Does the Interactive Push-Presentation System Nearpod Effect Student Engagement in High School Anatomy?

The ability of the United States to succeed and compete successfully in the 21st Century will be directly related to the effectiveness of America’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education. In 2012 the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology set a goal to add one million STEM college graduates over a 10-year period. Motivation in STEM secondary classrooms is a critical contributor to students entering college in declaring and persisting in a STEM related major. The purpose of this study is to add research findings to the literature regarding means of using technology to increase K12 science motivation. How to increase STEM engagement and achievement has been the subject of much research. Research has shown that interactive lessons using student response systems, including clickers and mobile devices, can increase student engagement. Nearpod gives students the ability to draw and write complex expressions and participate in lecture and reinforcement activities as a class. In this quasi-experimental static-comparison study, we describe the use of Nearpod, a cloud based audience response software application intervention, and its impact on five subscales of motivation in a high school Human Anatomy & Physiology classroom. A total of 38 students from a rural Virginia high school participated in the study. Student engagement was measured using the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II). The SMQ II uses a Likert Scale and the scores from the two groups were analyzed using independent t-tests in Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results showed Nearpod had a statistically significant increase on student’s intrinsic motivation and self-determination. Using an larger sample size would reinforce the results of this study

Horizon Report Europe - 2014 Schools Edition

The NMC Horizon Project from the New Media Consortium is a long-term investigation launched in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe. The NMC Horizon Report Europe: 2014 Schools Edition, the first of its kind for Europe, examines six key trends, six significant challenges and six important developments in educational technology that are very likely to impact educational change processes in European schools over the next five years (2014-2018). The topics within each section were carefully selected by the Horizon Project Europe Expert Panel, a body of 53 experts in European education, technology, and other fields. They come from 22 European countries, as well as international organisations and European networks. Throughout the report, references and links are made to more than 150 European publications (reports, articles, policy documents, blog posts etc.), projects (both EU-funded and national initiatives) and various policy initiatives from all over Europe. The Creative Classrooms multidimensional framework, developed by European Commission’s JRC-IPTS on behalf of DG EAC, was used for analysing the trends, challenges and technologies impacting European schools over the next five years. The analysis reveals that a systemic approach is needed for integrating new technologies in European schools and impacting educational change over the next five years.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Abrupt Shift or Caught Off Guard: A Systematic Review of K-12 Engineering and STEM Education’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the past hundred years, there have been a number of pandemics that have affected the entire world, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic, the 1957 H2N2 influenza pandemic, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. While responses to the most recent H1N1 influenza pandemic remained local, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, resulted in long-term school closures all around the world, prompting a sudden shift to distant education by compelling K-12 educators and students to do so. The purpose of this study is to find out how K-12 education studies reacted to the sudden shift in supporting engineering and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education during the COVID-19 pandemic. To accomplish this goal, we conducted two separate searches in different databases and reviewed 25 articles. These articles were classified into four categories: (1) adaptation to online learning and the effects of a sudden shift, (2) implementing new strategies and tools, (3) STEM education in informal learning environments, and (4) teacher professional development. Our analysis indicated that engineering and STEM education research primarily focused on higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The limited number of studies examining K-12 engineering and STEM first investigated the adaptation to online learning by utilizing various resources that elementary and secondary teachers could easily access. Blended learning, flipped learning, and maker pedagogy were encouraged in K-12 engineering and STEM studies. Movies were the most commonly used tool in K-12 engineering and STEM studies. It is encouraging that studies also examined informal learning contexts (outreach initiatives, museums) and inequities in STEM and engineering education. However, the small number of studies in each category reminds us that there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of the future of K-12 engineering education, especially considering that distant education may become a permanent part of K-12 education

Labelled Vulnerability Dataset on Android source code (LVDAndro) to develop AI-based code vulnerability detection models.

Ensuring the security of Android applications is a vital and intricate aspect requiring careful consideration during development. Unfortunately, many apps are published without sufficient security measures, possibly due to a lack of early vulnerability identification. One possible solution is to employ machine learning models trained on a labelled dataset, but currently, available datasets are suboptimal. This study creates a sequence of datasets of Android source code vulnerabilities, named LVDAndro, labelled based on Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE). Three datasets were generated through app scanning by altering the number of apps and their sources. The LVDAndro, includes over 2,000,000 unique code samples, obtained by scanning over 15,000 apps. The AutoML technique was then applied to each dataset, as a proof of concept to evaluate the applicability of LVDAndro, in detecting vulnerable source code using machine learning. The AutoML model, trained on the dataset, achieved accuracy of 94% and F1-Score of 0.94 in binary classification, and accuracy of 94% and F1-Score of 0.93 in CWE-based multi-class classification. The LVDAndro dataset is publicly available, and continues to expand as more apps are scanned and added to the dataset regularly. The LVDAndro GitHub Repository also includes the source code for dataset generation, and model training

A perspective review on integrating VR/AR with haptics into STEM education for multi-sensory learning

As a result of several governments closing educational facilities in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, almost 80% of the world’s students were not in school for several weeks. Schools and universities are thus increasing their efforts to leverage educational resources and provide possibilities for remote learning. A variety of educational programs, platforms, and technologies are now accessible to support student learning; while these tools are important for society, they are primarily concerned with the dissemination of theoretical material. There is a lack of support for hands-on laboratory work and practical experience. This is particularly important for all disciplines related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), where labs and pedagogical assets must be continuously enhanced in order to provide effective study programs. In this study, we describe a unique perspective to achieving multi-sensory learning through the integration of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) with haptic wearables in STEM education. We address the implications of a novel viewpoint on established pedagogical notions. We want to encourage worldwide efforts to make fully immersive, open, and remote laboratory learning a reality.European Union through the Erasmus+ Program under Grant 2020-1-NO01-KA203-076540, project title Integrating virtual and AUGMENTED reality with WEARable technology into engineering EDUcation (AugmentedWearEdu), https://augmentedwearedu.uia.no/ [34] (accessed on 27 March 2022). This work was also supported by the Top Research Centre Mechatronics (TRCM), University of Agder (UiA), Norwa

