Tangible Modeling Research Articles

Piecing Complement Together with LEGO Bricks: Impacts on Interest, Confidence, and Learning in the Immunology Classroom.

Teaching and learning complex molecular cascades can often be challenging. In immunology, students struggle to visualize immunological processes, such as activation of the complement system, which involves three separate cascades leading to multiple effector functions. Offering learning activities that use tangible modeling can help students learn conceptually difficult content by fostering a visual understanding of concepts, as well as instill confidence and interest in the material. In this article, we describe a learning activity using LEGO bricks that demonstrates the activation of the classical, lectin, and alternative complement pathways and formation of the membrane attack complex. In both an introductory and advanced immunology course, we investigated the effect of the activity on student learning and subject confidence. Performance on examination questions about complement demonstrated that the LEGO activity improved learning in a naive student population (students in introductory immunology), but not in a previously informed student population (students in advanced immunology). In addition, self-reported confidence in the content was significantly higher in students who completed the LEGO activity in the advanced course, but not the introductory course, compared with those who did not do the activity. Students in both courses who did the activity had a positive perception of the activity, with a majority of students reporting that they enjoyed the activity and had more interest in the complement system.

Tangible topographic modeling for landscape architects

We present Tangible Landscape—a technology for rapidly and intuitively designing landscapes informed by geospatial modeling, analysis, and simulation. It is a tangible interface powered by a geographic information system that gives three-dimensional spatial data an interactive, physical form so that users can naturally sense and shape it. Tangible Landscape couples a physical and a digital model of a landscape through a real-time cycle of physical manipulation, three-dimensional scanning, spatial computation, and projected feedback. Natural three-dimensional sketching and real-time analytical feedback should aid landscape architects in the design of high performance landscapes that account for physical and ecological processes. We conducted a series of studies to assess the effectiveness of tangible modeling for landscape architects. Landscape architecture students, academics, and professionals were given a series of fundamental landscape design tasks—topographic modeling, cut-and-fill analysis, and water flow modeling. We assessed their performance using qualitative and quantitative methods including interviews, raster statistics, morphometric analyses, and geospatial simulation. With tangible modeling, participants built more accurate models that better represented morphological features than they did with either digital or analog hand modeling. When tangibly modeling, they worked in a rapid, iterative process informed by real-time geospatial analytics and simulations. With the aid of real-time simulations, they were able to quickly understand and then manipulate how complex topography controls the flow of water.

Mentors in life and at school: impact on undergraduate prote´ge´ perceptions of university mission and values

University undergraduates (84 women, 80 men: M age=19.1 years old) reported school mission and value perceptions, life and/or school mentor relationships, and social desirability tendencies. No significant social desirability effect was obtained. Prote´ge´s with mentors at school and in life (n=52) reported greater cognitive and informational support but equal rates of emotional and tangible support plus modeling of appropriate behaviors as prote´ge´s with mentors from life alone (n=55). Furthermore, prote´ge´s with a mentor in life and at school stated stronger perceptions of their institution's educational mission, a greater sense of campus altruism, and a commitment to lifelong engagement in education than prote´ge´s with mentors from life alone or students with no mentor (n=48). Implications for developing school‐based mentorship initiatives which augment life‐based mentor programs may enhance student understanding of a university's mission and its values are discussed.