Discussion
My main research question was to find out what elements are needed to construct electrical circuit training tools for children. To solve this main research question, research questions were divided into specific items according to design elements. First, I found the following questions about what functional design should be done to construct an electric circuit education tool for children.
Is the material free to assemble and disassemble with children's hands?
I have found through user studies and market research that existing products are small and thin, making them uncomfortable for children to use. And I found that the kids are good at assembling, but it is hard to break down. I also discovered that some kids are hard to assemble the relevant parts together. So, when I made my product, I tried to make hardware with a frizzy material to eliminate the difficulties presented above. And, I made parts using stickers. I handled all the vertices of the sticker round to make it easy to remove it from the process of attaching and detaching the sticker. Also, the joint area of the sticker is made large and wide to facilitate assembly and disassembly. Also, for inducing correct behavior of the children, a guideline is printed on the sticker, thereby preventing kid's errors in connection when attaching and detaching.
Does the material guarantee the safety of children?
When I designed the product, I hoped that the materials that are familiar to children would be exposed to them more than the others. Because of this, I wrapped the metal joints and the metal parts of the items through stickers, minimizing the use of soldering or other metallic materials, and giving them a sense of ordinary play time using labels. Besides, a soft, well-bending sticker made of PET was used instead of paper to prevent the paper cut.
Can the material prevent loss?
I learned from observations and interviews that children often lose parts. And I realized that if the children lose their parts, they are less attractive because they are so small that kids cannot found it again, and eventually they fail to reach the goal of product making. Accordingly, to solve such a problem, children have to store each part in a sticker book form.
Is the content of the textbook intuitive to understand how to use it?
I have organized the learning process as a fairy tale concerning the words of educators that it is effective for children to explain the curriculum through storytelling method. I tried to organize the contents of the book so
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that the children could read the fairy tale story and perform the task step by step so that they could complete the education course naturally.
And I have made the following findings of what factors should be considered for the emotional design of electric circuit education tools for children.
Can the color of the textbook stimulate children's sensitivity by using bright and colorful colors?
I thought that I should use these colors to encourage the children's interest in this book and that children would be happy to use the product. I also predicted that using appropriate colors would not only increase educational effectiveness but would also have a good effect in stimulating children's emotions. Therefore, I used the color theme of this book concerning various fairy tale books and color graphic works to create a color theme that stimulates children's emotions.
Are children using easy-to-understand explanations?
I have observed that other manuals utilize terms or descriptions that are easy for the children to understand.
Most of the textbooks follow the curriculum guidelines and may be suitable for older students, but many terms may be confusing for my target audience, elementary school children. So I tried to minimize the use of these terms as much as possible. Also, I sought to make the concepts understandable, rather than memorizing the general ones, by expressing the difficult concepts as a story.
Does it include items that children can sympathize?
I discovered that it is hard for children to understand because electricity is invisible. Therefore, I saw personification of electricity as a cute character. So I tried to get the kids interested in this character. I organized the book so that children could naturally learn the characteristics of electricity and the things they do while reading.
Design Implication
The meaning of this project is as follows. First, I can suggest to educators how to solve the educational problem with the designer's approach through this project by explaining the design result and the production process.
In addition, I can present what the project designer is different from engineers when creating educational tools.
Therefore, not only does it provide new perspectives in the development process, but it also provides developers with a way to identify user needs, reflect them in products, and design them in terms of usability.
41 Lessons learned
Educational scholars and educational practitioners are studying and producing educational content related to STEAM education for elementary school lower grades in various fields. However, educational tools were used instead of newly developed learning tools. My product design started with finding the problems of existing teaching tools.
First, in the case of educational tools, it 's hard and dangerous to use for young children because the form and specification of the electronic products used follow industrial use. Therefore, there is a limit to learning.
