Tangible papercraft visualisations for education

We have been exploring how papercraft can be used to create ‘data physicalisations’ of student data, which act as physical artefacts and data sculptures that can be used in discussions. Papercrafting is cheap and quick to produce, and easily disposed of. Papercrafting student data is powerful as it acts as a focal point for discussions about the progression of their students and the effects of any extenuating circumstances. During such meetings teachers often reference spreadsheets and dashboard visualisations to explore the data. They focus and shift their attention to individual students, often commenting on individual performance and circumstances in turn. Tangible depictions, such as the ones we present, can be passed around, facilitating discussions, and can act as a focal-point for conversation. We present several prototypes and discuss our design process.