A Framework for Personalized Content Recommendations to Support Informal Learning in Massively Diverse Information WIKIS

Personalization has proved to achieve better learning outcomes by adapting to specific learners’ needs, interests, and/or preferences. Traditionally, most personalized learning software systems focused on formal learning. However, learning personalization is not only desirable for formal learning, it is also required for informal learning, which is self-directed, does not follow a specified curriculum, and does not lead to formal qualifications. Wikis among other informal learning platforms are found to attract an increasing attention for informal learning, especially Wikipedia. The nature of wikis enables learners to freely navigate the learning environment and independently construct knowledge without being forced to follow a predefined learning path in accordance with the constructivist learning theory. Nevertheless, navigation on information wikis suffer from several limitations. To support informal learning on Wikipedia and similar environments, it is important to provide easy and fast access to relevant content. Recommendation systems (RSs) have long been used to effectively provide useful recommendations in different technology enhanced learning (TEL) contexts. However, the massive diversity of unstructured content as well as user base on such information oriented websites poses major challenges when designing recommendation models for similar environments. In addition to these challenges, evaluation of TEL recommender systems for informal learning is rather a challenging activity due to the inherent difficulty in measuring the impact of recommendations on informal learning with the absence of formal assessment and commonly used learning analytics. In this research, a personalized content recommendation framework (PCRF) for information wikis as well as an evaluation framework that can be used to evaluate the impact of personalized content recommendations on informal learning from wikis are proposed. The presented recommendation framework models learners’ interests by continuously extrapolating topical navigation graphs from learners’ free navigation and applying graph structural analysis algorithms to extract interesting topics for individual users. Then, it integrates learners’ interest models with fuzzy thesauri for personalized content recommendations. Our evaluation approach encompasses two main activities. First, the impact of personalized recommendations on informal learning is evaluated by assessing conceptual knowledge in users’ feedback. Second, web analytics data is analyzed to get an insight into users’ progress and focus throughout the test session. Our evaluation revealed that PCRF generates highly relevant recommendations that are adaptive to changes in user’s interest using the HARD model with rank-based mean average precision (MAP@k) scores ranging between 100% and 86.4%. In addition, evaluation of informal learning revealed that users who used Wikipedia with personalized support could achieve higher scores on conceptual knowledge assessment with average score of 14.9 compared to 10.0 for the students who used the encyclopedia without any recommendations. The analysis of web analytics data show that users who used Wikipedia with personalized recommendations visited larger number of relevant pages compared to the control group, 644 vs 226 respectively. In addition, they were also able to make use of a larger number of concepts and were able to make comparisons and state relations between concepts

The role of cooperating teachers in student teachers’ professional learning in Saudi Arabia: reality, challenges and prospects

This study investigates the role of Cooperating Teachers (CTs) in the professional learning of Student Teachers (STs), within the practicum of Saudi Arabian ITE (Initial Teacher Education) programmes. Under an Interpretivist paradigm and a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach, semi-structured interviews were used to collect the study data. The interviews were conducted to investigate the reality, challenges and prospects of the role of the CT in the Saudi ITE context, from principal stakeholders’ perspectives. The findings mirror those reported in the international literature with regard to the benefits of developing CTs’ professional learning for both CTs and STs. However, the findings also indicated that the role of the CT takes the form of an apprenticeship relationship, involving observance of a set of responsibilities that reflect a traditional supervisory approach to teaching and learning. The hierarchical educational culture, time limitations, CT selection and preparation, support of CTs and their evaluation of STs were identified as among the major challenges facing the CT’s role. From the analysis of the research findings, recommendations are made for practice. This study proposes a hybrid model of learning that combines aspects of the existing behaviourist approach with cooperative methods of learning within a triadic relationship between all those involved in Saudi ITE practicum. This has the potential for developing a collegial learning environment in an attempt to reduce the hierarchy in the current CT and ST relationship in Saudi ITE, and help reduce the school-university gap by enabling improved teacher learning through a cooperative continuum between them. Based on the research findings and ITE literature, A National Mentoring Scheme (NMS), is recommended as a school-university collaborative programme overseen by the Saudi Ministry of Education (MOE). Implications of such a framework for the MOE, universities, schools’ HTs and CTs are also identified

