SBIR Phase II: Modular Online Simulations for Math and Science with Integrated Assessment of Complex, Standards-Aligned Learning Objectives

This SBIR Phase II project will produce a commercial version of PathfinderPlus, an online system that integrates assessment of complex, standards-based instructional objectives within interactive simulations and makes the resultant data available in a timely and efficient manner to students, teachers and administrators. In order to effectively implement curriculum standards-based educational reforms (e.g., as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act), teachers need guidance in linking students' day-to-day learning to these standards and in adapting subsequent instruction based on students' progress against the standards. Existing educational technology products, however, are explicitly correlated only to the macro-level terminal objectives in each state's curriculum standards. As a result, these products do not provide diagnostic information regarding component knowledge and skills, and they thereby fail to support teachers in understanding more precisely where students are having difficulties within a given terminal objective. PathfinderPlus provides a comprehensive online library of highly interactive learning objects that track student' actions as they use them. The system analyzes the generated data to create assessment probes which yield results that are indexed against a hierarchy of component knowledge and skills related to each state's terminal objectives. This analysis provides students, teachers and other educational stakeholders with a roadmap to success in meeting their state's curriculum standards. In terms of broader impacts, the successful production of a fully functional, commercial PathfinderPlus product will break significant technical ground in the field of large online repositories of interactive learning objects. The deployment of ExploreLearning's XML specification HILO ML (Highly-Interactive Learning Object Markup Language) separates the pedagogical logic of a learning object's adaptive behavior from its technical instantiation. This separation enables the efficient development of the volume of scripts required by a system that covers entire courses (e.g., Algebra). The use of a four-tiered architecture to link fine-grained pedagogical events (i.e., pedagogically-meaningful interactions between students and the online simulations) to macro-level terminal objectives provides a flexible, modular foundation for the system. In terms of impacts on K-12 education, PathfinderPlus will foster alignment with standards-based curricula, support teachers in integrating technology effectively and efficiently into their classrooms, and provide a new approach for measuring the impact of educational technology on student learning. In addition, the system's use of interactive simulations as the medium for assessment enables a broader range of more complex, higher-order instructional objectives to be assessed (e.g., problem solving strategies and skills), as compared to traditional probes used in computer-based applications such as multiple-choice questions.