BrainExplorer: an innovative tool for teaching neuroscience

Authors:
Bertrand Schneider;Jenelle Wallace;Roy Pea;Paulo Blikstein
Affiliations:
Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA;Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA;Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA;Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces
Year:
2012

Citing 5
Cited 0

Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems
Bringing Clay and Sand into Digital Design — Continuous Tangible user Interfaces

BT Technology Journal
Augmented Reality with Tangible Auto-Fabricated Models for Molecular Biology Applications

VIS '04 Proceedings of the conference on Visualization '04
A tabletop learning environment for logistics assistants: activating teachers

HCI '08 Proceedings of the Third IASTED International Conference on Human Computer Interaction
Enhancing genomic learning through tabletop interaction

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Neuroscience has recently brought many insights into the inner workings of the human brain. The way neuroscience is taught, however, has lagged behind and still relies on direct instruction or textbooks. We argue that the spatial nature of the brain makes it an ideal candidate for hands-on activities coupled with a tangible interface. In this paper we introduce BrainExplorer, a learning environment for teaching neuroscience. BrainExplorer allows users to explore neural pathways on a custom tabletop platform. We conducted an evaluation with 28 participants comparing students who learned neuroscience content through using BrainExplorer with students who learned by reading a textbook chapter. We found that our system promotes learning along 3 dimensions: memorizing scientific terminology, understanding a dynamic system, and transferring knowledge to a new situation.