Therefore, it was thought that the educational electronic parts should be produced separately considering the physical characteristics of the user, the child. For example, I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate new technology, such as printing electronics, which is emerging in recent years, into the development of educational tools. Printed electronic components and circuits are thin and do not take up much volume as existing products, and they can be used to prevent injuries in advance and to be very usable.
Secondly, the domestic educational contents researchers have limited ability to make educational tools. In the process, I think that if designers with engineering background participate in the research and development process of educational contents, they can generate significant synergy. They can accurately grasp the needs of the developers in educational and production intentions, and they can present a design concept that reflects the usability and learning effects appropriate to the user.
Therefore, I think that the active involvement of designers in this field help me to meet the increasing needs of the science education market and to lead the development and change of education environment.
Limitation
The limitations of the research were divided into two categories. I also sought to overcome these limitations.
If I do further development progresses, I’m able to overcome limitations by referring to this.
Lack of pedagogical evaluation
In the case of the partner company, the delegate provided the idea of product development based on his experience knowledge through the experience of developing and operating educational contents based on actual lecture experience. However, neither the representative nor the company's education service providers are majoring in education. Most of them are majoring in the engineering field (for example, robotics, computer science, electronics, etc.), and do not understand professionally about the age-specific curriculum.
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They are trying to get professional training to overcome these limitations, but this is far from a professional education methodology. Therefore, they are experiencing the limitations of existing educational contents themselves, but there is a lack of solutions to how to evaluate and overcome these limitations. Likewise, the newly developed educational kits have been improved through the ideas derived from the empirical knowledge of the delegates and members, but they have not been able to provide concrete measures on how to evaluate the utility and fitness regarding pedagogical aspects. Therefore, through the help of the education research institute, it is necessary to find out the points to be evaluated and improved according to the standard of the national steam education in the newly developed kit. In the process, we are able to assess the educational value of this equipment and be certified to be available in the field.
Limited parts
The electronic components used in the kit are not much different from the electronic components in the universal Arduino kit. In the early days, we tried to make the children get used to the appearance of the parts by inserting the components utilized in the ready-made products directly into the sticker. And to give children the perception that it is not difficult to use the product. However, as the design process progressed, we developed a flat 2D concept product using stickers, and it is hard to maintain the shape of a perfectly flat sticker as the concept used the original parts. If we can produce unique parts that meet the industrial standards even though they are of paper thickness or thinner, we can solve this problem. Also, if the price of ultra-small sensors is lowered, it can be applied to products as well.
Misconceptions about circuits
Since electricity is something that cannot be confirmed by the eyes, many explanations of analogy are often made and misconceptions often arise in this process. Therefore, there may be differences in the concepts of professional and scientific educators and the concepts that children accept. (Ji-Yeon Nam, 2007), and Kwon Jae-sik and Kim Beom-gi (1998) can classify misconceptions that can occur in the process into six types.
Among these, sticky-up training kits provide a mechanism to correct misconceptions related to "unipolar model" and "clashing model." First, the mistakes of the unipolar model arise from the idea that electricity can flow even in an open circuit. In the program, the explanation for the "complete path to the home" Can naturally teach and correct this misconception. Second, it is a misunderstanding about the clashing model. This misconception arises because children misunderstand that the light from the LED bulb is due to the collision of electrons in different directions. In the textbook, to correct this misconception, electricity moves in only one direction, and light from a light bulb is expressed not because of the collision of electricity but because of the activity of electricity inside the light bulb.
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However, there is a lack of explanation to correct the misconceptions such as "sequence model.” This is because the contents of the textbook are made on the premise that electricity flows only in one direction.
However, since children understand the concept that current flows only in one direction, then they can also understand the reversing flow. So, I am going to improve this by attaching supplementary material in the next step of the educational book so that I can correct this misconception Respectively. For example, there is a possibility of a reverse current when using a motor, and a diode is used to prevent this. In the next step, children are able to explain the new elements of the diode and solve the misconceptions of children about the sequential flow model.
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