Is MOOC Learning Different for Dropouts? A Visually-Driven, Multi-granularity Explanatory ML Approach

Millions of people have enrolled and enrol (especially in the Covid-19 pandemic world) in MOOCs. However, the retention rate of learners is notoriously low. The majority of the research work on this issue focuses on predicting the dropout rate, but very few use explainable learning patterns as part of this analysis. However, visual representation of learning patterns could provide deeper insights into learners' behaviour across different courses, whilst numerical analyses can -- and arguably, should -- be used to confirm the latter. Thus, this paper proposes and compares different granularity visualisations for learning patterns (based on clickstream data) for both course completers and non-completers. In the large-scale MOOCs we analysed, across various domains, our fine-grained, fish-eye visualisation approach showed that non-completers are more likely to jump forward in their learning sessions, often on a 'catch-up' path, whilst completers exhibit linear behaviour. For coarser, bird-eye granularity visualisation, we observed learners' transition between types of learning activity, obtaining typed transition graphs. The results, backed up by statistical significance analysis and machine learning, provide insights for course instructors to maintain engagement of learners by adapting the course design to not just 'dry' predicted values, but explainable, visually viable paths extracted.Comment: Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1214

Education, Empowerment and Access to All - Public Legal Education and Massive Open Online Courses at the Law Society of Ireland

Since 2014, the Diploma Centre at the Law Society of Ireland (‘the Society’) has implemented a programme of MOOCs; ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ in key areas of practice. This article outlines the provision of Public Legal Education at the Society and how MOOCs align with the mission to widen access to legal education and the legal profession. Of interest to others who may be developing MOOCs, we discuss the instructional design process and feedback from MOOC participants. MOOCs are very much on trend and have received a mixed reception but, subject to course design, they can provide substantial educational benefit and operate as an effective means to widen access to education

Video and course content discussion on Massive Open Online Courses: An exploratory research

This paper deals with the ways in which Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) participants use course related forums and the contribution of those forums to the learning experience of their virtual students. We focused on the comparison between, on one hand, video content provided by the course organizers and on the other hand, the content provided by user discussions in the forums. Our methodology frame is based on natural sociological inquiry. Video Lectures, as well as the most active forum threads and their posts were collected during a 6 weeks long xMOOC that took place in fall 2013 on a well-known MOOC platform. Content analysis was performed and the study concludes that the forum included a very high level of interactions involving mostly course related exchange of information amongst students, placing this course at the intersection between a constructivist MOOC (cMOOC) and a classical information transmission based MOOC (xMOOC)

Analysis of the behavioral patterns of students of a MOOC on Introduction to Programming for the Arduino platform

A dificuldade para aprender programação é um assunto fortemente discutido em contextos de cursos da área da Computação, sendo diversos os fatores que atuam como barreiras. Devido a essa preocupação, discussões sobre como implementar estratégias para superar esse desafio têm sido apresentadas, desencadeando novas ações que possam auxiliar o aprendizado de programação. Diante disso, os MOOCs têm se apresentado como ferramentas com potencial para apoiar o ensino presencial e para atender demandas mais específicas de estudantes que buscam aprender programação on-line e de forma autônoma. Nesse contexto, essa pesquisa relata um estudo de caso de um MOOC introdutório sobre programação Arduino, disponibilizado em uma plataforma brasileira de cursos on-line. Técnicas de mineração de dados foram empregadas com o objetivo de encontrar os padrões comportamentais de 2031 estudantes que participaram do curso. Os resultados apontaram números de ações semelhantes entre os participantes, porém dois grupos se destacam entre os que apresentaram médias mais altas de engajamento no curso: estudantes com mais de 30 anos, com nível superior e que gostam do tema do curso; bem como estudantes mais jovens com ensino médio e que adoram o tema do curso.The difficulty to learn programming is is a topic that is strongly discussed in contexts of Computer courses, and there are several factors that act as barriers. Due to this concern, discussions on how to implement strategies to overcome this challenge have been presented, generating new actions that can help the programming learning. Thus, MOOCs have been presented as tools with the potential to support classroom teaching and to meet more specific demands of students who seek to learn programming online and autonomously. In this context, this research reports a case study of an introductory MOOC on Arduino programming, available on a Brazilian online course platform. Data mining techniques were employed aiming to find the behavioral patterns of 2031 students who participated in the course. The results showed similar numbers of actions among the participants; however two groups stand out among those who showed higher averages of engagement in the course: students over the age of 30, with higher education and who like the subject of the course; as well as younger high school students who love the course theme.Facultad de Informátic

