Educational Media

What makes a good cancer medicine?: Observing mitosis and cell processes [a.k.a., Mitosis] (2012)

In this 4 to 5-hour Life Sciences unit, middle school students (grades 5-8) learn the phases of cell division by investigating potential cancer medicines. Designed in the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE, wise.berkeley.edu), this online unit features videos and animations, and various embedded assessment types. My specific contributions included substantial revisions to the language and visual design of an early version of this unit, as well as the design and integration of two recent WISE tools: The Idea Manager and the Image Annotator (see descriptions below).

Designing a detergent to clean marine pollution [a.k.a., Detergents] (2012)

[Preview]

This 4 to 5-hour Chemistry unit engages high school students (grades 9-12) in saving wildlife endangered by marine oil spills, and helps them integrate standards-based topics in polarity, intermolecular attractions, and solubility. My specific contribution included substantial revisions to the narrative, as well as the visual redesign of an earlier version of this same unit (http://bit.ly/USFnDM). Created in the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment, this unit features the Idea Manager (see description below), as well as well as a novel simulation custom-made by collaborators at the Concord Consortium.

Image Annotator (2012)

[See Step 2.2 in the Mitosis unit]

I designed this Flash-based tool in AS3 to allow students to attach labels to images during online science inquiry units. With it, unit authors can customize the images displayed, and teachers and researchers can view data logged by WISE of students’ uses of the tool over time (e.g., the contents, locations, and revisions made, as well as the steps students visited before and after creating each label. This data provides teachers and researchers with insights into how students develop the skill of observing scientific evidence, and into the impacts of specific aspects of the curriculum unit and of teachers’ feedback.

The Idea Manager (2010-present)

See links below

This WISE-integrated tool was designed to scaffold students' documenting and distinguishing their developing ideas over the course of online science inquiry units. Its two components (the Idea Basket and the Explanation Builder) break down the task of writing extended narrative explanations and arguments into more manageable chunks. Students use the Idea Basket (available via the “red basket” icon in the toolbar at the top of the user interface in the Mitosis (http://bit.ly/THL33h) and Detergents (http://bit.ly/VzQJuJ) units) to collect and categorize information they encounter, and the Explanation Builder step (viewable in steps 3.3, 4.2, 5.2, 6.2, 7.1 of the Mitosis unit (http://bit.ly/THL33h), and in steps 3.3, 4.2, 5.2, 6.2, and 7.1. of the Detergents unit (http://bit.ly/VzQJuJ), to sort and distinguish ideas at predetermined points in the unit. Integrated into the unit, the Idea Manager supports students continually reflecting on their understanding while preparing an explanation. I co-led the design of the Idea Manager in collaboration with other WISE researchers and technology developers. Currently, we are extending it with features to permit student collaboration and teacher visualizations of students’ ideas.

Relevant publications

Matuk, C., McElhaney, K., Miller, D., King Chen, J., Lim-Breitbart, J., Terashima, H., Kwan, G., & Linn, M.C. (submitted). Filtering collaboration through reflective prototyping: Integrating Agile and User-Centered Design methods to design a tool for exchanging ideas.

Matuk, C. F. & Linn, M. C. (2013, April 27 - May 1). Technology Integration to Scaffold and Assess Students Use of Visual Evidence In Science Inquiry. Paper to be presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting (AERA2013): Education and Poverty: Theory, Research, Policy and Praxis, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Matuk, C. F., McElhaney, K., King Chen, J., Miller, D., Lim-Breitbart, J., & Linn, M. C. (2012). The Idea Manager: A tool to scaffold students in documenting, sorting, and distinguishing ideas during science inquiry. In The Future of Learning: Proceedings of the 10th international conference for the learning sciences. Sydney: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

McElhaney, K. W., Matuk, C.F., Miller, D.I. & Linn, M.C. (2012). Using the Idea Manager to Promote Coherent Understanding of Inquiry Investigations. In The Future of Learning: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Sydney: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Matuk, C. F., King Chen, J., & Linn, M. C. (2012). The WISE Idea Manager: A tool to scaffold the collaborative construction of evidence-based explanations from dynamic scientific visualizations. In The Discovery Research K-12 PI Meeting. Arlington, VA: Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE).

Matuk, C. F., & King Chen, J. (2011). The WISE Idea Manager: A Tool to Scaffold the Collaborative Construction of Evidence-Based Explanations from Dynamic Scientific Visualizations. In J. Shen & H.-Y. Chang (Eds.), Symposium 3, Learning Interactions – Collaboration as Scaffolding: Learning Together with Dynamic, Interactive Scientific Visualizations and Computer Models, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Support (Vol. 3, pp. 1029–1036). Hong Kong.

