Final system visualization

Final systems visualiztion

The lnk to the final system visualization (a Prezi): http://prezi.com/cpyvgiqwobin/boxhighschool_1/

Self-critique of final systems visualization

After hearing feedback from my peers about my system visualization and thinking about it some more after I had a final product, I wish I had more time to make the project more polished. From my first iteration I cleaned up the interface, make the graphics a bit cleaner, and integrated the various images a little bit better than they were integrated before. 

A large problem for me in this project was the integration of data - the data available on high school curricula does not lend itself well to data that evokes emotions of passion and empowerment for users, since most of the data on curricula are in the form of words. A possible solution around this would have been to create a "word web" of words that appear in curriculum standards and compare that to say a "word web" of words that appear in the mission statement of hands-on programs like FIRST Robotics. This might have gotten the point across in a different way - both with words and images. For my project I tried to evoke the message with too much metaphor, since I did not rely on enough data to get the point across. In a future iteration of this project, I would try using a word web of some kind to compare the ineffectiveness of high school curricula with the effectiveness of hands-on learning programs like FIRST Robotics. 

Another possible improvement on the project would be for the visualization to be a physical interactive lesson of some kind. For example, if the visualization were a piece of paper that gave the user instructions for how to construct a box out of the piece of paper (origami-style) while giving facts about the issue at hand (including data), that might have been a much more interesting view of the entire system that did two things: communicate and demonstrate. 

Overall, I thought my visual metaphors came out strong, and in the newer updated Prezi, the data was more integrated, along with some information about motivation (why we care) and solutions (how we can fix it). Together, these two things make for a much stronger project, but it could be greatly improved by the use of either word webs or some kind of interactive visualization that also demonstrated an example of the point it was trying to get across. 

Final message and narrative

High school education does not prepare students for the challenges that they will face in the world. Education needs to produce critical thinkers, designers, synthesizers, people who will make a difference, people who can generate new ideas. Most high school graduates nowadays go on to some kind of secondary education - over 85% of high school graduates. This kind of percentage of graduates requires a generation of critical thinkers, and the high school curriculum is not producing it. 

High school curricula are simply too pedantic for today's society - students are running on the racetrack of their high school careers from test to work to test, without the chance for any creativity. They are learning to think inside the bounds of the box that is the high school curriculum. But the world is beautiful outside the box.

I want policymakers, lobbyists, and curriculum developers to think about the system of education. Where are our students going? Aren't they the leaders of tomorrow? Wouldn't you want to train the next creative mind? 

A simple visualization that resembles a line drawing is all that is needed here. Anything fancier and the message is lost in the flashes of presentation. I want a comparison between two types of synthesis - one that is repetitive and one that is design-oriented. I want to bring in a familiar phrase ("think outside the box") and poke fun at stick-figure drawings by synthesizing them in a unique way to show their usefulness in the design of a complex system visualization.

Our students need to think outside the box.

Visual: Take 2

Stick figure visual, no text

Here is a first draft of the visualization, without any text or colors.

References

http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/122 -- gives a good idea of what the purposes of the high school curriculum system are

Methods

The method for the system visualization was originally going to be a simple infographic, much like an advertisement. This eventually evolved into the idea of a Prezi, mainly since I wanted to learn a new presentation technology. The other reason to use a Prezi was to make an interactive way to move around between the various spaces in the system visualization. Making the visualization interactive in some way, and allowing the user to move around (if in a constrained way) resembles the kind of lesson or task that a teacher should give to a student - free, but in a directed way. 

Narrative: Conflict and Resolution

The main problem I want to focus on is the idea that education (specifically high school curriculum standards) does not foster enough creativity in students. 

The world today is complex, and we want to educate our students to face the challenges of tomorrow. Education needs to produce critical thinkers, designers, synthesizers, people who will make a difference, people who can generate new ideas. Most high school graduates nowadays go on to some kind of secondary education - over 85% of high school graduates. This kind of percentage of graduates requires a generation of critical thinkers, and the high school curriculum is not producing it. 

High school curricula are simply too pedantic for today's society - students are running on the racetrack of their high school careers from test to work to test, without the chance for any creativity. They are learning to think inside the bounds of the box that is the high school curriculum. But the world is beautiful outside the box.

The way to encourage creative thinking, foster innovation, and push students to obtain the skills about global leadership that they need as world citizens is to give them space to explore and come up with creative solutions to problems themselves. Instead of asking for "recall" of material, ask for them to build a visualization of the material. Instead of telling them about the process of design, have them design something. Instead of explaining how to build something, let them build and explore. The high school curriculum standards must be changed from a simple recall or "understanding" metric to a "intuitive feel" or "ability to teach others" or "mastery" standard. 

Organizations and programs like the FIRST Robotics program aim to foster creativity and critical thinking in students by providing them a guided set of tasks to accomplish, letting them come up with creative solutions to the problems at hand. High school curriculum standards should be changed to reflect these values, to allow students to explore the world around them and come up with innovative solutions to problems. 

