NSF-PIRE draft

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NSF-PIRE Grants

The proposal should include:

  • Intellectual Merit
  • Broader Impact
  • Research Activities
    • Methods
    • Questions
    • Implications

This is a draft for our NSF-Pire proposal model:

Research model:

Step 1: Experimental studies conducted in a laboratory setting. Focus: Cognitive Materials: A series of educational resources focused on a particular topic, comprising a unit of study. A set of materials 1) designed by local designers (e.g., off the shelf, or a group of designers not explicitly told to consider cultural elements 2) an n-Design with a concern for local culture 3) a LOCA customized by a local teacher 4) a culturally diverse object (e.g., with explicit cultural elements from another culture). Material should be set to a specific task with outcomes that can be measured/completed (project, simulation, etc.) Hypothesis (example): Exposure to educational resources containing elements localized for cultural concerns will lead to greater content acquisition measured by task completion times and accuracy Method: Laboratory studies can help identify if cognitive differences exist Timeframe: 1-year, Brazil and USA

Step 2: Design-based research Focus: Cognitive/Attitudinal Materials: Same as above, selected materials according to our design schemes. Method: Working with teachers over time, and through qualitative methods investigate what elements of the educational resources or teaching practices promote or block content acquisition, volition (to learn), and other defined co-variates to learning. This would have to happen in at least one class per design method (LOCA, LOMA, n-Design) and with multiple units so that resources and teaching strategies can be reformulated to promote a better over design. Timeframe: 2-years, Brazil and USA

Step 3: Randomized trials?


Here is the old draft: A. Project Summary

Title: Evaluating the adoption and utility of learning objects with multicultural affordances.

Principal Investigator and Lead Institution: Richard P. West, Ph.D., Utah State University

Co-Principal Investigator: Michael Orey, Ph.D., University of Georgia

Other Participating Institutions: Federal University of Ceará/UFC (Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil; and Universidade Estadual de Campinas/UNICAMP, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.

Intellectual Merit. This project will investigate the feasibility of empowering teachers to create and adapt (i.e., “localize”) high quality digital instructional resources for use in science, mathematics, and technological applications, particularly in international collaborations. From books to digital learning objects, teachers are often forced to work with instructional material and resources that are highly structured and difficult to adapt to local conditions and context. Recently teachers have demonstrated the ability and willingness to create and customize material, once they are given a proper set of tools. Many of these teachers use simple editors to create customized websites; or slide presentations that enhance, organize, and even contextualize their teaching. This project will investigate and extend emerging new content creation tools, and to devise a methodology that promotes the teacher-as-creator of educational content.

Broader Impact. With the integration of computers into schools, a new system is made available which encourages creation and adaptation instead of consumption of educational content. Recently a new class of tools and structures has arisen which make the creation of highly sophisticated educational content a simple task. These programs easily allow pieces (images, text, video) to be inserted and modified by the end user, and are focused on the creation of educational content. As such, teachers can become creators of sophisticated material, which can be shared and modified by other end-users (teachers and students) where pedagogical concerns and implications are part of the design.

The fostering of the teacher as creator can lead to a methodology which considers the whole ecology of school and its stakeholders in a curriculum which is focused on creators as opposed to consumers. These types of tools can lead to an empowerment of the teacher, enhancing the potential of adoption and meaningful use of digital technologies. Moreover, such processes can promote technology fluency through an authentic and meaningful tasks and activities.

Key Words: Localization, End-user adaptation, Open source content

B. International Programs Cover Page Addendum

C. Table of Contents


D. Project Description 

     1.  List of Participants.

Richard P. West, Ph.D. (Psychology) Center for the School of the Future, Utah State University

Matthew J. Taylor, Ph.D. (Mathematics, Psychology), Center for the School of the Future, Utah State University

Brett Shelton, Ph.D. (Instructional Technology), Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, and Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University

David Wiley, Ph.D. (Instructional Technology), Instructional Technology, Brigham Young University

Michael Orey, Ph.D. (Instructional Technology), Instructional Technology and Educational Psychology, University of Georgia

José Aires de Castro Filho, Ph.D. (Mathematics, Science, and Technology), Universidade Federal do Ceará (Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil)

Tel Amiel, Ph.D. (Instructional Technology), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil) 


           2.  Integrated Research and Education Plan with Innovative Model of International Collaboration

Intellectual Merit. While technology has reached schools in both the US and Brazil, it has been used largely to develop technical or vocational skills, such as word processing, spreadsheets and Internet access. Teachers in both countries have learned to access Internet-based and other digital information for enriching lessons, but unfortunately, much of the information is of uncertain or questionable quality, or not available in formats that teachers can readily use. Lesson plans, video-based instruction, resource materials, and knowledge application tools are now more common than they were, but most teachers fail to use them because (1) they are often proprietary, and available only to those purchasing entire programs and curricula, much of which may be unnecessary or irrelevant; (2) they may be available only in formats unfamiliar to teachers or incompatible with the hardware they have; or (3) language or cultural references in the instructional materials may render them unsuitable or unintelligible.

