The Challenge

Intel ® Innovation in Education hired us to design a web application for elementary through high school students to help them learn how to do evidence-based reasoning. They needed an application that:

• Was informed by research on causal reasoning
• Worked on all modern browsers
• Was internationalized -- worked in both right-to-left and left-to-right languages.
• Used Flash/ActionScript

Our Solution

We designed and developed a software solution that visually highlights the relationship of evidence to claims. Students construct the views, which highlight causal relationships, whether evidence supports or refutes a claim.

• Developed a causal reasoning task model. We broke down the reasoning process into two main components: evaluating the quality of evidence on its own, and evaluating how that piece of evidence supports or refutes any given claim.
• Invented a visual display. Students can quickly "read" and evaluate a claim to see how well it is supported.
• Adaptable to any number of topics. The tool can be customized by teachers for use in English, Social Studies, as well as Science.
• Developed a simple version for elementary students. We developed an option that could hide the complexity of the full task model in favor of a simple interface more appropriate for younger students, focusing more on the connection of evidence to support or refute a claim.
• Developed a right-to-left language solution. We worked with Intel engineers to develop a version that could work with right to left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic.

Try Showing Evidence hosted on Intel's site.