Sherry Hsi

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Principal Scientist at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study

When engaging issues at the intersection of science and society, science centers, museums and other informal STEM learning organizations struggle to center perspectives of communities most often impacted by the unequal distribution of technologies' benefits and harms. Increasingly, participatory design is being utilized to do this, but the field mu...

My:Talkies is a tangible learning kit for teaching basic concepts of communication devices through expressive making with children (ages 11-14). The My:Talkies prototype comprises of a pair of two paper templates for embodying the communication entities, micro:bit boards, and paper potentiometers for analog to digital encoding. Through pilot studie...

To make computer science (CS) more equitable, many educational efforts are shifting foci from access and content understanding to include identification, agency, and social change. As part of these efforts, we look at how learners perceive themselves in relation to what they believe CS is and what it means to participate in CS. Informed by three de...

This paper draws on critical perspectives and a specific design case of learning in making with physical computing cards to argue that unblackboxing as a design goal must go beyond technical or computational aspects of computational making. Taking a justice-oriented stance on computing education, we review earlier perspectives on unblackboxing in c...

Sensor systems have the potential to make abstract science phenomena concrete for K-12 students. Internet of Things (IoT) sensor systems provide a variety of benefits for modern classrooms, creating the opportunity for global data production, orienting learners to the opportunities and drawbacks of distributed sensor and control systems, and reduci...

Koroshetz et al. There is a pressing need to increase the rigor of research in the life and biomedical sciences. To address this issue, we propose that communities of ’rigor champions’ be established to campaign for reforms of the research culture that has led to shortcomings in rigor. These communities of rigor champions would also assist in the d...

This paper contributes a theoretical framework informed by historical, philosophical and ethnographic studies of science practice to argue that data should be considered to be actively produced, rather than passively collected. We further argue that traditional school science laboratory investigations misconstrue the nature of data and overly const...

In engineering education and STEM education more generally, the use of microcontrollers is increasingly common across a wide range of design projects found in robotics, programming, makerspaces, e-textiles, and more. Exemplified by the Arduino Uno, microcontrollers make tangible computing possible by connecting digital and physical worlds, and help...

In professional engineering design process, iteration is critical to improving design outcomes and takes different forms at different points during idea generation, prototyping, and refining stages. In engineering education, iteration is a desired and encouraged step for learning valuable design practices that include testing, troubleshooting, and...

Creative iterative development over the past several years has generated an extensive set of computational tools, learning resources, and materials in the realm of paper mechatronics - an educational craft and design approach that weaves computational and mechanical elements into established traditions of children's construction with paper. Here, w...

This studio invites participants to design and build machines with different kinds of paper and craft materials. We will introduce papercrafting using our design tool "FoldMecha", mechanical components, and prototyping methods for physical construction. Participants interact with sample projects and explore a motion library, then begin the ideation...

We present FoldMecha, a computer-aided design (CAD) system for exploratory construction of mechanical papercraft. FoldMecha enables students to (a) design their own movements with simple mechanisms by modifying parameters and (b) build physical prototypes. This paper describes the system, as well as associated prototyping methods that make the cons...

Spatial thinking is often challenging for introductory geology students. A pilot study using the Augmented Reality sandbox (AR sandbox) suggests it can be a powerful tool for bridging the gap between two-dimensional (2D) representations and real landscapes, as well as enhancing the spatial thinking and modeling abilities of students. The AR sandbox...

Superimposing responsive digital effects onto sand in a sandbox places educators, students, and policy makers in an augmented reality, offering a hands-on way to explore geoscience processes.

We present a kit comprising cardboard mechanical components and a custom printed circuit board, designed to support novices in building computational percussive instruments with everyday materials. We set three design criteria: accessibility, adaptability, and expressivity. We conducted two workshops with experts and novices to assess the usability...

Educational paper crafts have an unfortunate reputation as "less than serious" intellectual enterprises, suited primarily for younger children. Over the past decade, the technological groundwork has been laid for a radical revision of this judgment: paper can now serve as the material substrate for a rich, challenging, aesthetically appealing branc...

Paper Mechatronics is a novel interdisciplinary design medium for children, enabled by recent advances in craft technologies: the term refers to a reappraisal of traditional educational papercrafts in combination with accessible mechanical, electronic, and computational elements. We present a design case study–building computationally-enhanced pape...