Developers in both Brazil and the US have created large amounts of instructional materials that could be used in other countries, but are not adopted because they have not been “localized”—adapted for language and culture. Particularly in the US and Brazil, where instructional development has been so active, teachers are needed who have more knowledge and skill in the use, integration, and adaptation of new instructional tools, such as learning objects, and specialists are needed in instructional design who know the relevant content, and can design, develop, and evaluate useful and culturally-appropriate LOs (Castro-Filho et al., 2007). Learning objects are usually designed to be simple to use, allowing teachers and students to focus on the content instead of spending time learning to use the technology (Castro-Filho & Confrey, 2001). Pre-service programs are needed to prepare educators and other specialists to incorporate these innovative technologies in their curriculum (Brasil, 2001, 2002). Instructors and developers need to be aware of LOs, how to use them, localize them, evaluate their utility, and design LOs when none exist.

While learning objects can be broadly defined as “any digital resource that can be reused to support learning” (Wiley, 2000), we believe that each LO must lead to the achievement of a single learning objective. Therefore, a learning object is any digital activity or entity (video, animation, simulation) that allows students and teachers to experiment, manipulate and explore concepts in mathematics, science, language etc. (Nascimento & Morgado, 2003).

To be useful in a variety of international contexts, learning objects must be adapted, or localized, for language and culture. Gibson (1977, 1979) proposed the term “affordance” to describe the ecological frame of reference for objects in an organism’s environment. Instructional technologists have since adapted the term to mean a “design aspect of an object that suggests how the object should be used” (McGrenere & Ho, 2000). Similar to ergonomic considerations, affordances may be real (legitimate), perceived, or they may be anchored in the user’s learning history and culture. Adapting a LO for language is the most obvious cultural affordance, but other localizations are also needed. For example, a mathematics learning object (LO) used in a US school might ask students to estimate how many rolls of carpet would be required to cover the floors in a home. To be used in Brazilian schools, the LO must be modified to estimate how many boxes of ceramic tile would be needed. The computational algorithms may be the same, but the measurement units used in the two countries are different (square yards versus square meters) as are the actual floor coverings. A science-based LO on disease prevention might focus on standing water as a site for breeding mosquitoes. In the southern US, West Nile Virus or encephalitis might be emphasized, while the common diseases of malaria and Dengue Fever should be emphasized in the Brazilian versions. Repositories of LOs should have “culturally specific” or localized versions (affordances) that teachers can readily use in their cultural context. Students learn better when confusing language, unfamiliar and irrelevant cultural references, and other distractions aren’t embedded in instructional materials. Serious learning failures can occur when affordances are not provided. As Amiel and Orey (in review) suggest, designers of LOs may not be aware “how culture is embedded in their" (p.1) work. The designers at our four institutions not only cut across national and cultural boundaries, but we also represent both the east and west of the United States and the north and south of Brazil. This diversity in cultural perspective, language, and context can help us to explore the role of culture in LOs.

Each culture is constrained by learned conventions shared by its members. They are filters through which a culture views the world and responds to it. This project will help prospective teachers and instructional developers become aware of the cultural conventions as they relate to LOs and to localize LOs for use in various settings and contexts. Educational technologists have only recently begun to pay attention to cultural and contextual concerns in the design of their products (Damarin, 1998; Hlynka, 2003). Many educational technologies are complex, and adapting them can be difficult and time-consuming. But LOs, as components of these programs, are inherently small and flexible to design. Trained specialists can modify content (images, text, video) and process (order of presentation, pace).

Research Activities, Including Research Questions and Methodologies. This project will be based on three general activities. For each of these activities there will be research questions and methodologies designed to gather data toward answering those questions.

Activity 1 – Developing Website with Recommender Software. The first activity of this project is to develop a website that allows a user to: search for learning objects, see an aggregation of ratings (from other users) of the object independent of cultural affordances, see an aggregation of ratings for the object’s suitability for their cultural circumstance, read comments about the object, read suggestions about the object’s use in alternate cultural circumstances, provide ratings, provide comments and suggestions, to create a parallel object with new cultural affordances, and to see training materials about learning objects, cultural affordances, and altering learning objects to make cultural affordances. 