An Analysis of Questions Asked by the Participants of a Programming e-Course and the Troubleshooters Based on it

Tartu Ülikooli arvutiteaduse instituut korraldas 2015/2016. õppeaastal programmeerimise MOOCe (vaba ligipääsuga ja osalejate arvu poolest suuremahuline tasuta e-kursus), kus osalejatel oli e-kirjade vahendusel võimalik oma küsimustele kursuse korraldajatelt tagasisidet saada. Sügissemestril toimunud MOOCi „Programmeerimisest maalähedaselt“ osalejate poolt saadetud e-kirjad sisaldasid aga palju korduma kippuvaid küsimusi. Käesoleva bakalaureusetöö eesmärk on kevadsemestril toimuvate MOOCide osalejate korduma kippuvaid küsimusi ennetada ja sellega vähendada laekuvate e-kirjade arvu. Selleks analüüsiti esmalt osalejate e-kirjades sisalduvaid küsimusi ja saadud tulemused liigitati juhendajatega kooskõlastatud kategooriatesse. Liigitatud andmete analüüsi tulemusena selgitati välja osalejate poolt tehtavad korduvad vead. Väljaselgitatud korduvatest vigadest lähtuvalt koostati ülesannete kohta käivate vihjete kogumid ehk murelahendajad. Murelahendajad abistasid kevadsemestril toimuvates MOOCides vihjete kaudu osalejaid ning püüdsid ennetada neil tekkida võivaid küsimusi. Sügis- ja kevadsemestril toimunud MOOCide „Programmeerimisest maalähedaselt“ käigus laekunud e-kirjade arvu võrdlus näitas, et pärast murelahendajate kasutuselevõttu vähenes e-kirjade arv märkimisväärselt.The Institute of Computer Science of the University of Tartu held programming MOOC-s (Massive Open Online Course) in the 2015/2016 learning year, where participants had the option to ask for feedback from the organizers of the course via e-mail. The e-mails sent by the participants of the autumn semester MOOC “About Programming” included many frequently asked questions. The objective of this bachelor’s thesis is to obviate the questions of the following spring semester’s MOOCs participants and thus reduce the number of e-mails received. To achieve this objective, the questions within the participants’ e-mails were analysed and the results were classified into categories which had been co-ordinated with instructors. As a result of the data analysis process, the participants’ frequently asked questions were extracted. Troubleshooters were created based on the extracted frequently asked questions. The troubleshooters were meant to help the participants of the spring-semesters’ MOOCs through collections of hints and obviate questions those participants might have during aforementioned MOOCs. A comparison between the number of e-mails received in the autumn and spring semesters in the MOOC “About Programming” showed that after the implementation of troubleshooters the number of e-mails decreased significantly

Evaluating the Impact of Live Programming on Collaborative Software Development

Collaboration is tricky, but often beneficial in the context of numerous software related activities, from learning core concepts, to the design and implementation of large software products. The growth of online classes, from small structured seminars to massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the isolation and impoverished learning experience some students report in these, points to an urgent need for tools that support remote pair programming in a distributed educational setting. In “the real world” software developers and designers work together to solve common problems, and meaningful and effective designer-developer collaboration improves the user experience. Supporting these with today’s often distributed work model presents important challenges.Two key techniques which are believed to be effective in promoting better coordination and collaboration are collaborative coding and live programming. Collaborative coding allows all the team members to get involved in the development process, and live programming enables them to see what they are building effortlessly and in real time.In this work, we first describe Jimbo, an integrated development environment (IDE) based on collaborative and live programming techniques, and a set of user studies aimed at evaluating whether these techniques are effective in promoting better coordination and collaboration in two different settings; distance learning and design-focused software development. Our results show that these techniques can improve the learning experience through pair programming and a tight code-artifact feedback loop. We will show how collaborative coding and live programming can help designers and developers bridge their knowledge and language gaps and develop mutual understanding, allowing designers to join the development process as first-class citizens – not dependent on the coders to compile and share output – or being forced to become coders.Keywords: pair programming, collaborative learning, collaboration, educational tools, live programming, remote pair-programming, programming environment, MOOC, IDE, distance learning, designer-developer collaboration, collaborative software developmen

"We don't need no education"? : yes, they DO want e-learning in Basic and Higher Education!

