced design I have a hands-on

approach:

- quickly create working prototypes (and test them)

- explore and experiment (myself and (with) the users)

- keep reecng on decisions (involve extern experts)

I am visually oriented; I prefer to communicate by visu-

als instead of words. For me an experience is highly

inuenced by vision. In my design I focus a lot on the

visual appearances, make sure they feel right and

make sure it is clear, focussed, pleasant and funconal.

To achieve this experimenng and feedback are very

important, but also understanding peoples percepon

and know the rules.

I am interested in working with young users. It is a true

challenge to get useful feedback from them, under-

stand their percepon of the environment and com-

municate on the same level with them (I previously

researched longitudinal use of an open-ended game

MoZo (picture 1). I like to design for them, help them

with their development in a playful way (prevent prob-

lems in their future) and I like their world (I have no

problem to enter their world). To communicate with

them it is useful to use visuals.

Picture 1: longitudinal test of the open-ended game: MoZo,

object which make sound when they move.


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Design opportunity

I also like math, work with numbers, structure things,

solve problems and also help others understand math

and physics. During teaching I always used the theory

acve learning. I experienced the eciency of this the-

ory by myself during my language problems because of

my Dyslecc.

Acve learning means for me that you learn faster

when you have a more rich experience, the related ex-

perience smulates mulple senses acvely and has a

high impact on you. People learn by making mistakes

(learn how not to do it) and by having posive experi-

ences (learn one way of doing it right). Besides under-

standing the experience, it is relevant to remember the

previous experience (learning moment), and by making

this experience more rich it is easier to remember.

In the Netherlands there is a growing concern and a

public debate [Volkskrant 2009] about the quality of

Math of the primary educaon. The KNAW researched

[KNAW 2009] the condions and concluded that the

childrens mathemacal prociency needs improve-

ment.

In the coming semester I will start my Final Master

Project (FMP) with the goal (gure 1) to help children

with their math problems through acve learning. This

is also inspired by my own experiences when I was a

child (remedial teaching for languages was a night-

mare).

Help with automazing mulplicaon table at school (age of 8-9 years).

Help the child with developing, by realizing visually interacve products

through close user-involvements. Help learning by acve learning

and make sure the child goes from circle of failure to circle of success.

Figure 1: visual where my

project is located

myproject


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Project

I propose to design a product that helps children with

automazing the mulplicaon table. Automazaon

means that children understand a mulplicaon sum

and know how to solve the sum correctly, but dont

know the answer directly (that could be the next lev-

el called memorizaon) [Van Luit]. Automazing is a

problem in the Dutch educaon and the reason why

children dont keep up. Most teachers underesmate

the importance of automazing and the math methods

menon the importance but dont provide the me

and material for it [Deamen].

I chose a clear dened context on purpose: automaz-

ing of the mulplicaon table. The mulplicaon is the

foundaon to understand and solve the math which

follows [Deamen]. I will not create a new method, but

my tool should be used as something extra next to the

used method, so it should be method independent

[Van Luit].

The design will be a tool that support the child like a

scaold, which will enhance the calculaon powers.

This results in giving the child prolonged experience of

success and become more condent [Van Dijk].

In short the tool should be:

- Instrucve (acve learning, measure progress)

- Physical (tangible, visual and provide structure)

- Interacve (direct feedback, embodied and fun)

- Movate (playful, interacve, diverse acvies)

- Independent (no intervenon of teacher needed)

My design challenge is to movate the child and make

it instrucve. I want to make use of their will to explore

and their curiosity.

The tool should help the child from going out of the

circle of failure into the circle of success and eventually

become quicker, makes fewer mistakes and eventually

be able to calculate all by him-/herself. The tool should

know the level and reasoning of the child, by making

the nkering process visible/tangible, and use this to

steer the child, provide the right level (of abstractness

and diculty sum) and give feedback.

For now I choose the school context, it should be clear

for the child that he/she is learning mulplicaon ta-

bles at that moment. My goal is to create a new way of

playful learning which may be used in other educaon

areas or will be used as inspiraon to create more in-

teracve learning devices.


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Current maths tools are physical or computer pro-

grammes. The physical tools, like robes, cards, dices

etc., are successful because the child has an overview,

can create structures and is smulated to be acve.

The disadvantages are that the child misses guidance

(teacher is needed) and feedback about the correct-

ness of his/her acons.

On the other hand they use computer programmes,

like lile internet games [rekenweb.nl]. The computer

is a movator, gives direct feedback and one compu-

ter oers a lot of dierent tools. The disadvantages are

that the child misses the overview (posioning) and

the interacon is nothing more than clicking or typing.

My conclusion is that my tool should be physical, but

also interacve (this is linked with acve learning). Re-

lated projects are the Tagles (picture 2), Max (picture

3) and i-Blocks (picture 4).

Picture 2: Tagtiles, a tangible electronic board game for

educational purposes from Royal Philips Electronics.

Picture 3: Max, learncards with self-control

Picture 4: i-Blocks, innovative educational tool

which makes language tangible and practice fun.