A Perspective Review on Integrating VR/AR with Haptics into STEM Education for Multi-Sensory Learning

As a result of several governments closing educational facilities in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, almost 80% of the world’s students were not in school for several weeks. Schools and universities are thus increasing their efforts to leverage educational resources and provide possibilities for remote learning. A variety of educational programs, platforms, and technologies are now accessible to support student learning; while these tools are important for society, they are primarily concerned with the dissemination of theoretical material. There is a lack of support for hands-on laboratory work and practical experience. This is particularly important for all disciplines related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), where labs and pedagogical assets must be continuously enhanced in order to provide effective study programs. In this study, we describe a unique perspective to achieving multi-sensory learning through the integration of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) with haptic wearables in STEM education. We address the implications of a novel viewpoint on established pedagogical notions. We want to encourage worldwide efforts to make fully immersive, open, and remote laboratory learning a reality.publishedVersio

COSEE OCEAN Inquiry Group Report: Opportunities for Creating Lifelong Ocean Science Literacy

This Inquiry Group Report for the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence Ocean Communities in Education And Social Networks (COSEE OCEAN) provides a fresh look at how broader ocean science literacy can be developed, especially through less-recognized channels such as opportunistic learning, the private and “third” sectors, and the enormously varied activities under the heading of informal science education. The 10 authors of this report (see Contributors section) have been working together for two years to find and review a range of issues and resources for current and potential ocean science literacy providers, both professional and volunteer. Several chapters provide a survey of useful materials and websites, while others offer ideas that will be new for many readers, including opportunities and unfamiliar venues for carrying out this enterprise. Included are chapters depicting a perhaps surprising plethora of channels for increasing ocean science literacy, both in school and especially, out of school. Other chapters discuss the societal contexts for using these channels, which include ideas for potential funding sources and cultural partners. Not every reader will find every chapter useful so each chapter is written to stand alone. This requires redundancy of some material from chapter to chapter. The primary authors for each chapter have their own writing styles and voice. Finally, given the varied topics of each chapter, some are dense with annotated lists of existing materials, while others were written to analyze fresh opportunities for the creation of new materials and projects. This report was written with several audiences in mind: the professional educators in the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) network; formal and informal educators who are looking for ways to incorporate ocean sciences in the work they do; and policymakers in both science and education who are concerned with using all available channels to improve the public understanding of such major concerns as global climate change, energy sources and uses, the health of local and global ecosystems, and natural resources such as seafood

Rethinking Teaching in STEM Education in a Community College : Role of Instructional Consultation and Digital Technologies

Community college faculty members educate almost half of all U.S. undergraduates, who are often more diverse and more academically underprepared when compared to undergraduate students who attend four-year institutions. In addition, faculty members in community colleges are facing increased accountability for meeting student learning outcomes, expectations to adjust their teaching practices to include active learning practices, and expectations to incorporate more technologies into the classroom. Faculty developers are one of the support structures that faculty members can look to in order to meet those challenges. A survey of literature in faculty development suggests that instructional consultation can play an important role in shaping and transforming teaching practices. Hence, this action research study examined my work using instructional consulting with four full-time STEM faculty colleagues in order to examine and shape their teaching practices with and without the use of digital technologies. The two foci of the research, examining shifts in faculty participants’ teaching practices, and my instructional consulting practices, were informed by Thomas and Brown’s (2011) social view of learning and the concept of teaching and learning in a “co-learning” environment. Two dominant factors emerged regarding faculty participants’ shift in teaching practices. These factors concerned: 1) the perception of control and 2) individual faculty participant’s comfort level, expectations, and readiness. In addition to these two dominant factors, the instructional consultation process also supported a range of shifts in either mindset and/or teaching practices. My analysis showed that the use of digital technologies was not an essential factor in shifting faculty participant mindset and/or teaching practices, instead digital technologies were used to enhance the teaching process and students’ learning experiences

Democratizing Manufacturing: Bridging the Gap Between Invention and Manufacturing

Entrepreneurs and small firms in the U.S. face significant challenges as they scale up their innovations to volume production. Despite innovative new technologies such as 3D printers, the transition to cost-competitive, large-scale manufacturing can be difficult for domestic firms. To assist small U.S. companies to more effectively ramp up production, MForesight assembled more than 30 experts in manufacturing at a workshop on “Democratizing Manufacturing.” The goal of the workshop was to evaluate the gaps and barriers in technology and education that prevent the competitive design and production of engineered components by small businesses in the U.S. This effort is both timely and important because a large fraction of high-value products are now manufactured outside of the U.S. Companies in Europe and Asia are winning bids to manufacture products designed in the U.S. for a host of reasons, including a willingness on the part of their own governments to consistently invest in manufacturing (both infrastructure and human capital). To successfully compete in the global manufacturing marketplace, the U.S. needs to adopt new strategies for education, technology development, and industrial policy.National Science Foundation, Grant No. 1552534https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145152/1/Democratizing-Manufacturing-Dec2016.pd