This inaugural lecture will feature seven datasets from module evaluations across four semesters and four modules, from 5027 University of South Africa students. The findings illustrate that these Higher Education students have access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet, overwhelmingly use myUNISA (the institutional e-learning management system), e.g. to submit their assignments and/or activities, for these modules, while their overall experience of these modules was positive and they would recommend these modules to other students. Regarding the Basic Education sector, I will describe 43 Gauteng district respondents’ feedback regarding their e-schools being characterised as having (1) learners using ICTs to enhance e-learning; (2) qualified and competent managers using ICTs for planning, management and administration; (3) qualified and competent teachers using ICTs to enhance teaching and e-learning; (4) access to ICT resources supporting curriculum delivery; (5) connections to ICT infrastructure and (6) connections to their communities.Educational Studie

Beyond Automated Assessment: Building Metacognitive Awareness in Novice Programmers in CS1

The primary task of learning to program in introductory computer science courses (CS1) cognitively overloads novices and must be better supported. Several recent studies have attempted to address this problem by understanding the role of metacognitive awareness in novices learning programming. These studies have focused on teaching metacognitive awareness to students by helping them understand the six stages of learning so students can know where they are in the problem-solving process, but these approaches are not scalable. One way to address scalability is to implement features in an automated assessment tool (AAT) that build metacognitive awareness in novice programmers. Currently, AATs that provide feedback messages to students can be said to implement the fifth and sixth learning stages integral to metacognitive awareness: implement solution (compilation) and evaluate implemented solution (test cases). The computer science education (CSed) community is actively engaged in research on the efficacy of compile error messages (CEMs) and how best to enhance them to maximize student learning and it is currently heavily disputed whether or not enhanced compile error messages (ECEMs) in AATs actually improve student learning. The discussion on the effectiveness of ECEMs in AATs remains focused on only one learning stage critical to metacognitive awareness in novices: implement solution. This research carries out an ethnomethodologically-informed study of CS1 students via think-aloud studies and interviews in order to propose a framework for designing an AAT that builds metacognitive awareness by supporting novices through all six stages of learning. The results of this study provide two important contributions. The first is the confirmation that ECEMs that are designed from a human-factors approach are more helpful for students than standard compiler error messages. The second important contribution is that the results from the observations and post-assessment interviews revealed the difficulties novice programmers often face to developing metacognitive awareness when using an AAT. Understanding these barriers revealed concrete ways to help novice programmers through all six stages of the problem-solving process. This was presented above as a framework of features, which when implemented properly, provides a scalable way to implicitly produce metacognitive awareness in novice programmers

A framework of social-based learning interaction through social networking tool

The purpose of this research is to develop a framework of social-based learning interaction through the use of social networking tool; Facebook. The sample for this study was Masters’ students of Educational Technology program. The data collection was done through two phases. Phase 1 involved 49 students who responded to the questionnaire, and phase 2 involved 11 students and 2 instructors who participated in one semester’s online interaction via Facebook. This research employed a pre-experimental design, which involved a one-group pretest-posttest to measure the improvement in students’ academic performance after going through online interaction via Facebook. A questionnaire was used to collect data about students’ perceptions of instructor-student interaction (ISI), student-student interaction (SSI) and students’ social presence (SP) while Facebook discussion group was used to collect interaction data among students and instructors. Questionnaire data were analyzed through means and standard deviations and Facebook transcripts were analyzed through frequencies of each investigated category. Next, the data mining decision tree technique was used to identify which SSI categories contributed to higher students’ grades and the association rule was applied to establish a social-based learning interaction framework. The findings of the questionnaire showed that students have high perceptions of ISI (μ= 4.06) and SSI (μ= 4.18) via Facebook. Moreover, students showed high perceptions of their SP when using Facebook for learning (μ= 4.15). Findings from Wilcoxon’s Signed Ranks Test indicated a significant improvement in students’ performance in test after going through interaction via Facebook, while the effect size test confirmed the large effect of the interaction via Facebook on students’ performance. The findings from the Facebook transcripts showed that the instructors mostly used facilitating discourse (FD) followed by direct instruction (DI). Instructional design and organization (IDO) was the least frequently used category by the instructors. On the other side, students tended more to deliver clarification (C) followed by the interpretation category. Moreover, students transmitted more support (S) than reflection (Ref) or replies (Rep) to others’ questions and asking questions (Q) compare to the Judgment (J) category; which was the least frequently used category. Noticeably, students declined to transmit conflict, assertion and consensus-building statements during their interaction via Facebook. Additionally, students tended to promote more interactive responses (IR) than cohesive responses (CR) or affective responses (AR) in their SP. However, data mining analysis using the decision tree technique showed that students need to transmit more clarification (C) and interpretation (I) categories of SSI in order to achieve grade A in their tests. The social-based learning framework suggested that the FD and DI categories of ISI are associated with the Rep, C and I categories of SSI and the IR category of SP to assist students’ learning and enhance academic performance