School of Cognition
Project context
This project is really close to my heart ❤️.
The journey of this project taught me three spectrums of design empathy, compassion, and exploration. But with great learning, there are always more difficulties. This project revolved around the children from the 7 to 11 yrs age group and that was the most difficult part of the project. I spent an entire year deep dive into their latent needs and real problem statements.
I will try to articulate this project in a simple and more grounded practical narrative.
Process
The entire project has been conducted in five phases Discover, Define, Ideate, Experiment & Impact. This process helped me to thoroughly dive into the problem and solve it with the best possible approach.
Less time? No worries, You can directly navigate to the project phase by clicking on the navigation below. 😁
Discover > Define > Ideate > Experiment > Impact
Discover > Define > Ideate > Experiment > ImpactDiscover
You might have seen people around you, with a dislike for physics and mathematics. For them, these subjects could be a nightmare! Have you ever wondered why?
To understand this, one should understand how exactly we perceive these technical subjects and what is the foundation to learn them. The most fundamental entity which helps us in learning is "Cognition". And that's the origin of my project research to understand the genesis of our cognition.
The Literature Study
My literature study was focused on three aspects cognitive development, Artifacts, and Material Engagement theory. And, how children develop their ability to learn.
As per Piaget's theory of cognitive development of children, every child goes through the four stages of cognitive understanding Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete operational stage, and Formal operational stage. In the process of cognitive development, a child needs to interact with the real world through their senses and experience the world through their sensory system. It helps them to understand the infinite question of the universe.
The literature study helped me to derive conceptual insights and answered the following three questions.
What is cognition
How is cognition developed?
How do we learn new things and memorize them for our entire life?
Field Research
For the focus study, I collaborated with the Karuna High School. One of the best schools I have visited. The most challenging part of the project was to conduct field research and it was more challenging when you are doing it in secondary school with Childers. Children's thought process has a very high level of possibilities because they are never biased with what they do! and being a designer develops a subconsciously biased perspective towards research and solutions.
To avoid this, I spent two weeks in school and engaged in most of the activities like attending classrooms, sharing tiffins, playing games, and preparing for competition. This process builds strong empathy and compassion within me and that's how my perspective changes from design project to interest in helping them.
In the process of observation, I found lots of unturned pages from the field study.
Field visit observation technique
Designed method of character observation during the field visit.
Our main object of the field visit was to understand the cognitive perception of children from the age group of 7 to 9 years. But, when it comes to children, it has a different level of difficulties and challenges. Hence to conduct validated observation practice, we designed the process of observation and observed their behavior alone, in a group and under system influence ( In the class, assembly hall, during prayers )
Field experiment
In the process of understanding how students perceive learning techniques, we did one experiment. In the experiment, there were 22 students between the ages of 7 to 9 years. In the first round of the experiment, students had to draw a 2D object like a square, circle, or triangle. The first round is to understand how the student perceives 2D objects. Most of the students easily drew the given objects without any obstacles.
In the second round of the experiment, students were given a task to draw the same 2D objects into 3D objects. However, most of the students were not aware of the 3-dimensional perspective. When asked to differentiate between the 2D and 3D physical objects, most could easily do so. But, surprisingly, 95% of students failed to draw 3D sketches.
we understood that students observe things around them but are unable to understand the nomenclature of it. As a result, most students succeeded in identifying 2D and 3D objects but failed to explain the difference between them.
Some of the drawings of students who were struggling to draw 3D objects
Affinity Diagram
The data is collected from the task and observation is collected in four categories. 2D space, 3D space, 3dimensional and 2 dimensional. The classified data is gathered from the different student's behavior and the performance of the task. From the classification, we have created a mind map of students in the different dimensions. From the diagram given in the above image, we can correlate the connection between the children's emotion and their behavior in different situations and identify the interactive touch point for the platform.
An experiment was conducted during the field visit.
DISCOVER > Define > Ideate > Experiment > ImpactDefine
After the extensive literature and field research, I was overwhelmed with insights and understandings. To make the process better focused and pinpoint the exact problem statement, I revisited all my literature findings and field visit notes to create the entire mind mapping of the study. This validation process helped in providing a bird’s-eye view, defining the exact problem statement, and positioning the solution.
INSIGHTS
Domination of systems and surroundings can easily distract children's cognitive development process.
The gap between the subject topic and medium of learning.
Inability to interact and materialize the subject like maths and physics in real-life examples.
In the process of the discovery phase, I was overwhelmed with the available resources for cognitive study and its development, and at the same time, it is very difficult to narrow down your study to a concrete narrative. Hence, In the above image, I illustrate the entire mind mapping of my literature study. It helped me to articulate my thoughts and study progressively.
Problem statement
Students spend most of their time in school. During their elementary school years, children undergo important developmental changes. Their reasoning becomes more logical, their attention gets more adaptable, their perspective becomes more sophisticated, and their linguistic skills blossom. This age span coincides with the time frame in which children are developing an understanding of mental states and processes.
During this time period, most of the education methodology and learning tools are not enough to build cognitive development across the students. And in most cases, the surroundings, and system play a dominant role in children's cognitive development. Hence, it is very important to develop the proper development tools that will aid children to overcome the obstacles and develop cognitive learning for a better understanding of logical reasoning in the future.
"Spatial thinking and learning through material touch is the key to developing better cognition."
