Page 111 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

Assessment of Modeling and Simulation
1. What are the principal types of agents involved in this phenomenon?
2. In what kind of environment do these agents operate? Are there
environmental agents?
3. What properties do these agents have (describe by agent type)?
4. What actions (or behaviors) can these agents take (describe by agent
type)?
5. How do these agents interact with this environment or each other?
6. If you had to define the phenomenon as discrete time steps, what
events would occur in each time step, and in what order? (All
questions suggested by Wilensky and Rand (2015).)
Implement the model. Implement the model in NetLogo. Write your code in
small chunks and keep testing!
Validate the model.
1. Microvalidation: to what extent does the agents’ behavior resemble
the observations of the phenomenon in reality? If the behaviors are
(somewhat) dissimilar, is this variation relevant to your research
question? 5
2. Macrovalidation: to what extent does the behavior of the system as a whole resemble the observations of the phenomenon in reality? If the behavior is (somewhat) dissimilar, is this variation relevant to your research question?
Experiment, analysis and conclusion. Use the model to answer your research question:
1. Describe the experiment in detail. If you use Behavior Space, report the number of experiments conducted and the parameters used.
2. Report the findings in an appropriate manner (e.g., a narrative, a
table, a graph, etc.)
3. Analyze the results.
4. Answer the research question.
Reflection. Reflect on your modeling process:
1. What went well and what could be better?
2. Did you make any assumptions which, in retrospect, you would like
to reconsider?
3. Are there any aspects of your model which you would like to change?
Are there any aspects of your model (agents or behavior) you decided not to include in you model while now you believe they do need to
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