This web application and an animation storyboard facilitated by the presence of Robbie the Robot provides a novel approach to improve children's learning experiences. One approach to enhance children's understanding of mathematical functions is by building a web application featuring a storyline of apple growth over time. The narrative consists of 15 bars, each representing the growth of apples and revealing distinct patterns of mathematical functions. Researchers can tailor the curriculum by selecting trial types, functions, and sample sizes through an interactive user interface. Additionally, this app offers three trial rounds: a practice trial with one bar, where users can interactively reveal apples; a sample trial with all 15 bars and its hidden apples, where users can select which bars to sample from; and a predict trial, where users can guess the number of apples that align with the chosen function based on their previously sampled bars or a preset representation. The difference between the guessed and actual apples (the error) is calculated to assess their understanding. Furthermore, to enhance the experimental preface for children, animated short clips of a cartoon robot named Robbie were incorporated. These clips, featuring simple gestures and emotional expressions, create scenarios that children can watch, effectively priming them for future experiments.
Benzon, Joshua,
"Web Experiment Design in Cognitive Developmental Research"
(2023).
Summer Research Symposium.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/6vzf-6256
Each year, Brown University showcases the research of its undergraduates at the Summer Research Symposium. More than half of the student-researchers are UTRA recipients, while others receive funding from a variety of Brown-administered and national programs and fellowships and go …