Matuk, C., & King Chen, J. (2011). WISE Ideas: A technology-enhanced curriculum to scaffold students' generating data, managing evidence, and reasoning about the seasons. (Teacher design focus group). In The Cyberlearning Tools for STEM Education Conference. Berkeley, CA.

The world of viruses interactive comic viewer

http://bit.ly/13cZOPt

This interactive iPad comic is one of a series produced by the SEPA-funded World of Viruses project (worldofviruses.unl.edu), on which I was a research and design collaborator. It features embedded activities and games that engage users in learning topics of virology. I led the creative and educational design of a featured game, in which players help scientists solve the origins of a mysterious virus by matching the configurations of different evolutionary trees. The technology was based on a prototype I built in Flash (http://bit.ly/USwv0V), which shows an influenza tree with clades that rotate on clicking the colored dots, and informational boxes that appear on clicking the branch tip labels.

Relevant publications

Spiegel, A. N., McQuillan, J., Halpin, P., Matuk, C., & Diamond, J. (submitted). Engaging Teenagers with Science Through Comics.

Matuk, C., Cottingham, I., Farrell, K., Angeletti, A., & Diamond, J. (2011, March 8-9). The World of Viruses interactive comic viewer. Cyberlearning Tools for STEM Education Conference. Berkeley, CA, USA.

Interactive cladograms (2008-2009)

http://bit.ly/Sh3k9B and http://bit.ly/UTAtGB

These two Flash applications guide users to build and interpret tree diagrams of species phylogenies, crucial tools for reasoning in evolutionary biology. In How to Build a Cladogram (http://bit.ly/Sh3k9B), a series of activities engage a general audience of users in representing classifications of fictitious animals based on their morphological traits. The application features a hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation narrated by myself, a drag-and-drop Venn diagram building interface, and a combination drag-and-drop and free-hand drawing application. The Interactive Cladogram application (http://bit.ly/UTAtGB) provides students and instructors in higher education with tools for creating and demonstrating techniques in building evolutionary. Both applications were created as part of a course project while I was a student at Northwestern University.

Relevant publications

Matuk, C. F., & Uttal, D. H. (2011). Narrative spaces in the representation and understanding of evolution. In K. S. Rosengren, S. K. Brem, E. M. Evans, & G. M. Sinatra (Eds.), Evolution challenges: Integrating research and practice in teaching and learning about evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Matuk, C. (2010). Narratives in mind and media: A cognitive semiotic account of novices interpreting visual science media. PhD Dissertation, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University.

Matuk, C. F., & Uttal, D. H. (2010). When form contradicts content: The cognitive and communicative functions of cartoons for teaching evolution. In R.E. Griffin (Ed.), Selected readings from the Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association (pp. 161-166). Chicago: International Visual Literacy Association.

Matuk, C., & Uttal, D. (2010). Inventing a representation of relatedness. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences: Learning in the Disciplines. (2)(pp. 222 -223), Chicago: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Matuk, C. (2008). Animated cladograms: Interpreting evolution from diagrams. In G. Stapleton, J. Howse & J. Lee (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Diagrammatic Representation and Inference (pp. 395-397). Herrsching, Germany: Springer-Verlag.

Matuk, C. F. (2008). Animating trees of life: How animation influences the perception of evolution. In C. Hölscher (Ed.), Spatial Cognition 2008: Poster Presentations (pp. 25-28). Freiburg: Universität Bremen/Universität Freiburg.

Matuk, C. F. (2008). Animated cladograms: The perception and conception of evolution. Proceedings of the EARLI Special Interest Group Text and Graphics Bi-Annual Conference: Exploiting the Opportunities – Learning with Textual, Graphical and Multimodal Representations (pp. 100-103). Rotterdam: EARLI.

Matuk, C. F., & Uttal, D. H. (2008). Entertaining evolution: Understanding science from animations. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference for the Learning Sciences (3)(pp. 93-94). Utrecht, the Netherlands: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Matuk, C. (2007). Images of evolution. The Journal of Biocommunication, 33(3).

The Plastic Brain (2004)

http://bit.ly/13f7UWS

This 3D computer animation relates findings in motor cortex research to a wide audience of medical practitioners. I created it using Maya, and Adobe Illustrator, Phototop and After Effects, for my masters research project in Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto.

Relevant publications

Matuk, C. (2004). The plastic brain: Understanding cortical reorganization during motor skills acquisition. MSc 3D Computer Animation, Toronto, ON: University of Toronto.

Relevant publications

Matuk, C. F. & Linn, M. C. (2013, April 27 - May 1). Technology Integration to Scaffold and Assess Students Use of Visual Evidence In Science Inquiry. Paper to be presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting (AERA2013): Education and Poverty: Theory, Research, Policy and Praxis, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Relevant publications