Dandelion Diagram: Aggregating Positioning and Orientation Data in the Visualization of Classroom Proxemics

Abstract

In the past two years, an emerging body of HCI work has been focused on classroom proxemics—how teachers divide time and attention over students in the different regions of the classroom. Tracking and visualizing this implicit yet relevant dimension of teaching can benefit both research and teacher professionalization. Prior work has proved the value of depicting teachers’ whereabouts. Yet a major opportunity remains in the design of new, synthesized visualizations that help researchers and practitioners to gain more insights in the vast tracking data. We present Dandelion Diagram, a synthesized heatmap technique that combines both teachers’ positioning and orientation (heading) data, and affords richer representations in addition to whereabouts—For example, teachers’ attention pattern (which directions they were attending to), and their mobility pattern (i.e., trajectories in the classroom). Utilizing various classroom data from a field study, this paper illustrates the design and utility of Dandelion Diagram.