In efforts to understand and promote long-term interest in science, much work has focused on measuring students’ interest in topics of science, typically with surveys. This approach has challenges, as interest in a topic may not necessarily indicate interest in scientific practices and pursuits. An underexplored and perhaps productive way to gauge...

Science on a Sphere (SoS) is a compelling educational display installed at numerous museums and planetariums around the world; essentially the SoS display is a large spherical surface on which multicolor high-resolution depictions of (e.g.) planetary weather maps may be depicted. Fascinating as the SoS display is, however, it is in practice restric...

The diverse wealth of crowdsourced online tools can benefit from professional coordination and quality control.

Math on a Sphere (MoS) is a newly developed Web-based environment that enables children to imagine, program, and share creative designs on a public spherical display, the "Science on a Sphere" system created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The MoS software, similar in spirit to the Logo language, was installed at an e...

Standard webmetrics tools record the IP address of users’ computers, thereby providing fodder for analyses of their geographical location, and for understanding the impact of e-learning and teaching. Here we describe how two web-based educational systems were engineered to collect geo-referenced data. This is followed by a description of joining th...

This paper explores the role of technologies in supporting informal science learning from seven perspectives. Together, the authors ask a common question: How can learning technologies---tools, spaces, and places---be designed to support learners within and across environments? Eight exemplars are offered to answer this question through an analysis...

The biggest trend in museum exhibit design today is the creative incorporation of technology. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media explores the potential of mobile technologies (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs) for visitor interaction and learning in museums, drawing on established practice...

This chapter presents different examples of how informal learning institutions including museums, science centres, and afterschool programs are being transformed by the presence of information technologies (IT) and how informal learners, in turn, are adopting and shaping IT. Everyday uses of IT are also reviewed to share the multiple practices that...

This paper illustrates the intensified engagement that youth are having with digital technologies and introduces a framework for examining digital fluency – the competencies, new representational practices, design sensibilities, ownership, and strategic expertise that a learner gains or demonstrates by using digital tools to gather, design, evaluat...

Recent interdisciplinary discoveries in the sciences and engineering at the nanoscale, specifically in our ability to manipulate, molecules at atomic scales, suggests a need for the education community to reconsider the ways in which disciplinary-based sciences and mathematics are being taught in schools, as well as how the public might engage with...

Over the next 10 years, we anticipate that personal, portable, wirelessly-networked technologies will become ubiquitous in the lives of learners - indeed, in many countries, this is already a reality. We see that ready-to-hand access creates the potential for a new phase in the evolution of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), characterized by "seam...

The eXspot, a custom-designed RFID application that enhances museum exhibits and let visitors continue their scientific exploration beyond the museum's walls, is evaluated. The system consists of a small RFID reader package for monitoring on museum exhibits, an RF tag carried by visitors on a card or necklace, a wireless network, a registration kio...

The Exploratorium, an interactive hand-on science museum, is developing an online collection of science learning and teaching resources to better serve educators' needs for pedagogically-rich instructional resources via the Web. Several challenges arise when designing a digital library for formal K12 education audiences using the Learning Object Me...

We describe I-Guides, an information technology research project in progress at the Exploratorium, a hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception. Building upon the findings from the Electronic Guidebook Project [Hsi, 2003], various configurations of RFID technologies, handheld computers, and network-based applications are being developed...

While studies of learning and learning environments have predominantly taken place in laboratories and formal educational settings, there is a growing community of researchers conducting studies in non-school settings such as museums, after school programs, homes, zoos, workplaces, and other informal learning environments (e.g., Callanan & Jipson,...

How should nomadic web content be designed to improve and transform user experiences in a hands-on museum? In this study, 15 users were studied while using an electronic guidebook designed to augment user experiences via wireless technologies at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum. Several recurring themes emerged from the analysis, su...

The authors argue that design-based research, which blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments, is an important methodology for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations work in practice. Designbased researchers’ innovations embody specific theoretical claims about teaching and learni...

How can effective research conducted in a specific context contribute to more effective teaching and learning in a different context? This paper introduces the concept of synergy and synergy research conducted in the context of a water quality project and CILT2000, a meeting of the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies. We share ways in which...

This paper shares results from interviews with three categories of users: teachers, staff `explainers', and visitors. Several recurring issues and themes emerged from our analyses such as users' sense of isolation and user attempts to make a seamless experience between real-place and virtual contexts. Teachers, in particular, felt the mobile web co...

A study of fifteen is reported as part of a larger research project. The Electronic Guidebook, whose aims are to understand how the introduction of wireless technologies changes and augments user experiences at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum. The main questions being addressed in this study are: How do users respond to a mobile we...