           This Website will allow a user to locate useful materials for instruction, along with finding a community consensus about the objects’ usability in their cultural circumstance.  It will also allow users to become part of a large labor pool that will add or modify cultural affordances on the best of the available learning objects because they are needed for their own use, and once created, the improved LOs will be easy to share and make available to the world for use or further editing. 
           Research Question – Can a user navigate this website to search for learning objects, see ratings, see feedback, make ratings, provide feedback, and access training materials? 
           Evaluation Methodology – To answer this question, usability testing will be employed.  Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate interfaces (e.g., computer programs, websites, kiosks, buildings, etc) by testing it on users.  This methodology requires that an a priori list of tasks be made specific to the objectives and functions of the website.  Then, a sample of users is asked to carry out those tasks.  Users are observed to see whether or not they can carry out each task, how long each task takes, what mistakes are typically made, what knowledge is retained, and what level of satisfaction the user has with the interface.  This process is both formative and iterative. Information from usability tests is used to correct serious flaws and a new sample of users is drawn to conduct a new round of usability tests.  Only after the tests show perfect accuracy and high satisfaction (80% or above) will the process be complete.  It is possible for this process to be continuous (many websites continually make such advances), but for this project it is anticipated that a quality interface is achievable in a short time frame.

     The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning at Utah State University is currently involved in a synergistic development activity with regard to this proposal, called: "Services to Link OpenCourseware Repositories and the NSDL." By linking together OpenCourseWare repositories, and building upon the open educational resources movement, we further enable learners and faculty members to access a broad range of educational materials. In developing nations, especially, simple access to these resources has the potential to dramatically improve the infrastructure for education, thereby improving the climate enabling research. The services developed within this project enable any participating website/collection/educational digital library, preferably with open educational resources that have an "open" Creative Commons license to share metadata about resources and receive recommendations of courses and/or interactive resources. By focusing on the NSDL Pathways projects, we meet the breadth and depth of disciplines supported through the NSF NSDL program in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our collaborations with OpenCourseWare projects and other open educational resource projects, expands the reach of the services we have developed to most disciplines within U.S. higher education (including the humanities and social sciences).

We currently have functional federated search of participating OpenCourseWares (OCW Finder, "http://www.ocwfinder.org" www.ocwfinder.org <http://www.ocwfinder.org> ) and are providing a recommendation service to link digital learning resources in selected NSDL Pathways and collections with courses in participating OCWs (OER Recommender, "http://www.oerrecommender.org" www.oerrecommender.org <http://www.oerrecommender.org> ).

Activity 2 – Creating Training Materials. The second activity of the project is to create online training materials (i.e., videos, print materials) that show users how to alter existing learning objects to meet new cultural affordances. Given the acceleration of digital expertise around the world, it is not unreasonable to expect that many users have the skills necessary to alter existing digital artifacts. It is also expected that there is a large audience of people that would only require minimal training to have the needed skills to make digital editions. So, training individuals to make new audio tracks for videos, to edit videos to include new footage, to replace a photograph in print material, or to make other types of alterations could be done with online training methods. These training materials would help create a larger labor pool for the creating of culturally appropriate instructional materials. Research Question – Can users successfully edit digital content after reviewing online training materials? Evaluation Methodology – To evaluate training materials, usability testing would again be employed. In this case, a sample of users would be asked to alter digital artifacts prior to training, then again after training. These users would again be observed and data would be gathered in a similar way to the usability test described for Activity 1. These data would also be used to improve the training materials. This evaluation would also be iterative with a goal of producing training materials that could satisfactorily train most users to make cultural affordances to many types of learning objects.

Activity 3 – Training Teachers to use the Website. The final activity of this project is to train a group of teachers in Brazil to use the website and the training materials. By showing practicing teachers how and when to use this technology, it is hoped that they will incorporate existing digital resources into their instruction, alter existing digital resources for their own needs, and participate in the rating and feedback community established by the website. There is ample reason to believe that this type of project will succeed as it employs technologies successfully employed by commercial websites. 

           Research Question – Will trained teachers express satisfaction with the website and employ and contribute to this resource? 
           Evaluation Methodology – To answer this question, a sample of teachers from Brazil will be identified, trained, and monitored over a 6 month period to determine if they access the website, make ratings, provide commentary, and alter and submit edited material.  Additionally, trained teachers will be surveyed about their satisfaction with the website and training materials right after the training and again at the end of the 6 month period.  This data will be statistically analyzed to provide evidence of use and satisfaction.