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Teaching maths

When teaching maths you start simple and slow (con-

crete) and step-by-step introduce strategies, start au-

tomizing (pracce) and become quick (abstract), illus-

trated in gure 2. To walk through this process you use

lile iteraons interacon, construcon and reecon

[Van Luit 2009].

To automaze successfully you should pracce and re-

peat maths (on the right level) each day for 5/10 min-

utes [Deamen and Van Luit]. This means that the tool

should be exible, have space to experiment (try and

check procedures) and give insights (aha-erlebnissen)

[Moerlands 1994].

Direct feedback is very important [Deamen], when the

answer is correct: compliment the child, but when the

child is wrong: let the child know the sum was too dif-

cult, so let the child feel it is not his/her fault. In case

the sum is wrong, make sure the child noces this visu-Figure 2: when learning maths you start easy and concrete

and through iterations go to difcult and absract

learning traject for mulplicaon table


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ally. Go back to concrete material to let the child do

it right and eventually go back to the abstract level.

When possible administrate and analyze the mistakes

and progress, this is also useful for the teacher [Dea-

men].

Most important are the emoons of the child, the child

should be movated and get more condence [Dea-

men]. For children with low achieved maths skills this

would be the rst problem to encounter. At the mo-

ment the child has trouble with maths the child experi-

ence a circle of failure (gure 3). By having no success,

the child get less movated to work with maths and

get more behind, which cause more bad performances.

Important is to stop the circle of failure and change it

in a circle of success (gure 3) [Desoete 2008]. Very im-

portant is to have paence, build certaines and have

me to careful get more self-condence [Moerlands

1994].

circle of succes

more self-convidencemore pleasure in doing

betterperformance

more practice, concentratemore on the subject matter

positive expectationsbefief in own capacity

circle of failure

negative expectationsabout future performance

fear of failure,avoid subject

less practice, less focuson the subject matter

badperformance

goal

Figure 3:

circle of failure

and circle of succes


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Movate child

To movate the children I could think about the cat-

egories from Malone [1987] which are: challenge, cu-

riosity, control, fantasy, cooperaon, compeon and

recognion. I could focus on one or more of them to

get and keep the childs aenon. Important is to oer

challenge and give feeling of control [Hengeveld] and

keep them balanced [Verhaegh 2007].

An important movator would be the interacon,

like Verhaegh [2007] menoned aer evaluang the

Tagles (picture 2, page 6): they [children] liked the

game because it is dierent from the ones that they are

familiar with, as it diers from screen based computer

games and it is more interacve than tradional board

games.

To movate the child it is very important that the child

itself becomes a central part of the acvity, rather

than just watching something evolve like in computer

games. [Price 2003]. The tool should be driven by the

learner [Negroponte 2007]. It helps when physical ar-

tefacts and physical acons (natural and intuive [Mar-

shall 2007]) are combined. To achieve these physical

acons embodiment is also interesng to consider.

Another movator would be playful learning, make it

fun to use. According to Price [2003]: playful learning

should entail, is one where interacon with informa-

onal artefacts involves fun and where the boundaries

between play and learning are blurred. Fun is impor-

tant in learning: Fun and enjoyment are well known

to be eecve in childrens development [Clements,

1995], both supporng and deepening learning [Res-

nick, 1999] as well as facilitang engagement and mo-

vaon. [Price 2003].

Children will be more empowered through play. Play

helps the brain to develop the contextual memory

[Brown 2008] which is important for my context.

When developing a playful learning device, I should

encompass [Price 2003]: (i) fun, (ii) exploraon through

interacon (discovery), (iii) engagement (increasing at-

tenon to the acvity, concentraon and promotes

useful learning [Stoney 1999]), (iv) reecon, (v) im-

aginaon, creavity and thinking (dierent levels of ab-

stracon) and collaboraon.

Learning maths is a matter of doing it a lot

of times, so it helps when it is fun.

make it fun to motivate the child.

[Van Luit]

[Bakker]


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Interacon

The values of tangible electronics for learning has been

discussed [Marshall 2007 and OMally 2004] and de-

scribed as: they can be used for shared play and learn-

ing, they are assumed to be more movang than tra-

dional learning materials and it is claimed that they

support explorave behaviour... they may be very use-

ful in helping children to solve complex abstract prob-

lems [Verhaegh 2009] like in my context.

To accomplish a rich interacon (new) technologies will

be used, this technologies should be disnguish or in-

visible, so that the technology itself is not the primary

focus for exploraon, but rather the interacon with

the tangible and their eects [Price 2003]. Through

a couple of exploraons and validaons the right ap-

pearance, acons (sensors and actuators) and tangibil-

ity should be created.


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process

I want to realize this project by going through a cou-

ple iteraons (3 to 5), each iteraon containing user

involvement, building prototypes and reecon (use

feedback from experts), for more details look at my

planning (appendix C).

