Simulation environments make it possible for science and engineering students to learn to interact with complex systems. Putting these capabilities to effective use for learning, and assessing learning, requires more than a simulation environment alone. It requires a conceptual framework for the knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking that are meant to be developed, in order to design activities that target these capabilities. The challenges of using simulation environments effectively are especially daunting in dispersed social systems. This article describes how these challenges were addressed in the context of the Cisco Networking Academies with a simulation tool for computer networks called Packet Tracer. The focus is on a conceptual support framework for instructors in over 9,000 institutions around the world for using Packet Tracer in instruction and assessment, by learning to create problemsolving scenarios that are at once tuned to the local needs of their students and consistent with the epistemic frame of ''thinking like a network engineer.'' We describe a layered framework of tools and interfaces above the network simulator that supports the use of Packet Tracer in the distributed community of instructors and students.

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Abstract:People use external knowledge representations (KRs) to create, identify, depict, transform, store, share, and archive information. Learning to work with KRs is central to becoming proficient in virtually every discipline. As such, KRs play central roles in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. We describe five key roles of KRs in assessment:1. An assessment is itself a KR, which makes explicit the knowledge that is valued, ways it is used, and standards of good work.2. The analysis of any domain in which learning is to be assessed must include the identification and analysis of the KRs in that domain.3. Assessment tasks can be structured around the knowledge, relationships, and uses of domain KRs.4. "Design KRs" can be created to organize knowledge about a domain in forms that support the design of assessment.5. KRs in the discipline of assessment design can guide and structure domain analyses (re #2), task construction (re #3), and the creation and use of design KRs (re #4).The third and fourth roles are developed in greater detail, through an "evidence-centered" design perspective that reflects the fifth role. Recurring implications of technology that leverage the impact of KRs in assessment are highlighted, including task design supports and automated task construction and scoring. Ideas are illustrated with "generate examples" tasks and simulation tasks for computer network design and troubleshooting.

Simulation and visualization platforms present many new challenges to educators and students. The change in modality of the teaching/learning environment begs many questions in regard to effectiveness and efficiency teaching practices in term of student learning. A key focus area is when and how collaborative activity should be used and structured. This is an especially important issue as collaborative work is being currently heralded as a solution to time and distance restraints with eLearning. This study used a randomized control group design to investigate individual versus group configurations and work product requirements. When there were no individual work products, individuals who were not involved in actively creating the work product had lower assessment scores than other groups. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and classroom activity.