virtual and distance experiments: pedagogical alternatives, not logistical alternatives
DESCRIPTION
Virtual and Distance Experiments: Pedagogical Alternatives, not Logistical Alternatives. Euan Lindsay Dept Mechanical Engineering Curtin University of Technology. A Bit About Me. Mechatronic Engineer PhD in Engineering Education Senior Lecturer in Mechatronic Engineering at Curtin - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Virtual and Distance Experiments: Pedagogical Alternatives, not Logistical
Alternatives
Euan LindsayDept Mechanical Engineering
Curtin University of Technology
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A Bit About Me
• Mechatronic Engineer• PhD in Engineering
Education• Senior Lecturer in
Mechatronic Engineering at Curtin
• Black Belt Swordsman• Really poor guitar
player• Recently Married
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Warning! - Active Learning Ahead
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Three Themes in Remote Labs
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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The Purpose of Laboratory Classes
• Some analysis in the literature– Fiesel & Rosa 2005– Scanlon et al 2002– Antsaklis et al 1999
• Many good reasons– Why do *you* have laboratory
classes?
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Why do *you* have labs?
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Four underlying themes
• Illustrating and validating analytical concepts
• Introducing students to professional practice, and to the uncertainties involved in non-ideal situations
• Developing skills with instrumentation
• Developing social and teamwork skills in a technical environment
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There are some downsides:
• Expensive to run• Difficult to schedule• Safety issues• Space requirements – need a
laboratory• Require physical attendance
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Alternative Modes for Laboratories
• Remote Access– Hardware can be anywhere– Safety issues are reduced– Don’t need room around the
equipment– Asynchronous access
• Simulation Access– No hardware at all
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Which Motivates the Technical
• From the logistical
• Can we control this equipment remotely?
• Can we teach our students online?
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Three Themes in Remote Labs
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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The Answer is yes
• Standard industrial practice these days– Nobody manually moves valves in a
Siberian Oil Refinery
• First reported in Academia in 1996 – Aktan et al– “Second Best to Being There”
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Types of Technical Approaches
• Remote Desktop - Commercial Software• Thick Client - Server • Web Services - Browser-based with
Plug-ins• Hybrid - UTS - control via remote
desktop, output viewer via browser
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Capacity Planning• When are experiments done?
2PM: 6.012 exercise out
(75 students)
4PM: 6.720J/3.43J exercise out (25 students)
2PM: 6.012 exercise due
4PM: 6.720J/3.43J exercise due
[Oct. 13-20, 2000]
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Access control
• The big difference between the industrial and the academic context– Who can access the equipment?– For how long?– Do you queue for access, or book a
time in advance?
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So we have …
• Systems built for peak use– Most of the capacity is never used
• Systems for controlling and scheduling access
• A need to validate the investment in the equipment
• Colleagues excited by what we’ve achieved
LET’S SHARE LABS
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Three Themes in Remote Labs
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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Political
• At the first glance, sharing remote labs is a great idea– Provides access to new equipment– Provides wider visibility for what we
have done– Inter/Multi/Trans-whatever
collaboration
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But it’s not that simple
• Penalizing the Altruist– You’re willing to share your lab, but not your
time!
• Reputation– Can we be seen to be using their equipment?
• Infrastructure for adoption– Research infrastructure and services– Adaptation services ???
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And of course…
• Who pays for it?– Access costs– Maintenance
Costs– Repair Costs
• Up front costs as a project are often ok, but it’s the ongoing costs that are difficult
$$
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But Back to our List:
• Where does any of this fit with why we actually have labs?
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Three Themes in Remote Labs
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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Pedagogical Issues
• We’re designing and building a learning experience for our students
• Why a laboratory? Why a remote laboratory?
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Proximal labs
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Remote Labs
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Virtual Labs
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Two Necessary Ingredients:
• Separation– Physical separation in remote labs– Psychological separation in virtual
labs
• Technology-Mediated Interface– Usually some kind of computer GUI
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Equivalency?
=
+
=
+
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Literature from elsewhere suggests perhaps no
• Distance Education literature says separation causes changes
• Technology in Education literature says interfaces cause changes
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The Value of Laboratory Classes…
…is that they’re different
• Different objectives• Different methods• Different experiences
Now We Have A Different Kind of Different
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So What Kind of Differences?
• Student happiness• Student assessment outcomes• Student learning outcomes• Students’ perceptions of learning
outcomes
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Student Happiness
• Everyone reports that the students really like it
“whenever I tell someone that I can control cylinders in Sydney from my couch in Perth, people are
amazed”
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But why are they happy?
• Novelty?• Hawthorne Effect?• Relaxed Scheduling Constraints?
– Flexible start time or flexible end time?
• Increased access?– Personal access rather than
“passenger” in a group
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Student Assessment Outcomes
• The marks stay much the same– But they are different marks
Effect Sizes
-0.80
-0.60
-0.40
-0.20
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
Eff
ec
t S
ize
(std
de
vs
)
S - P
R - P
S - P -0.26 -0.10 -0.20 -0.42 0.80 0.13 -0.64 -0.10
R - P 0.08 0.04 0.25 -0.04 0.88 0.50 0.09 0.26
out_A out_B out_C out_D out_E out_F out_G out_H
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Student Learning Outcomes
• Students are more reflective in the remote mode– Amplification / filtering?
• Better able to handle unexpected data– And the consequences of that data
• Still understand physical meanings of their data– Something that gets lost in simulations
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Perceptions of Learning outcomes
• Students have different expectations of the different access modes– Sometime explicit, sometimes implicit
• Students engage differently in the different modes
• Very similar experiences can lead to very different perceptions
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Perceptions of Objectives
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Perceptions of Outcomes
Mostly the sameNo significant differences
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Objectives vs Outcomes
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One cross-theme topic:
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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Transparency is Important
• Students must focus upon the equipment, not on the interface
• All the gains from remote labs go away if the interface is opaque
• The laboratory must still be real
• How real is real enough?
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Establishment reality vs maintenance reality
• Different levels of reality are needed for different users– Novices need to establish reality– Regular users need to maintain reality– Expert users need neither
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Three Themes in Remote Labs
•Technical
•Political
•Pedagogical
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So What Does It All Mean?
• The different access modes are significantly different learning experiences, and the students construct significantly different outcomes – outcomes that will be the prior knowledge for their future learning.
• The modes are not simply interchangeable
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Not Equivalent
≠+
≠+
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Two Consequences
• If the mode is fixed, then compensate for the deficiencies– Reconcile objectives with outcomes,
remote need transparency, simulation need reminders of reality
• If the mode is free, choose the mode that emphasises the desired outcomes– Non-proximal promote exception
handling, simulations will promote focus on theory
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YOU STILL NEED
REAL LABS
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Where next? - Research Directions
• The Nature of Interactions– Student-Equipment, Student-
Demonstrator, Student-Student– Seeking information, seeking
confirmation– What it is about the supervision that
makes the supervision valuable? About the group context?
• Intelligent tutoring systems
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Research Directions (contd)
• Establishment Reality vs Maintenance Reality
• Using Game Engines– eg 2nd Life
• Deception Trial– Is perception bigger than reality?
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Where next? – Development Directions
• Hybrid Laboratories– Why stick to one mode when they
achieve different things?
• Shared laboratories– Curtin, UTS, UniSA, RMIT & QUT
• Use the right laboratory for the right outcomes
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http://remotelabs.eng.uts.edu.au
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Virtual and Distance Experiments: Pedagogical Alternatives, not Logistical
Alternatives