MOVES-NL: Digital Solutions for Coordinating Enactive and Symbolic Perspectives—The Case of Basic Arithmetic With Positive and Negative Integers
Dor Abrahamson, Professor
Education
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
We present an innovative educational design for basic arithmetic that responds to students’ documented difficulties with adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. The design utilizes MOVES, a technological architecture that combines floor- and screen-projected interactive interfaces. Students enact arithmetic operations, e.g., “3 - (-2)” by walking along a projected body-scale number line, and their actions are captured and analyzed to provide in-the-moment feedback. Next, a screen-based avatar is introduced who mimics their whole-body movements. Finally, analogous problems are presented on a tablet, where students walk an avatar action figure along a standard-sized number line. Our research focuses on promoting conceptual understanding through coordinating full-body egocentric experiences on a body-scale number line with the allocentric experience of “puppeting” the avatar along the desk-scale number line. Based on pilot trials, we speculate on the nature and type of supports students require to coordinate these perspectives and discuss implications for future iterations of the design.
Role: We are looking for undergraduate students to aid in data analysis of students' interactions with MOVES-NL.
Qualifications: Students should have experience/ familiarity with design-based research and other qualitative methods. In addition, students should have an interest in cognitive science, education, multisensory technology, inclusion and embodied cognition.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Jacqueline Anton, Graduate Student
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Related website: https://edrl.berkeley.edu/projects/walking-the-number-line/
Social Sciences Engineering, Design & Technologies Education, Cognition & Psychology