This is the hypothesis
DISCOVER > Define > Ideate > Experiment > ImpactIdeate
In this phase, I studied how human cognition developed from the birth of mankind. From Stone Age, material engagement has played a crucial role in evolving how man thinks, cognizes in the surroundings, builds intelligence and learns cognitive skills. Taking inspiration from this material engagement theory, I designed an adaptive training program using Haptic-enabled technology to improve spatial cognition of children.
the above validation study demonstrates, how the process of cognitive development has been derived from old age and how it helps to build human intelligence and build different cognitive skills.
Adaptive Training Program
In the process of designing an interactive platform for children, we took a reference from their textbook. In the first part of the interactive platform, we focus on geometric shapes that were given in the textbook. By taking into consideration the exercise given in the chapter we created an interactive platform using X3D and Python technology, where students can solve the same exercise using an interactive Geomagic tool.
In the platform, the student needs to interact with the cube and count the number of faces on the cube by using the Geomagic pen. During the interaction, the student can feel the touch force of the cube in the Geomagic pen followed by hand-made 3D clay-making objects, origami, and 3D orientation practice.
The entire adaptive training program was conducted for 35 minutes each day for two weeks.
In the figure, Chapter in the 3rd standard textbook on shape is shown.
3D Interactive Platform and Technology
Other than the GeoMagic Touch Haptic Device, creating a 3D interactive platform requires various software tools and programming languages.
H3D API is an open-source, cross-platform, scene-graph API (Applications program interface) . H3D is written entirely in C++ and uses OpenGL for graphics rendering and HAPI for haptics rendering.
H3DViewer is an application for displaying x3d-files with haptic content using H3D API. It provides an additional feature of being able to change settings for haptic and graphic rendering while the scene is being rendered. At the same time H3DViewer works as any normal X3D-viewer which lets the user navigate the scene, change navigation type etc.
The haptic touch tool is used to interact with the virtual 3D model using force feedback.
Its Mechanical devices that mediate between the user and the computer are referred to as haptic devices. Haptic devices are input-output devices. They can track the user’s physical manipulation which is input and provide realistic touch sensations coordinated with the on-screen events as output.
The haptic device used in this project is the Geomagic Tool shown in Figure. The device has in-built servo motors used to provide force feedback for a sense of touching a virtual object.
DISCOVER > Define > Ideate > Experiment > ImpactExperiment
I considered 20 students as the subject, who attended the adaptive training program. The program was focused on interactive-based learning using a haptics tool. I took references from their existing textbook and designed a similar interactive exercise. This helped them to correlate their curriculum with the newly designed program.
Some of the candidates participated in the adaptive training program.
-
Anjali
-
Abdul
-
Meera
-
Alina
-
Prachi
Haptics - Deep Engagement
With the rapid advancement in technology, a new domain called Haptics has opened up. The world is moving towards Virtual Reality and extensive Human-Machine interaction is now a key point for any successful technology. Keeping this in mind, it is important to explore various applications of such a technology that promises to bring thoughtful changes to the way humans interact with information and communicate ideas.
Haptics technology can be extensively used in learning and teaching. It will be elemental in the enhancement of cognitive understanding of subjects like physics and mathematics. With the help of a 3D interactive platform like Geomagic Haptic Device, students will have an experience like none other. Studies show that the introduction of 3D interaction at the age of 7 to 10 years should help in creating an in-depth understanding of physics and mathematics. Physics and mathematics are often feared by students and this technology will be instrumental in removing this fear.
With this interaction, the project is aimed at creating a 3D interaction platform for Grade III students. The project also provides a platform for getting started with developing their cognition and includes step-by-step instructions from basic to higher examples. At the end of the platform, one will be able to create various objects and environments that can interact with GeoMagic Device for the sense of touch.
DISCOVER > Define > Ideate > Experiment > ImpactIMPACT
After the two weeks program, it was essential to measure the progress. For effective measurements, we conducted three small friendly tests for selected five students, both before and after the adaptive program.
The first set of tests was already conducted before the two-weeks adaptive program and we had the performance ratings. When we conducted the same tests post the two-weeks program and calculated their performance, it was fascinating! The impact of the adaptive training program was evident from post adaptive training effects in the graph.
Results
Children completed the first pre-training assessments. Training commences within a one week of this assessment. Children completed a set of post-training assessments within one week of finishing their training. The data are reported for 20 students (12 boys and 8 girls) with a group of 7-10 yrs. Participants scored in pre and post-training.
Impact of training on spatial thinking
The above diagram shows the training gains (in standard scores) for the three aspects of spatial thinking in geometry, averaged in each case over all relevant test scores taken before, and immediately after the training. Mean scores, p-values, and Cohen’s d-effect size values showing the pre- to post-training gains and pre- to follow-up gains for spatial thinking are shown for the adaptive groups.
Conclusion
On average, there are four or five pupils in a class of 20 who have geometric spatial thinking abilities as low as the children participating in this study, and they will typically be making slow academic progress (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008). This study provides the first demonstration that these commonplace deficits and associated learning difficulties can be ameliorated, and possibly even overcome, by intensive adaptive training over a relatively short period: just two weeks typically. The majority of the children who completed the adaptive program, which involved intensive training of 35 minutes a day in school for at least 14 days, improved their spatial thinking scores substantially over this period. The gains generalized to independent and validated spatial thinking assessments that were not trained, and were greatest for the tests involving either the Purdue Rotations test, Conservation test, and Paper folding test. Importantly, it is these tasks that are most strongly predictive of children’s learning abilities.
Movie
In the process of my entire project, I have captured lots of beautiful moments and observations and tried to document them in the form of a short movie. Do watch the movie linked below, like, share, and leave your comment 😊.