Virtual Shared Whiteboard for Real-Time STEM Assessment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Teachers face difficulties in observing and assessing students' collaborative problem-solving skills in real-time during STEM problem-solving activities, especially when students use mobile tablets with touch-sensitive screens, as existing tools lack efficient methods for recording and replaying handwritten math notation inputs.
Innovation Solution
A computerized system that transforms touch-sensitive screens into virtual shared whiteboards, allowing teachers and students to collaborate on STEM problems using handwritten inputs, which are recorded and replayed for assessment, enabling real-time observation and evaluation of collaborative problem-solving skills.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If teachers use traditional observation methods to assess students' collaborative problem-solving skills, then assessment can be conducted, but it becomes difficult to simultaneously observe and assess multiple students' CPS skills in real-time
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates digital copies of students' collaborative problem-solving processes by recording their handwritten inputs, communications, and problem-solving artifacts on virtual whiteboards. These recordings serve as accurate representations that teachers can review later, enabling precise assessment without requiring continuous real-time observation of multiple student groups simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The computerized assessment system acts as an intermediary between students and teachers. It automatically captures, stores, and manages records of students' collaborative problem-solving activities, then presents this information to teachers in an organized manner. This intermediary function bridges the gap between student activities and teacher assessment, improving both accuracy and efficiency.
2Ease of operation
If students use mobile tablets with touch-sensitive screens for handwritten math notation, then ease of operation improves, but the ability to record and replay these inputs for assessment purposes deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically creates digital copies of all handwritten inputs made on touch-sensitive screens. These copies are stored and can be replayed, ensuring that no information is lost despite the ease of operation provided by the tablet interface. The copying mechanism preserves the exact handwritten notation for later assessment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces the mechanical limitation of traditional tablets (which lack built-in recording capabilities) with a software-based recording and replay system. This substitution enables the tablet to not only provide ease of operation for handwritten input but also to automatically capture and preserve all inputs for assessment purposes.
Data Source
AI summary
A computerized system enables teachers and students to collaborate in the solutions of STEM problems. The system includes a communications network linking a teacher computer, one or more student computers, and at least one computer-readable storage medium. Each of the computers includes an input device for receiving input via the input device and a screen for displaying the input. The computers are operatively linked and each of their screens forms a virtual shared whiteboard defining a common work page upon which input from each computer is received and displayed. Input received from each computer interacts mathematically with input received from each other computer in the network and the interactions are displayed on each screen. The input and interactions form a collaborative solution to STEM problems. When prompted, the storage medium records and plays back the solutions to the STEM problems on each screen for subsequent assessment of student performance.