Planning and implementing technology in the primary classroom: a study of Chilean student teachers' pedagogic development

This thesis examines Chilean student teachers' (ST) understanding of digital technology's pedagogic uses and primary classroom issues. Its initial assumption is that focusing on technology use in particular contexts is critical to understanding its effects on education and creating contextually appropriate pedagogies that can enhance students’ experiences. This work presents qualitative case studies of seven primary STs from a small city in southern Chile, exploring how they used and conceptualised technology and how they dealt with issues in their teaching practice. These aspects reflected their pedagogical understanding of the technologies used and their relationship with the educational context. The data collected comprised lesson plans, videos of classroom teaching, semi-structured interviews, audio recordings of supervision meetings and field notes from classroom observations, analysed thematically. The research revealed a pattern across cases. The intended and enacted pedagogies using technology supported existing teacher-centred approaches. The technology employed consisted of multimedia resources conceived to deliver and explain content, attract students' attention, and engage pupils in dialogic interactions. This perception of technology reveals a strong interest in maintaining discipline and learning environments in the classroom. The issues STs faced when using technology ranged from the inexistent digital culture at educational institutions to aspects of their agency and identity as teachers who use technology. This thesis uses the analysis to propose the Orchestration and Improvisation Pedagogical framework for integrating digital technology into teacher training. The framework aims to support STs in planning, implementing and reflecting on the uses of technology in synergy with the context. Using this framework, practitioners can evaluate different intertwined pedagogical aspects from research to practice. By foregrounding the importance of pedagogy and contextual reflection on technology application, these findings have value not only for STs and their teaching practice teams, but also for teacher-training programmes, educational policymakers and syllabus designers

It takes more than agency: Linking support from teaching staff, career engagement, and movement capital among university students

Introduction: Career self-management behaviours are key to overcoming the challenges of entry into the labour market. Combining the Conservation of Resources and Career Self-management theories, this study delves into the concept of Career Engagement among Italian University students by examining its relationship with Support from teaching Staff and Movement Capital. We hypothesised a mediation model in which Support from Teaching Staff predicts Career Engagement which, in turn, fosters Movement Capital. As the pandemic led to the adoption of online learning solutions, we also explored whether and how the interaction between teachers and students during online classes moderates the said mediation relationship. Methods and results: We collected data from 276 Italian University students through an online questionnaire. Results supported the mediation hypothesis, corroborating the mediating role of Career Engagement. We also observed that this relationship is stronger at medium and higher levels of online interaction between teachers and students. Discussion: Findings contribute to existing evidence about the role of Career Engagement in facilitating career resources’ acquisition and extend the understanding of its contextual antecedents in Higher Education contexts. Results also align with the importance attributed to interaction in online learning environments. This work suggests ways to encourage career behaviours in Higher Education and equip prospective labour market entrants with career resources

Deeper Understanding of Tutorial Dialogues and Student Assessment

Bloom (1984) reported two standard deviation improvement with human tutoring which inspired many researchers to develop Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) that are as effective as human tutoring. However, recent studies suggest that the 2-sigma result was misleading and that current ITSs are as good as human tutors. Nevertheless, we can think of 2 standard deviations as the benchmark for tutoring effectiveness of ideal expert tutors. In the case of ITSs, there is still the possibility that ITSs could be better than humans.One way to improve the ITSs would be identifying, understanding, and then successfully implementing effective tutorial strategies that lead to learning gains. Another step towards improving the effectiveness of ITSs is an accurate assessment of student responses. However, evaluating student answers in tutorial dialogues is challenging. The student answers often refer to the entities in the previous dialogue turns and problem description. Therefore, the student answers should be evaluated by taking dialogue context into account. Moreover, the system should explain which parts of the student answer are correct and which are incorrect. Such explanation capability allows the ITSs to provide targeted feedback to help students reflect upon and correct their knowledge deficits. Furthermore, targeted feedback increases learners\u27 engagement, enabling them to persist in solving the instructional task at hand on their own. In this dissertation, we describe our approach to discover and understand effective tutorial strategies employed by effective human tutors while interacting with learners. We also present various approaches to automatically assess students\u27 contributions using general methods that we developed for semantic analysis of short texts. We explain our work using generic semantic similarity approaches to evaluate the semantic similarity between individual learner contributions and ideal answers provided by experts for target instructional tasks. We also describe our method to assess student performance based on tutorial dialogue context, accounting for linguistic phenomena such as ellipsis and pronouns. We then propose an approach to provide an explanatory capability for assessing student responses. Finally, we recommend a novel method based on concept maps for jointly evaluating and interpreting the correctness of student responses

