The AFIT ENgineer, Volume 2, Issue 4

In this issue: AFMC Spark Tank Semi-finalist New AFIT Patents 2020 Graduate School Award Winners Airmen and Artificial Intelligence Nuclear Treaty Monitorin

The AFIT ENgineer, Volume 2, Issue 4

In this issue: AFMC Spark Tank Semi-finalist New AFIT Patents 2020 Graduate School Award Winners Airmen and Artificial Intelligence Nuclear Treaty Monitorin

AI in Learning: Designing the Future

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is predicted to radically change teaching and learning in both schools and industry causing radical disruption of work. AI can support well-being initiatives and lifelong learning but educational institutions and companies need to take the changing technology into account. Moving towards AI supported by digital tools requires a dramatic shift in the concept of learning, expertise and the businesses built off of it. Based on the latest research on AI and how it is changing learning and education, this book will focus on the enormous opportunities to expand educational settings with AI for learning in and beyond the traditional classroom. This open access book also introduces ethical challenges related to learning and education, while connecting human learning and machine learning. This book will be of use to a variety of readers, including researchers, AI users, companies and policy makers

AI in Learning: Designing the Future

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is predicted to radically change teaching and learning in both schools and industry causing radical disruption of work. AI can support well-being initiatives and lifelong learning but educational institutions and companies need to take the changing technology into account. Moving towards AI supported by digital tools requires a dramatic shift in the concept of learning, expertise and the businesses built off of it. Based on the latest research on AI and how it is changing learning and education, this book will focus on the enormous opportunities to expand educational settings with AI for learning in and beyond the traditional classroom. This open access book also introduces ethical challenges related to learning and education, while connecting human learning and machine learning. This book will be of use to a variety of readers, including researchers, AI users, companies and policy makers

Investigating Variability in Teaching Performance...Seeking Pathways to Excellence

Teacher learning is critical to student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2002, 2010). The work documented here is driven by an investigation of a long-standing and complex problem of educational practice: the inequitable learning opportunities for students that result from variability in the selection, learning and placement of practicing and aspiring teachers. A multidisciplinary perspective is used to situate the problem of practice theoretically, within a body of empirical research, and within a context of educational practice. Among the perspectives used to examine the problem of practice are theoretical frameworks that support the claim that the problem is a matter of social justice. The investigation also argues that inequitable learning opportunities for students are impacted by a fusion of two critical factors including the avenues by which people are recruited for and granted access to teacher preparation programs and the structure and quality of professional development provided to practicing teachers. The argument acknowledges the concept of variability within systems and practices, but contends that variability within excellence is the environment that will afford quality teachers for all students. Efforts to understand and address the problem are addressed to reveal what has been learned in the investigation to date and how what needs to be learned will form a leadership agenda that engages a diversity of stakeholders collaborating on an effort to improve an educational system in which the problem of practice exists. The implications of the effort are discussed for individuals, for the system, and with regard to leadership issues that bear on the problem of practice. The work concludes with a summary of what has been learned through the investigation and the implications of that learning for the professional leadership agenda that will be pursued in order to establish collaboratively engaged improvement efforts as a norm of practice at the level of schools and school districts

Enhancing Free-text Interactions in a Communication Skills Learning Environment

Learning environments frequently use gamification to enhance user interactions.Virtual characters with whom players engage in simulated conversations often employ prescripted dialogues; however, free user inputs enable deeper immersion and higher-order cognition. In our learning environment, experts developed a scripted scenario as a sequence of potential actions, and we explore possibilities for enhancing interactions by enabling users to type free inputs that are matched to the pre-scripted statements using Natural Language Processing techniques. In this paper, we introduce a clustering mechanism that provides recommendations for fine-tuning the pre-scripted answers in order to better match user inputs

Exploring the potential to motivate high school environmental science students with environmental justice: a mixed methods approach

The purpose of this mixed-methods, design-based study was to explore the potential for socioscientific issues framed by environmental to motivate high school environmental science students. The embedded design began and ended with a survey of student dispositions, and included interviews of particular students in an effort to capture views of general and personal dispositions. Statistical analyses uncovered a moralistic approach to environmental decision-making, and a positive outlook of the future, including the confidence to solve environmental problems. Students revealed an abstract notion of the environment that requires innovative approaches to teaching environmental science, and view scientists as essential change agents in the face of environmental challenges. In addition, a socioscientific approach framed by environmental justice empowers as well as motivates students. However, a STEM-based approach alone is insufficient to motivate high school students. The data from this study suggests the need to changes in environmental science pedagogy as well as a critique of the Next Generation Science Standards

An exploratory qualitative study of the relationship between an educational leader’s emotional intelligence and effective teams

Title from PDF of title page viewed on December 9, 2013Dissertation advisor:Jennifer FriendVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 148-159)Thesis (Ed.D.)--School of Education. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the work of educators has become more demanding and complex. Not only is the work more difficult, the current era of accountability subjects teachers and educational leaders to more public scrutiny. This challenging work, coupled with increased accountability, is a formula for an intensely emotional environment. Leaders in education are charged with successfully managing this emotional environment. Because teams are such prevalent structures in organizations, emotional intelligence is often demonstrated through a leader’s work with teams he or she supervises. The purpose of this phenomenological case study was to explore the relationship between the emotional intelligence of educational leaders and the perceived effectiveness of teams they supervise. This qualitative research was conducted using the theoretical tradition of phenomenology. It was informed through heuristic research and narrative inquiry. The themes of the conceptual framework supporting this research are emotions, intelligence, leadership, and team effectiveness. Separately, there has been a substantial amount of research done on each of these themes. But there are fewer studies that analyze emotional intelligence in the context of leadership and team effectiveness. Adding to this body of knowledge can potentially help leaders use emotional intelligence and enable teams to be more effective.Introduction -- Review of Literature -- Methodology -- Results and discussion -- Recommendations -- Appendix A. Leader questionnaire -- Appendix B. Individual leader interview questions -- Appendix C. Focus group interview questions -- Appendix D. Leader writing prompt -- Appendix E. Focus group writing promp

EXAMINING CLASSROOM-LEVEL INTERVENTIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH ADHD-ASSOCIATED ACADEMIC ISSUES PRE-DIAGNOSIS

This study examined the timing of teacher responses to student issues associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), pre-diagnosis, in the general education setting. Amid widespread concerns over an overextension of the medical model, this study examined educational treatment of ADHD-linked student issues isolated from other treatments, from discovery of need for intervention to possible referral for special education or medical testing. Data were collected in a large, high performing, suburban school district through semi-structured interviews of elementary and middle school teachers who served as key informants on the timing and context of key intervention milestones in a single school year. The findings of this study show that, while early intervention was common across participants, persistence in adapting interventions to increase personalization through an entire school year was characteristic of only the most successful. Teachers’ self-reported process-oriented successes and outcomes-oriented successes were used to distinguish treatments and explore associations between persistent intervention timelines, collaborative approach, and dispositions toward challenges