Volcano Investigator: A structure across domains

We can see from the last section that there is a general structure of Volcano that could be used in other domains--introduction, experimenting and ASKing questions, building a case, remediating, and wrap-up. To successfully generalize beyond geology, we need to examine the various pieces of this structure, or model as INDIE developers have come to call it.

The model is made up of both content and code. The content comes from authors, but the code that displays the content and implements the interface is part of the INDIE tool itself.

From an architectural point of view, we see the model divided up into the modules discussed above, which can be arranged in a flowchart of student interaction which looks something like Figure 2.14.

  

Figure 2.14: Simplified interaction flow in INDIE.

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If we are to think about investigate-and-decide in a way that might be applicable across many different domains, we can summarize what happens to students in each module:

1.

Introduction/Problem Selection: Students are given an array of problems. They choose one (or are given one) and hear (or read) an introduction that introduces them to the scenario.^5.1

2.

Investigate/Questioning: Students take some prop (like a mountain) and run tests on it that produce results. A result is some token that represents a fact which has text attached to it so that students can identify it. These results appear in an experimental notebook as they are discovered. Different samples (i.e., different scenarios) produce different results. Along the way, students can ask questions and hear answers from experts.

3.

Building a case: Students take the results they have received from their tests and organize them into coherent evidence lists that support or disconfirm claims. A claim is any possibly true statement about the situation (e.g., ``This volcano is about to erupt.'') Once students have built their case, they signal that they want to submit their case to client scrutiny.

4.

Remediating: The claim and the evidence supporting or disconfirming it is parsed by some scenario-specific mechanism that returns an answer that says either that the student has fully-supported their claim or that it needs more work. Authors can tailor the ``needs-more-work'' response to the kind of work students need to do.

5.

Wrap Up: The students see the results of the claim they made, possibly see a summary of the case, and then move onto the next case (which essentially means moving back to the problem selection stage).

These five stages of student interaction are the fundamental investigate-and-decide architecture that INDIE is designed to implement.