A systematic review of whole class, subject based, pedagogies with reported outcomes for the academic and social inclusion of pupils with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms

Schools across the world have responded to international and national initiatives designed to further the development of inclusive education. In England, there is a statutory requirement for all schools to provide effective learning opportunities for all pupils (QCA, 2000) and children with special educational needs (SEN) are positioned as having a right to be within mainstream classrooms accessing an appropriate curriculum (SENDA, 2001). Previous reviews which have sought to identify classroom practices that support the inclusion of children with SEN have been technically non-systematic and hence a need for a systematic review within this area has been identified (Nind et al., 2004; Rix et al., 2006). This systematic literature review is the last in a series of three

A systematic review of pedagogical approaches that can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms with a particular focus on peer group interactive approaches

The broad background to this review is a long history of concepts of special pupils and special education, and a faith in special pedagogical approaches. The rise of inclusive schools and some important critiques of special pedagogy (e.g. Hart, 1996; Norwich and Lewis, 2001; Thomas and Loxley, 2001) have raised the profile of teaching approaches that ordinary teachers can and do use to include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Inclusive education itself is increasingly conceived as being about the quality of learning and participation that goes on in inclusive schools rather than simplistic matters of where children are place

A Multiple-Case Study of Chinese Student Teachers\u27 Micropolitical Literacy in Teaching Practicum Conflicts in Chinese Contexts

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the micropolitical literacy of four former Chinese English Foreign Language (EFL) student teachers in handling conflicts during their practicum in Chinese urban practicum schools. Each participant graduated from an EFL teacher education program after their completion of practicum and worked as a school English teacher. The researcher sought to investigate the participants’ conflict experiences and how they made sense of and responded to the micropolitics of their practicum. This study utilized in-depth personal interviews to explore former student teachers’ practicum conflict experiences. Four major themes were identified in the analysis process of the study: a) All STs acquiesced in and demonstrated deference to the power differential between them and their mentors; (b) STs reported more negative emotions in conflicts with mentors than with their students; (c) Most STs felt the impact of the struggle between exam-oriented education and quality-oriented education; and (d) STs acknowledged their potential to influence their mentors, indicating practicum could be bilateral. Implications from the study suggest the importance of micropolitical literacy in student teachers’ smooth and successful navigation in practicum, highlight the need for teacher educators to assume a liberating view of their roles in practicum, and call for universities to incorporate micropolitics of school into curriculum

IMSA360: Spring 2013

Having recently announced my retirement from IMSA, I am writing my last letter for IMSA360 to share my appreciation and admiration for the engagement and support of the entire IMSA community, which includes each and every reader of this publication. During the past six years, our collaborative work has produced some exceptional results as evidenced by our students’ success in national and international competitions, publications, presentations and leadership conferences. In addition, other highlights include our institutional recognition- especially the 2009 Intel Star Innovator Award-our growing donor base, the expansion of programs and services for Illinois students and teachers, a growing network of productive partnerships, and continued support from the Illinois legislature and other funders. Looking ahead, our shared mission of “igniting and nurturing creative, ethical, scientific minds that advance the human condition” is powerful and will propel IMSA on a trajectory resulting in sustained success in our next quarter century. I am confident that our highly capable leadership team, a talented and dedicated faculty and staff, a solid and growing alumni base, our incredible students and their supportive parents, a dynamic IMSA Fund Board, and a passionate, expert Board of Trustees will continue to advance our strategic agenda. With these resources, IMSA’s next President will be well positioned to fully realize our ambitious aspiration of being “the world’s leading teaching and learning laboratory for imagination and inquiry.” Excerpt: From the Presiden