Visual Learning Tool for Teaching Entity Relationship Mapping Rules

Based on the authors' experience in teaching the subject of conceptual modeling, many students are unable to master the mapping process for converting an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) into its corresponding set of relations.This perhaps is surprising to many since the steps and mechanism for converting an ERD into relational tables are not overwhelmingly complicated and are quite mechanical.Further exploration discovers that the traditional way of describing and teaching the mapping process involves "too much math", as characterized by struggling students, therefore forging a mental barrier for students to learn the mapping concepts appropriately and effectively.This paper describes a new approach to teach the mapping process and rules that "unmath" the math bias associated with the traditional approach.The majority of us are visual learners.Therefore, the proposed approach is visual-based and uses task maps, visual clues, and animations to "un-math" the complexity perceived by students.Specifically, task maps are used to provide an overall roadmap and context of the mapping process while visual clues are embedded into both the task maps and mapping rules to eliminate seemingly complex mathematical notations.Eventually, 3D animations will be utilized to enhance students' learning by turning abstractions into animated environment and in particular to show the movement of primary keys based on the cardinalities of involved relationships.Assessment activities will also be carried out in the future to determine the effectiveness of the new approach.