SimSnap: Orchestrating Collaborative Learning in Biology Through Reconfigurable Simulations

SimSnap allows students to “snap” iPads together while they work on science simulations. The main goal of this project is to develop an innovative platform to integrate learning across individual, group, and whole-class levels with innovative uses of technology. Students will solve socio-scientific problems in biology as they seamlessly move between their own learning and that of their peers.

Key aspects of this project are:

• Students will be able to investigate plant biology through an authentic simulation focused on community garden building.
• SimSnap will include a built-in digital science journal to support students’ science reasoning and to work as a community of learners.
• SimSnap will allow students to connect (or snap) multiple devices together to create a single shared collaborative simulation.
• SimSnap will also provide teachers with real-time information about and control of students’ work to dynamically support students’ learning.
• Students can move between individual, small groups, and whole-class activities as they investigate plant biology.

Collaborators: 
Michael Tissenbaum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Ali Mazalek, Ryerson University

Funded by the National Science Foundation’s DRK-12 Program