A meta-modeling approach for capturing recurrent uses of Moodle tools into pedagogical activities

International audienceTeacher's expertise on using Learning Management Systems (LMS) is tightly coupled to how they design their online courses. The GraphiT project aims to help teachers in specifying of pedagogically sound learning scenarios that can be technically executable for automatically setting-up the related LMS course. We intend to provide teachers with LMS-specific instructional design languages and editors. To achieve this goal, we have to raise the LMS semantics in order to enrich the pedagogical expressiveness of the produced models. We propose a specific LMS-centered approach for abstracting the low-level parameteriza-tions and turning these semantics into higher-level pedagogical building blocks. We present and illustrate our propositions focused on Moodle. In this paper, we focus on the first abstraction level: identifying pedagogical activities according to recurrent uses of Moodle activities

Cognitive Effectiveness of Visual Instructional Design Languages

The introduction of learning technologies into education is making the design of courses and instructional materials an increasingly complex task. Instructional design languages are identified as conceptual tools for achieving more standardized and, at the same time, more creative design solutions, as well as enhancing communication and transparency in the design process. In this article we discuss differences in cognitive aspects of three visual instructional design languages (E²ML, PoEML, coUML), based on user evaluation. Cognitive aspects are of relevance for learning a design language, creating models with it, and understanding models created using it. The findings should enable language constructors to improve the usability of visual instructional design languages in the future. The paper concludes with directions with regard to how future research on visual instructional design languages could strengthen their value and enhance their actual use by educators and designers by synthesizing existing efforts into a unified modeling approach for VIDLs

Weaving the literature on integration, pedagogy and assessment: insights for curriculum and classrooms. Report 2.

Readers should bear the following in mind: ● This is the second of two reports commissioned by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment to inform the ongoing development of the Primary Curriculum Framework. Report 1 addresses conceptualisations of curriculum integration. This second report addresses the literature on pedagogy and assessment. Annex 2 contains the relevant methodological information for this report. ● A timeline for the development of this report can be seen on p. 2 of Report 1. ● This report is one of several commissioned by NCCA in 2022. We encourage readers to consult the reports on specific curriculum areas available on the NCCA website (e.g. Nohilly et al., 2023). We do not attempt to detail pedagogical or assessment advice for specific disciplines/subjects in this report. ● This report draws extensively on meta-analytic reviews. The box below provides guidance for readers on interpreting the effect sizes reported in such reviews. Understanding Effect Sizes To establish the efficacy of a particular practice, it is common to use experimental research designs. This usually involves one randomised group of children being taught using the practice of interest (e.g. Group 1= a new teaching strategy) and a comparison group (Group 2= traditional teaching strategy). The performance of each group is measured and an average score is calculated. The scores of each group of students are then statistically compared to see if there is meaningful difference. The effect size (ES) indicates the scale of this difference (if it exists). Effect size can be calculated in many ways, e.g. Cohen’s d, Hedge’s g. They can also be aggregated for the purpose of meta-analytic reviews. In educational research, an effect size of less than 0.05 is considered small, 0.05 to less than 0.20 is medium, and 0.20 or greater is large (Kraft, 2020). Different benchmarks exist, but in general, the larger the effect size the greater the impact on student learning. In this report, we use the original author’s descriptors, e.g. if an author classified the effect of their intervention as ‘medium’, we report as such

Understanding Teacher Sense-Making Discourse During Collaborative Professional Development of an Expansively-Framed Computer Science Curriculum

Elementary school teachers are being increasingly asked to teach computer science—something that most teacher certification programs do not prepare them for. In an attempt to study how elementary teachers learn to teach computer science, I analyzed the ways that teachers behaved during a professional development accompanying the implementation of a fifth-grade computer science curriculum. My findings suggest that teachers benefit from professional development that encourages collaboration and active participation in teachers through discussion and modeling. Furthermore, my findings suggest that teachers benefit from using curriculum that deliberately connects new concepts to content that they are already familiar and comfortable with—a model known as expansive framing. By encouraging active teacher participation in professional development and by using curriculum that relates to teachers’ existing content knowledge, we may be able to help elementary teachers prepare to teach computer science with more confidence and accuracy

A Domain-Specific Modeling approach for a simulation-driven validation of gamified learning environments Case study about teaching the mimicry of emotions to children with autism

Game elements are rarely explicit when designing serious games or gamified learning activities. We think that the overall design, including instructional design aspects and gamification elements, should be validate by involved experts in the earlier stage of the general design & develop process. We tackle this challenge by proposing a Domain-specific Modeling orientation to our proposals: a metamodeling formalism to capture the gamified instructional design model, and a specific validation process involving domain experts. The validation includes a static verification , by using this formalism to model concrete learning sessions based on concrete informations from real situations described by experts, and a dynamic verification, by developing a simplified simulator for 'execut-ing' the learning sessions scenarios with experts. This propositions are part of the EmoTED research project about a learning application, the mimicry of emotions, for children with ASD. It aims at reinforce face-to-face teaching sessions with therapists by training sessions at home with the supervision of the children's parents. This case-study will ground our proposals and their experimentations

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

How can the teaching of programming be used to enhance computational thinking skills?

The use of the term computational thinking, introduced in 2006 by Jeanette Wing, is having repercussions in the field of education. The term brings into sharp focus the concept of thinking about problems in a way that can lead to solutions that may be implemented in a computing device. Implementation of these solutions may involve the use of programming languages.This study explores ways in which programming can be employed as a tool to teach computational thinking and problem solving. Data is collected from teachers, academics, and professionals, purposively selected because of their knowledge of the topics of problem solving, computational thinking, or the teaching of programming. This data is analysed following a grounded theory approach. A Computational Thinking Taxonomy is developed. The relationships between cognitive processes, the pedagogy of programming, and the perceived levels of difficulty of computational thinking skills are illustrated by a model.Specifically, a definition for computational thinking is presented. The skills identified are mapped to Bloom’s Taxonomy: Cognitive Domain. This mapping concentrates computational skills at the application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels. Analysis of the data indicates that the less difficult computational thinking skills for beginner programmers are generalisation, evaluation, and algorithm design. Abstraction of functionality is less difficult than abstraction of data, but both are perceived as difficult. The most difficult computational thinking skill is reported as decomposition. This ordering of difficulty for learners is a reversal of the cognitive complexity predicted by Bloom’s model. The plausibility of this inconsistency is explored.The taxonomy, model, and the other results of this study may be used by educators to focus learning onto the computational thinking skills acquired by the learners, while using programming as a tool. They may also be employed in the design of curriculum subjects, such as ICT, computing, or computer science

Technologies and trust

What is trust and how new technologies are changing or affecting the concept of trust? This publication offers insights from researchers working in educational technology and distance education, collected in the frame of the European FP-7 Marie-Curie People project “Stimulators and inhibitors of a culture of trust in educational interactions assisted by modern information and communication technology”, and provides examples of implications of trust for successful learning experiences in distance education. The research goal is to understand how trust has changed or is changing: this is related not only to the modification of the meaning, but also indicators upon which people built their judgements