Broader Implications. The selection of educational content is a difficult task. Traditionally books and other published materials are selected in a top-down manner, created by large publishing houses and selected by teachers and representatives at the local level. The selection from limited options has led to many concerns about the cultural messages and limitations of closed and highly-structured instructional materials (Gitlin, 1995). Clearly, no structured content will satisfy the needs of every schoolteacher, nor every student. In reality, teachers use a mix of educational strategies and content in planning and conducting their classes. In a digital world this possibility is extrapolated as more information and content are available through the Internet. Still, much of it is of dubious quality, and hardly any is aimed at the teaching and learning process. Many websites now exist which allow for the sharing and distribution of educational content. These are usually limited to lesson planning, ideas, and simple content. The more elaborate, sophisticated, and high quality material is usually closed, hard to modify, and even harder to contextualize (adapt or localize for language and culture).

One such type of content has been termed the “learning object”. Though multiple definitions exist, graphical animations with limited interaction have constituted the bulk of what is now known as a learning object. Research in this field has demonstrated that adoption is low, probably due to fact that teachers generally lack the ability to adapt and modify these often-complicated digital resources. Furthermore, teachers are typically left out of the creative process in the design of such content and have no sense of ownership or creative power – replicating existing problems.

Finally, the focus of this project is to investigate a potentially significant change in the role of teacher, from consumer of educational content to developer of digital learning objects in math, science, and school data-based decision-making. Each learning resource will be evaluated and tested in partnership with local schools. Thus, local schools will be involved in the development of these new instructional tools, and in the preparation of specialists who will learn how to develop these tools. They will benefit from their involvement by having early access to these exciting new tools, each of which will be “localized” for language and other cultural affordances.


E. References Cited

Amiel, T., & Orey, M., (in press). Learning Objects with Cultural Affordances. In L. Lockyer, S. Bennett, S. Agostinho & B. Harper (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Learning Design and Learning Objects: Issues, Applications and Technologies.

Brasil (2001a). Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Formação de Professores da Educação Básica, em nível superior, curso de licenciatura, de graduação plena. Disponível em http://portal.mec.gov.br/cne/. Acessado em 10/04/2006.

Brasil (2001b). Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Formação de Professores da Educação Básica, em nível superior, curso de licenciatura, de graduação plena. Conselho Nacional de Educação. Disponível em http://portal.mec.gov.br/cne/. Acessado em 10/04/2006.

Castro-Filho, J.A., Siqueira, R.A.F., Barreto, N.C., & Fernandes, A.C. (2007). Aprendizagem os objetos de aprendizagem e o pluralismo cultural na sala de aula. In XIII Workshop de Informática na Escola, 2006, Rio de Janeiro. Proceedings of the XXVII Congresso da SBC, 2007.

Castro-Filho, J. e Confrey, J. (2001). Interactive Diagrams: Investigating Java-Applets for Learning Mathematics. Anais do VII Workshop de Informática na Escola, XXI Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira da Computação. Fortaleza: 2001.

Damarin, S. K. (1998). Technology and multicultural education: The question of convergence. Theory into Practice, 37(1), 11-19.

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Gibson, J.J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (eds.), Perceiving, Acting and Knowing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gitlin, T. The twilight of common dreams: Why America is wracked by culture wars. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1995

Hlynka, D. (2003). The cultural discourses of educational technology: A canadian perspective. Educational Technology, 43(4), 41-45.

McGrenere J., Ho W. (2000). Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concept. Proceedings of Graphics Interface.

Nascimento, A. & Morgado, E. (2003). A cross country collaborative project in Latin America. Proceedings of ED-MEDIA, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications. Honolulu, HI. Available at http://rived.proinfo.mec.gov.br/artigos/crosscountry.pdf

Wiley, D.A., ed. The Instructional Use of Learning Objects: Online Version Disponivel em http://www.reusability.org/read/ . Acesso em 10/04/2006.

F. Biographical Sketches

G. Current Active Contract and/or Grant Support. This project is based upon an international collaboration made possible with funding from a recently completed grant (2003-2007) from the Fund for Post-Secondary Education (US Department of Education). The grant focused on multicultural issues in technology enhanced school environments. These university partners have recently been awarded a new FIPSE grant (2008-2012) that focuses specifically on investigating the cultural affordances, or adaptations of cultural elements and considerations (e.g., images, text) that render digital educational content more useful across international contexts. This project is a partnership of Utah State University, the University of Georgia and two universities in Brazil (Federal University of Ceará/UFC and Universidade Estadual de Campinas/UNICAMP). The activities proposed in this application will extend the FIPSE-sponsored project significantly by permitting the investigation of the whole ecology of an environment that fosters the teacher-as-creator of instructional content in science, mathematics, and technology.

H. Budget $2

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