Transciències

Primera trobada de l'Equip de Treball i persones col·laboradores convidades.

📅 PROGRAMA

• 17:30 - 18:00 | Benvinguda i presentacions.
• 18:00 - 18:45 | Introducció del projecte i posada en comú del treball realitzat fins ara.
• 18:45 - 19:00 | Transciències en l'era de la LOMLOE.
• 19:00 - 19:30 | Discussió: Complexitat i sistemes socials en l'educació secundària.
• 19:30 - 20:00 | El model de Schelling: del joc de taula a l'experiència didàctica. Elaboració d'un full de ruta.
• 20:30 - 22:00 | Sopar.

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🔎 DOCUMENTS D'INTERÈS

• Memòria de la sessió de testeig del Joc de Schelling

📍 Ens trobem al Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, 3a planta. Sala de Seminaris 3.20.

Facultat de Física, UB
Carrer de Martí i Franquès 1, Barcelona

Meeting report

1. Summary of Schelling Game testing

• 12 participants in groups of 4
• 2 or 3 games per group
• Materials: 20x20 board, 160 blue chips, 160 red chips
• Interactions: Neighbors defined by the 8 adjacent squares (4 contiguous and 4 diagonal)
• Satisfied state (white washer): not being a minority, i.e., neighbors of the other color do not outnumber those of the same color
• Maximum game time: 20 minutes
• Game 1: each person moves one chip alternating colors, if one color has no allowed moves, the turn is skipped
• Game 2: there are no turns or color rotation, the goal is to achieve the highest satisfaction in the shortest possible time
• Game 3: players must achieve the highest satisfaction and minimize segregation

Testing feedback for the Schelling Game

• Preparation time: Average total of 13 minutes; improves in consecutive games, although it is still slow.
• Overall experience: Mostly positive, although with some confusion in the initial dynamics and turn functioning; mixed evaluation regarding the first variation.
• Educational potential: Seen as a useful tool, but needs to define clear educational objectives; could be complex for high school students, and the prolonged duration can be a limiting factor.
• Graphic design and App: Improvements in the graphic design of the board well received; additional features suggested such as timer, count of satisfied squares, segregation value, and access to rules/tutorial; improving accessibility is recommended.
• Suggestions: Introducing challenges or objectives, known references on the board, cooperative and competitive variations, time limits per turn, individual objectives, segregation measure, and an introductory game with a smaller board.

2. Sociophysics

• Origin: Circular relationship between physics and sociophysics. Sociophysics is born to imitate physics (Auguste Comte, before 1838) and “creates” statistics (Adolphe Quetelet and Florence Nightingale), then statistical physics (L. Boltzmann) emerges taking statistics as a model: analogy between molecules in a gas and individuals in a society, where the properties of both systems remain constant due to the average state of their components. Finally, modern sociophysics is a child of statistical physics.
• Present: The average man has died (Fariba Karimi); focus on the interaction between social actors to understand the emergence of macro-social phenomena and the constraints imposed by macrostructures on individual behaviors.
• Current research lines:
• Information diffusion (epidemiological-type models, branching processes, etc.)
• Opinion dynamics (voter model, Axelrod model, bounded confidence models, etc.)
• Emergent macro-behaviors (Schelling model, cascade models)
• Pedagogical usefulness of simple models of social phenomena
• Facilitate understanding of important issues and challenge intuition in complex situations
• Promote transparency by making assumptions explicit and allow exploration of "what if?" answers through analysis or simulations
• Offer different perspectives on reality and the relationship between macro observations and micro causes
• Encourage reflexivity in the relationship with reality and in the construction of models

3. Schelling's Model

• Introduced in 1969 by Thomas Schelling
• Central question: How can we explain racial segregation in the US?
• Intuition: The macroscopic configuration of the city reflects the individual characteristics through simple aggregation
• Usefulness of the model: Schelling's model demonstrates that this intuition is not true, serving as a falsification, since segregation can emerge without individuals wanting to be segregated. Its main contribution is the ability to challenge intuition and demonstrate the emergence of macro phenomena from individual behaviors.

4. Schelling's Game as a teaching tool

• Minimum age: Last year of ESO (15-16 years old)
• High school: Discrepancies about whether it is possible to work with high school students; lack of time, but some teachers do not see it as impossible.
• LOMLOE: complicates the scenario but also offers opportunities ("there is demand")
• Student interest: Despite the complicated context, there is always a group that shows more interest.
• Contradiction public schools (with more need) VS subsidized schools (with more resources/time): possibility of differential treatment.
• Long-term potential: The game could be useful for reinforcing concepts and leaving a lasting impression on the students.
• Interesting challenge: Everyone sees the project as an interesting challenge.
• Comment from Elisabet (extracted from Jitsi chat)
• Research with teenagers: Need for more research in this age group; concepts like feedback loops may be intuitive, but the lack of diverse life experiences and concrete examples can hinder understanding.
• Previous experiences: Has conducted workshops with kids aged 13-16 and 20 years old; recommends the book "Design journeys through complex systems" for reference on methods and visual dynamics.
• Linear approach in natural sciences: Students may be exposed to basic concepts more aligned with a linear cause-effect view, such as Newton's laws, which makes understanding more complex phenomena difficult.
• Debate dynamics: Questions whether they work well at all ages; mentions that younger students may be reluctant to participate in debates.

5. Working Groups

Provisional list of their initial objectives, participants, and coordinators (although everyone is free to join any group they wish):

A) Physical Game and Augmented Reality App

Initial objectives

1. Choose definitive materials: tokens and boards
2. Finalize board design
3. Create prototypes
4. Photographic testing for the App
5. Train the App: manual tagging
6. App: Minimal interface improvements
7. App: Output. Segregation + satisfaction revelation
8. Solve technical problems: long-term data storage, no internet in classrooms!

• Coordinator: Luce
• Participants: Dimitri, Aleix, Emanuele, Irene, Eurídice, Luca

B) Educational Experience: Design

Initial objectives

1. Define "core" activities
2. Define optional activities

• …
• Organize a mock-up with teachers?
• Coordinator: Anna
• Participants: Cris, Júlia, Juan, Luce, Emanuele

C) Educational Experience: Production

Initial objectives

1. Create a teaching guide
2. Produce "visual thinking" videos

• …
• Organize a rehearsal with students
• Coordinators: Irene and Cris
• Participants: Júlia, Anna, Juan, Luce

D) How do we continue? (Continuity / discontinuity)

• Theme: Transciències 2023-2024
• Prioritization based on criteria such as: 

1. Intrinsic need (LOMLOE)
2. Interest / current events (scenarios for the next 1-3 years) 
3. Real impact / effectiveness 
4. (Budget: need to resort to external experts) 

• Coordinator: Juan 
• Participants: Elisabet, Arsgames, and Heurística in general

+) Proposal: Outreach and contact with schools 

We already have 3 scheduled events:

• May 13: booth at the Festa de la Ciència at UB - school day 
• (we applied) June 10 or 11: activity at the Festa de la Ciència in BCN 
• June 21: game-experiment at the X Jornada COMPLEXITAT

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