The way to create the engineers and thinkers of tomorrow is to foster creativity by giving students a hands-on learning experience inside and outside of the classroom. By adding more hands-on activity standards and assessments to the high school curriculum. The students need to think outside the box, or they will just be stuck doing the same things over and over again as a result of their high school education.

Proposal Message and Metaphor

Message : creativity isn't given a chance

Metaphor: a racetrack, running between "school" and "tests" while trying to think out of the box. The racetrack being inside the box is an even stronger metaphor. 

Conflict: we want to teach our children to become citizens of tomorrow, give them critical thinking and problem solving skills in secondary education, but the secondary education system structure/assessment doesn't reward student creativity - instead it rewards memorization and regurgitation of information

Data and References: High school curricula

Curriculum standards for high schools are appalling, even at the national level. 

http://www.educationworld.com/standards/index.shtml

The emphasis in all these standards is "knowledge", "mastery", "recall", rather than synthesis or creativity or discovery or design. The curriculum standards promote memorization, regurgitation, and recall of material rather than creative ways to synthesize it together to form new ideas. 

Data: What do high school graduates do?

Trying to find data about what high school graduates do after graduation, I found the Massachusetts department of education: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/plansofhsgrads.aspx

(generated from MATLAB)

Over the entire state, this chart clearly shows that the majority of graduating high school seniors go on to college. In college, arguably the most important characteristic is critical thinking skills. 

A system diagram for secondary education

The student is the center of the system - after all, they are nominally what the system is designed for. 

And here is the same diagram with an attempt at clustering the system into subsystems:

And of course the code. 

Visual Metaphor

High school education is like being taught to think outside the box. There is nothing creative going on, and you are routinely running around the racetrack of tests and work and information, not really encouraged to think critically or creatively. 




I want to use the two visual metaphors of a racetrack and a box to convey the idea that I am trying to get across. 

The phrase "think outside the box" is something that we hear all the time, but it's a nice visual clue that we already familiar with. The idea of being holed inside a box (especially while running around and around on a track, going nowhere linearly), gives off the idea that  unimaginative, repetitive tasks lead nowhere. 

An emerging message

Just through thinking about the simplest educational system (and the first infographic idea that comes to mind from the previous post), a very simple emerging message comes out: 

education as it stands does not educate children to become the citizens that the world needs today

 This begs a few questions:

• What are the goals of education?
• What skills to today's children need to become the citizens of tomorrow?
• What does education currently accomplish?
• What are the features of the current educational system that lead to those accomplishments?
• What is missing?

One question in terms of what message I want to tackle is the question of purpose. Do I want to complain about a problem, or offer a solution? Of course, one is easier than the other, but arguably one is more useful than the other. 

Metaphor, basic infographic

Message: education is too pedantic

Many students both inside the education system and outside the education system complain that there is no creativity in the standards, assessment, and tests. In general, the school environment is considered a very negative one by many students currently in the educational system. This idea is a simple one, and can be summarized very simply in a simple infographic that is not even styled in any way:

This infographic was made only using a few simple GraphViz lines of code and can probably make a stronger message with colors, layout, formatting, font changes, and something of that nature. 

Audience

The audience of this infographic is clear: lobbyists for the educational system. The ones who develop standards and curricula need to know that pedantic, non-creative methods for education are not what society needs right now.

Questions to think about

But the basic message I want to get across with this simple infographic is this: education is routine, pedantic, and more resembles "training" than "education." This leads me to think about questions that address the fundamental purpose of what we call education:

• What is the purpose of education?
• What is the difference between rote memorization and "education"?
• Do our curriculum and standards and assessments actually lead to the education of the people?
• What is the difference between education and training?
• Can learning be fun? Should it be fun? 
• Is there something fundamentally boring about education? 

These are all questions I want to address by thinking about the educational system. 

The most basic education system

I think the most basic educational system has three components: assessment, standards, and curriculum. In a very simplistic model, the arrows show the influences that these three components have with the other three components. Note that I think it is a cycle - standards affect the curriculum which then affects the assessment, but that not a ton of influences go the other way around. 

The purpose of this blog / system visualization definition

The inspiration for this blog is taken from a course I am taking at MIT in spring 2013 called Systems Visualization (MIT nuts, course number CMS.631). The idea of the class is to think about and model a system using infographics, charts, metaphors, data, stories, and system connections. 

The system I am interested in looking at is the educational system. Initially, my thought was to look at the secondary school education system and think about why we have it, what it is used for, why it is necessary, and how it interfaces with the college educational system. Over the course of thinking about the project, my ideas about what I specifically want to focus on might evolve and change, and that’s OK. It’s all part of the learning process. 

What is a system visualization

A system visualization conveys an idea, concept, or thought in a concrete way, combining visual elements, data, and a metaphor to bring the user to a conclusion about the system being discussed. The take-away should be clear, concise, and effective.