Application Details

The application includes three interrelated components: (1) Chat Module allows students to ask questions using natural language (text) and get answers. It also allows discussion of the results of simulations and handles the navigation through the modules. For example when the learner types “So I guess I wanna do some experiments” and our bot directs the user to Simulation List page. (2) Physics Simulations Module covers about mechanical and electrical systems. This module allows students to tweak the parameters on mechanical and electrical systems to see their effects. (3) Coding Module allows learners to change the parameters of the physics simulations with simple programming blocks. We aimed to embed programming on to other subjects, by integrating coding to app.

Chat Module

Limited time and low instructor to student ratio make personal contact infeasible. Using a chat bot as a teaching assistant allows the students to get personalized help by asking basic questions about experiments. Our chat bot answers questions about simulations and handles the navigation in the app. We used Firebase database to enable real-time chat and Google Dialog Flow API to facilitate conversations with natural language support. Dialog Flow agent is trained with possible questions that the learner might ask such as “How does weight affect the velocity on the inclined plane?” or “Does resistance have a relation with voltage?”. The Chat Module also supports dialogs through classroom to promote socially interactive learning. When the teaching bot is not able to answer a question, learners can discuss that question with their class friends.

Simulation Module

Building and testing hypotheses requires understanding the subject and comprehend the conceptual knowledge. Supporting experiments with using phone sensors can increase the relevance of this conceptual knowledge. For example, Constant Acceleration Simulation can be supported with the device accelerometer to show students how graph changes with their phone’s motions at real time. In addition to Constant Acceleration Simulation, we placed four more recently covered subjects in students’ curriculum: Inclined Plane, Pulley System, Lever System, and Ohm’s Law. We aimed to show how these systems are affected with parameter tweaking. Simulations were coded in JavaScript and based on the animations created by Walter Fendt . We modified their interface to support programmability and interaction with Android interface.

Coding Module

Patek et al. suggests that creating mental effort to keep learner mentally active builds a ‘minds-on’ environment. By giving the learner the feature to program simulations can create this involvement and develop the understanding of how they could use programming in other topics. We usedyBlocklu programming language to set up the experiments