The rst iteraon will be exploring boundaries and cre-

ang empathy by just start building and experiencing

how children experience their math. In the second it-

eraon I want to use the results from the rst to gener-

ate a co-design session [Sanders 2003] or a cooperave

inquiry [Guha 2005], generate dierent concept direc-

ons and reect on this. In the third session I will use

the outcome of the user-sessions to explore the direc-

ons and use the concepts as input for lile user-tests

with children. Use the outcomes for inspiraon to de-

ne design direcons and eventually (maybe by more

iteraons) create a nal tool which is evaluated, ne

tuned and validated on the end.

To validate my decisions and results I ask feedback from

experts (the children (math and without math prob-

lems), parents, teachers, researchers and stakeholders)

and I will test everything with the help of (low-delity)

working prototypes and close user involvement. To

conclude if the child(ren) are making more progress

with the mulplicaon table I will compare their CITO-

toets results from January with July with their class-

mates.

To realize the feedback from all the dierent experts I

will use a blog on the internet. This blog makes it pos-

sible for everyone to follow my progress and also helps

me with recording my own process and creang my re-

port.


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Feasibility and risks

1. Client; I try to get a client involved in my project.

2. Collect users; it is crucial I nd children to work with.

3. Collaborave or individual; to learn math [Price

2003, Stanton 2002 a,b] and do user-tests [Sturm] col-

laborave use is very important, but individual exercise

are also important [Van Luit 1999] and design for an

individual would be less complex.

4. Each child is unique; the process of learning math is

very personal [Brown 1989, Van Luit]. I should reckon

with the personal dierences of the children.

5. How much freedom will the tool provide; it is posi-

ve to have rich acon possibilies (more space for

exploraon, open-endedness [Bekker 2008]), but it is

also scary and confusing to have too much freedom

[Rozendaal].

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References

Bekker, M. M., Sturm, J., Wesselink, R., Groenendaal, B.and Eggen, B. (2008). Interacve Play Objects and the

Eects of Open-Ended Play on Social Interacon and

Fun. Proceedings of ACE08.

Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated

Cognion and the Culture of Learning. Educaonal Re-

searcher, Vol. 18, No. 1. (Jan. - Feb., 1989), pp. 32-42.

Brown, S. (2008). Stuart Brown says play is more than

fun. www.TED.com.

Clements, D. (1995). Playing with computers, playing

with ideas. Educaonal Psychology Review 7 (2), 203

207.

Desoete, A. and Braams, T. (2008). Rondom het kind,

Kinderen met dyscalculie. Boom Amsterdam.

Guha, M.L., Druin, A., Chipman, G., Fails, J.A., Simms,

S., and Farber, A. (2005). Working with Young Children

as Technology Design Partners. In Communicaons of

the ACM, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 39-42.

KNAW (2009). Reken onderwijs op de basisschool,

analyse en sleutels tot verbetering, advies. Koninklijke

Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amster-

dam.

Kroesbergen, E. H. and Van Luit, J.E.H. (2002). Teaching

mulplicaon to low maths performers: Guided versus

structured instrucon. Instruconal Science, 30, 361-

378.

Malone, T. W. and Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learn-

ing fun. Aptude, learning, and instrucon: Vol. 3. Cog-

nive and aecve process analysis, Hillsdale, NJ: Erl-

baum, 223--253.

Marshall, P. (2007). Do tangible interfaces enhance

learning? Chapter 4 - learning through physical interac-

on TEI07, 15-17 Feb 2007, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

Moerlands, F. (1994). Leercurve, leerjd en vaardig-

heid. www.Edumat.nl.

Negroponte, N. (2007). Nicholas Negroponte on One

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OMalley, C. and Stanton-Fraser, D. (2004). Literature

review in learning with tangible technologies. Nesta

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Price, S., Rogersa, Y., Scaifea, M., Stantonb, D.and Neale,

H.(2003). Using tangibles to promote novel forms of

playful learning. Elsevier Science B.V.Interacng with

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Reijn, G. (2009). Rekenen op pabo al jarenlang beneden

peil. de Volkskrant, 4 November 2009.

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struconal Design: Creang New Construcon Kits for

Kids. Morgan Kauman, USA, The Design of Childrens

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Robinson, K. (2006). Ken Robinson says schools kill cre-

avity. www.TED.com.

Sanders, B.-N. and Stappers, P.J. (2008). Co-creaon

and the new landscapes of design. In CoDesign,Taylor

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Appendices

A. List of Experts:

People I contacted for my project, with their funcon,

company, relevant experse and date of meeng.

B. Planning:

My proposed planning according to the reecve trans-

formave design process. On the le the weeks and in

the next comlumn what kind of acvies. The under-

lined acvies are deliverables. The dots represent the

acvies and show when and where they take place in

the reecve transformace design process.

Resources pictures

Picture 1:

research project: MoZo, photographer: Eveline Brink

Picture 2:

a. Concept Tagles. Source: www.serioustoys.com

b. Tagles. Source: Verhaegh 2009

Picture 3:

Max. Source: www.k2-verlag.de

Picture 4:

i-Blocks. www.jegro.com/i-blocks

Figure 3:

Circle of failure and succes. Source: Desoete 2008

The rest of the pictures and gures:

Illustrator: Eveline Brink

Photographer: Eveline Brink.


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FMP Proposal Eveline Brink 2009