BUGGY
From WikEd
BUGGY: ADVANTAGES TO SITUATED COGNITION - "School learning is often so decontextualized that it leads the the development of "buggy" algorithms and approaches to problems". "Brown and Burton (1978) used error analysis to detect bugs in students' application of the subtraction procedure, they wrote a computer program appropriately dubbed "BUGGY", which taught prospective teachers to detect various bugs in their students' math work. One subtraction bug, for example, involves knowing how to borrow but not borrowing when the top number is zero". Information-Processing Theory (ch4), Klahr & Wallace, 1976.
[edit] Descriptions, definitions, synonyms, organizer terms, types of
The term “bug” is borrowed from computer science where it refers to a mistake in a computer program Bug is a misconception that a student has when solving an addition, subtraction, multiplication or algebra problem.
[edit] Example
The students are competent procedure followers, but they often follow the wrong procedures. One case encountered:
365+574=819
679+794=111
923+481=114
27,493+1,509=28,991
There is a clue to the nature of his bug in the number ones in his answers. Every time the addition of a column involves a carry, a 1 mysteriously appears in that column; he is simply writing down the carry digit and forgetting about the units digit!
[edit] Point two
[edit] Application in classrooms and similar settings
By proper diagnosis, remediation for a student can be directed toward his specific weaknesses. The importance of simply admitting that there may exist underlying bugs cannot be overstressed. Without appreciation of this fact, a teacher must view failure on a particular problem as either carelessness or total algorithm failure. In the first case, the predicated remediation is giving more problems, while in the second, it is going over the entire algorithm. When a student’s bug (which may only manifest itself occasionally) is not recognized by the teacher, the teacher explains the errant behavior as carelessness, laziness, or worse, thereby often mistakenly lowering his opinions of the student’s capabilities.
Using BUGGY, the teacher gains experience in forming theories about the relationship between the symptoms of a bug and the underlying bug itself. This experience can also be cultivated to make teachers aware that there are methods or strategies that they can use to properly diagnose bug.
[edit] Evidence of effectiveness
According to Brown and Burton (1978), errors in substraction may occur because a student consistently uses a flawed procedure, not becasue a student cannot apply a procedure. To test this idea, Brown and Burton gave a set of 15 subtraction problems to 1,325 primary-school children, and developed a computer program called "BUGGY" to analyze each student's subtraction procedure. If all the student's answers were correct, BUGGY would conclude that the student was using the correct procedure. If the student made errors, BUGGY would attempt to find one bug that could account for them. If no single bug could be identified, BUGGY would evaluate all possible combinations of bugs that could account for the errors.
An experiment using BUGGY with teachers: The results showed that exposure to BUGGY significantly improved their ability to detect regular patterns of errors (Brown et al., 1977)
[edit] Critics and their rationale
[edit] Alternative explanations due to Diversity considerations
[edit] Signed ‿life experiences‿, testimonies and stories
“If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to just be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal what the child is thinking you will have taken a giant step toward becoming a master teacher rather than merely a disseminator of information.” J.A. Easley, Jr. & Russell E. Zwoyer
[edit] References and other links of interest
Mayer, R.E., Learning and Instruction p. 184, 186, 439
Brown, J. S. & Burton, R. R. “Diagnostic models for procedural bugs in basic mathematical skills” Cognitive Science V.2 Issue 2 p. 71-192 (April – June 1978)
Brown, J. S. & VanLehn, K. “Repair Theory: A generative theory of bugs in procedural skills” Cognitive Science V. 4 Issue 4 p. 317-438 (Oct – Dec 1980)
Larkin, K., Brown, J. S. & Burton, R. R. “Representing and using procedural bugs for educational purposes” Proceedings of the ACM, National Conference, ACM 77, Oct 1977
