Integrating Technology With Student-Centered Learning

Reviews research on technology's role in personalizing learning, its integration into curriculum-based and school- or district-wide initiatives, and the potential of emerging digital technologies to expand student-centered learning. Outlines implications

Design and Emergence of a Pedagogical Online InfoSec Laboratory as an Ensemble Artefact

Information security (InfoSec) education becomes increasingly important. Building hands-on capabilities to tackle challenges is a precondition to mitigate and eliminate cyber threats. Existing studies, however, show that the field lacks pedagogically founded information security laboratories that can be used flexibly to educate both on-campus and online learners. To address this issue, this paper reports on an online InfoSec laboratory. Development of the laboratory follows an action design research approach. For this purpose, initial design principles were used that are derived from the existing pedagogical theories such as Conversational Framework, Constructive Alignment, and Personalized System of Instruction, literature reviews and empirical data. Through iterative cycles of building, intervention, and evaluation of an InfoSec laboratory, and side-by-side critical reflections, this study refines the conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory and initial design principles and provides general guidelines on the process of establishing a pedagogically underpinned online InfoSec laboratory for hands-on exercises. This study contributes by serving two major purposes. First, this study proposes a conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory that comprises important entities: Laboratory Infrastructure, Exercise (document), Exercise Processing and Management Interface (EPI), and Concrete Exercise Interface. Secondly, the research proposes design principles for implementing a conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory in different educational contexts

On Using the Cloud to Support Online Courses

The increasing interest of online learning is unquestionable nowadays, with MOOCs being taken by thousands of students. However, for online learning to go mainstream it is necessary that professors perceive that the effort required to prepare and manage an online course is manageable. Today, a myriad of inexpensive tools and services can be used to produce and manage online courses with unprecedented ease and without distressing the professor. For that, this paper proposes an architecture based on Cloud services that simplifies the process of managing an online course, from delivering on-demand fully customized remote laboratories to communication automation for student engagement and feedback gathering. This approach has been applied to produce, distribute and manage an Online Course on Cloud Computing with Amazon Web Services. The paper describes the methodology, tools and results of this experience to point out that it is possible to deliver online courses with automatically provisioned labs, with minimal management overhead, while still providing a high quality learning experience to a worldwide audience.Moltó, G.; Caballer Fernández, M. (2014). On Using the Cloud to Support Online Courses. Frontiers in Education Conference. 2014:330-338. doi:10.1109/FIE.2014.7044041S330338201

Smart Environment for Adaptive Learning of Cybersecurity Skills

Hands-on computing education requires a realistic learning environment that enables students to gain and deepen their skills. Available learning environments, including virtual and physical labs, provide students with real-world computer systems but rarely adapt the learning environment to individual students of various proficiency and background. We designed a unique and novel smart environment for adaptive training of cybersecurity skills. The environment collects a variety of student data to assign a suitable learning path through the training. To enable such adaptiveness, we proposed, developed, and deployed a new tutor model and a training format. We evaluated the learning environment using two different adaptive trainings attended by 114 students of various proficiency. The results show students were assigned tasks with a more appropriate difficulty, which enabled them to successfully complete the training. Students reported that they enjoyed the training, felt the training difficulty was appropriately designed, and would attend more training sessions like these. Instructors can use the environment for teaching any topic involving real-world computer networks and systems because it is not tailored to particular training. We freely released the software along with exemplary training so that other instructors can adopt the innovations in their teaching practice.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, see https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/992617

Effective Pedagogical Strategies for STEM Education from Instructors’ Perspective: OER for Educators

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare (OCW) was launched in 2001. It is one of the earliest Open Educational Resources (OER). MIT OCW has published more than 2,400 courses which are available at no cost, the majority of which are STEM related. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the pedagogical strategies through reviewing instructor insights of 15 MIT OCW STEM courses using thematic analysis. The most effective pedagogical strategies used found by instructors were active learning, personalizing instruction, engaging learners, providing feedback, building learning community, and clarifying learning objective. Instructors used in-class formative assessment, such as quizzes and oral exams, for just-in-time teaching and online automatic assessment environments for students’ self-assessment. The primary summative assessments were final exams and projects. Instructors encountered challenges such as assessing students’ learning and changing pedagogical beliefs. Implications for practice were discussed as well

Personalized Student Assessment based on Learning Analytics and Recommender Systems

This paper presents a process based on learning analytics and recommender systems with the objective of analyzing student assessment in order to provide clues that can help teachers in scaffolding the students’ performance. For this, a set of tests was used to evaluate students' competence in direct current circuits. The tests had multiple versions and to solve them each student had to use multiple approaches. The results indicate a better performance in calculus and simulations approaches when compared with hands-on and remote laboratories approaches. The analyses also provide support for the recommendation step allowing the configuration of a knowledge base. The process as a whole is consistent in what regards its ability to make suggestions to the students as they complete a given test and to provide teachers with information that can help them formulate strategies to positively impact students’ learning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Toward a model of computational attention based on expressive behavior: applications to cultural heritage scenarios

Our project goals consisted in the development of attention-based analysis of human expressive behavior and the implementation of real-time algorithm in EyesWeb XMI in order to improve naturalness of human-computer interaction and context-based monitoring of human behavior. To this aim, perceptual-model that mimic human attentional processes was developed for expressivity analysis and modeled by entropy. Museum scenarios were selected as an ecological test-bed to elaborate three experiments that focus on visitor profiling and visitors flow regulation

Developing a Student Learning Strategy to Bridge Virtual Learning and Hands-On Activity

This paper addresses the effectiveness of combined virtual and physical hands-on activities in students’ learning which was infused in the capstone senior design project. Senior design projects are open-ended and are similar to the research that scientists perform toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature or new scientific knowledge. As a reinforced learning methodology to greatly assist students’ reasoning and problem-solving skills, virtual learning was first integrated at the planning stage of their projects. This approach is in contrast with the typical senior design courses where only limited resources are available for planning experiments. Using virtual learning, students are able to revisit or learn new background theories and principles and identify and test a hypothesis before they actually engage in physical hands-on activities. This reinforced learning strategy efficiently guided students in preparing, confronting, and tackling the open-ended, inquiry-based problem with solid theoretical knowledge and principles. As a result it provided better planning for the physical hands-on activities. When engaged with physical hands-on activities, virtual laboratories were also be used to identify the disparity between theoretical and experimental results and additional activities designed to interpret the differences. This practice truly allowed students to experience the entire scientific process from solid theoretical reasoning obtained from virtual laboratories, to designing their own activities, to initial observations, and to follow-on activities based on the results of earlier activities. Our evaluation indicates that pedagogical modules of team based investigation using virtual and physical hands-on activities were very effective for students\u27 learning