My usual post-class roundup. Last night, we spent the first hour and a half using the 
IHMC Concept Mapping tools and then began working with Netlogo. Each time I've tried to use Netlogo, the students find it dauntingly challenging. This year, I've tried to provide a lot of additional scaffolding: We started programming with Squeak, which is very forgiving, and when we began Netlogo, the first exercise provided straightforward directions on turtles: creating them, changing their attributes, and moving them around on the screen. Then we picked up where I have usually started before: looking at the Termites simulation (which is also relatively simple), and then I provided a context for developing a simulation: simulate the growth and development of the shape of a leaf.
I've been planning to have students work with some netlogo simulations in the SEO course that Buzz and I have been working on. There is a "fire" model, but I plan to implement something like the keystone predator model to talk about succession. But I've also been thinking about creating a leaf growth model that could start with one turtle that grows and moves to create patterns of either leaf outlines or leaf venation, and maybe have parameters that could be set to have it generate different kinds of leaves: ginko leaves or elm leaves or oak leaves or maple leaves. It just seems like a fun and interesting problem, to me. I should have remembered the cardinal rule of biology education: students think plants suck.
As an undergraduate, I loved zoology. But I also loved botany. I took an equal number of plant and animal courses because I could never make up my mind which I loved more. (I also loved languages and did a double major in Biology and Spanish. I've always been interested in everything, which is ultimately why I ended up in science education, where I can do the education piece and the technology piece and the biology piece (and the social issues piece and ... you get the picture)). Most undergraduates, however, seem to hate plants. In the intro labs, students always want to do away with the plant labs. Many undergraduates see themselves as pre-meds and don't understand why they should "waste their time" studying plants.
I loved the creative solutions students brought to the problem-solving process. One group made three or four big turtle-shaped turtles and arranged them artistically to look like a leaf. That was fun. Other groups looked through existing models to try to find one that had a growth component -- there was a tumor in one, but that didn't look like it was necessarily going to be particularly fruiful. I walked among the groups, mostly just answering questions, watching, and listening at first. A bit later, I began asking questions, offering some suggestions, and trying to wean people away from the "game" simulation we'd started with. I pointed out where the manual was and modelled using it to look up some commands. But it was hard.
It's a rough time in the semester: many first exams and early projects are coming due this week and next week. I've tried to set up my course to have the projects come due at different times than the norm. We do a quick project that's due in Week 2, but the next big project isn't due until Week 7. There is also a crisis for some students when they realize that I really am asking them to develop their competence in something, rather than just to follow directions or answer questions about something. Everything in the first few weeks carries this message: Flatland, How People Learn, my "About this Course" message, but some students still experience a kind of crisis when it hits home to them what I'm asking them to do. Most students seem to make it over this hump and are subsequently able to relax and enjoy the class a lot more, but some people get hung up on it and never get past it. I wish I could find a way to support the students better emotionally so that it wasn't so hard to make the shift.
For next week, I'll let them either try to model something they're interested in or they can start with a leaf vein simulation and try to extend it a little. Hopefully this will give them enough to get started and then they can try to add a little more on: different shapes or creating a leaf margin. I'll also try to bring some leaves in for students to look at. I'll have this stuff all set up ahead of time next year.