The National Science Foundation-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT) is designed to be a national resource for stimulating research and development of technology- enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 science, math, engineering and technology learning. The Center, launched at the end $1997, is organized around four the...

An abstract is not available.

We have developed the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) to promote lifelong learning. We believe that science courses can promote lifelong learning by offering students science models that apply to problems they encounter in their everyday lives and by engaging students in personally relevant science projects where they connect science models...

Many believe that spatial reasoning and visualization contribute to success in engineering. To investigate this view, we a) studied how students in engineering and engineers in professional practice solved spatial reasoning problems, b) designed and implemented spatial strategy instruction, and c) characterized the impact of spatial instruction on...

Electronic discussion tools can have several advantages over classroom discussion to support productive learning conversations in science. This paper describes how an electronic collaborative discussion tool called the Multimedia Forum Kiosk (MFK) enabled equitable learning opportunities in scientific discourse: generating explanations, revising id...

Can NetCourses™ teach collaboration, improve learning, and transform teaching practices on a large scale? This paper describes an experimental model of collaborative Web-teaching using netseminars to train teachers, who in turn, create NetCourses for their virtual students in a Virtual High School (VHS) Consortium. We suggest that netseminars and N...

Can NetCourses™ teach collaboration, improve learning, and transform teaching practices on a large scale? This paper describes an experimental model of collaborative Web-teaching using netseminars to train teachers, who in turn, create NetCourses for their virtual students in a Virtual High School (VHS) Consortium. We suggest that netseminars and N...

Thesis (Ph. D. in Science and Mathematics Education)--University of California, Berkeley, May 1997. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-161).

The paper describes the use of integrative multimedia courseware designed to scaffold student learning and accommodate learning style differences. Synthesis courseware aimed at improving the retention of under-represented engineers has been further designed to work effectively in a range of educational settings, including classroom, high-tech small...

The paper describes our experiences teaching a freshman design course ME39C using multimedia case studies of engineering design, multimedia tools, and the Internet. Students, in mixed-ability groups, learn design process and practice through reviewing engineering cases on CD-ROM and using software tools to develop a multimedia case of their own. Th...

This paper addresses the problem of how to automatically generate visual representations of recorded histories of distributed multimedia collaborations. The work reported here focuses mainly on what we consider to be an innovative approach to this problem, ...

We speculate on the future of electronic communication based on our experiences desiging a software system for collaborative discourse. Capitalizing on new technology and recent cognitive research,we designed a Multimedia Forum Kiosk (MFK) that engages a group in reflective discussion of complex topics. We describe the cycle of progress involving t...

Networked multimedia is described as a tool for collaborative learning, focusing on learning through discussion. It is proposed that multimedia may be used to structure and enhance communication, thereby promoting learning. The background and application of collaborative learning is outlined. Several dimensions of media which influence the evolutio...

We describe a multimedia tool developed for scaffolding constructive conversation and sharing information by means of a public kiosk. The Multimedia Forum Kiosk (MFK) provides an environment where users communicate asynchronously with video, audio, and text. Unlike un- structured media such as email, the interface provides multiple representations...

An abstract is not available.

Science museum visitors are often pressed to attend scheduled events and to see as many exhibits as possible in a single visit, leaving little time to experiment, learn, and reflect upon deeper ideas and science concepts behind an exhibit. We have developed a museum-based application that uses a low-powered, wireless RFID transceiver called 'eXspot...

This paper describes an approach to an education research program referred to as "design experiments" that unites cognitive research and concurrent design of learning technologies. Formative research using the Multimedia Forum Kiosk, an electronic discussion for supporting science and engineering discussions, serves as a case study to illustrate th...

SpeakEasy is a World-Wide Web based structured collaboration and discussion environment. It has been successfully used to support students from middle school through university and is demon-strably more equitable than in-class discussion. In this poster/demonstration, we describe the in-terface and present some basic findings about the effectivenes...

This paper presents formative Web testing and evaluation methods created at the Exploratorium, ranging from floor testing with museum visitors using low-cost "guerilla" methods to structured evaluations that engage museum visitors and on-line remote audiences in the design process. This paper illustrates these methods using examples from two U.S. N...

This collaborative research project between the Exploratorium and Utah State's Department of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences investigates online evaluation approaches and the application of educational data mining to educational digital libraries and services. Much work over the past decades has focused on developing algorithms and m...