Hybrid human-AI driven open personalized education

Attaining those skills that match labor market demand is getting increasingly complicated as prerequisite knowledge, skills, and abilities are evolving dynamically through an uncontrollable and seemingly unpredictable process. Furthermore, people's interests in gaining knowledge pertaining to their personal life (e.g., hobbies and life-hacks) are also increasing dramatically in recent decades. In this situation, anticipating and addressing the learning needs are fundamental challenges to twenty-first century education. The need for such technologies has escalated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where online education became a key player in all types of training programs. The burgeoning availability of data, not only on the demand side but also on the supply side (in the form of open/free educational resources) coupled with smart technologies, may provide a fertile ground for addressing this challenge. Therefore, this thesis aims to contribute to the literature about the utilization of (open and free-online) educational resources toward goal-driven personalized informal learning, by developing a novel Human-AI based system, called eDoer. In this thesis, we discuss all the new knowledge that was created in order to complete the system development, which includes 1) prototype development and qualitative user validation, 2) decomposing the preliminary requirements into meaningful components, 3) implementation and validation of each component, and 4) a final requirement analysis followed by combining the implemented components in order develop and validate the planned system (eDoer). All in all, our proposed system 1) derives the skill requirements for a wide range of occupations (as skills and jobs are typical goals in informal learning) through an analysis of online job vacancy announcements, 2) decomposes skills into learning topics, 3) collects a variety of open/free online educational resources that address those topics, 4) checks the quality of those resources and topic relevance using our developed intelligent prediction models, 5) helps learners to set their learning goals, 6) recommends personalized learning pathways and learning content based on individual learning goals, and 7) provides assessment services for learners to monitor their progress towards their desired learning objectives. Accordingly, we created a learning dashboard focusing on three Data Science related jobs and conducted an initial validation of eDoer through a randomized experiment. Controlling for the effects of prior knowledge as assessed by the pretest, the randomized experiment provided tentative support for the hypothesis that learners who engaged with personal eDoer recommendations attain higher scores on the posttest than those who did not. The hypothesis that learners who received personalized content in terms of format, length, level of detail, and content type, would achieve higher scores than those receiving non-personalized content was not supported as a statistically significant result

Context-Aware and Adaptable eLearning Systems

The full text file attached to this record contains a copy of the thesis without the authors publications attached. The list of publications that are attached to the complete thesis can be found on pages 6-7 in the thesis.This thesis proposed solutions to some shortcomings to current eLearning architectures. The proposed DeLC architecture supports context-aware and adaptable provision of eLearning services and electronic content. The architecture is fully distributed and integrates service-oriented development with agent technology. Central to this architecture is that a node is our unit of computation (known as eLearning node) which can have purely service-oriented architecture, agent-oriented architecture or mixed architecture. Three eLeaerning Nodes have been implemented in order to demonstrate the vitality of the DeLC concept. The Mobile eLearning Node uses a three-level communication network, called InfoStations network, supporting mobile service provision. The services, displayed on this node, are to be aware of its context, gather required learning material and adapted to the learner request. This is supported trough a multi-layered hybrid (service- and agent-oriented) architecture whose kernel is implemented as middleware. For testing of the middleware a simulation environment has been developed. In addition, the DeLC development approach is proposed. The second eLearning node has been implemented as Education Portal. The architecture of this node is poorly service-oriented and it adopts a client-server architecture. In the education portal, there are incorporated education services and system services, called engines. The electronic content is kept in Digital Libraries. Furthermore, in order to facilitate content creators in DeLC, the environment Selbo2 was developed. The environment allows for creating new content, editing available content, as well as generating educational units out of preexisting standardized elements. In the last two years, the portal is used in actual education at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Plovdiv. The third eLearning node, known as Agent Village, exhibits a purely agent-oriented architecture. The purpose of this node is to provide intelligent assistance to the services deployed on the Education Pportal. Currently, two kinds of assistants are implemented in the node - eTesting Assistants and Refactoring eLearning Environment (ReLE). A more complex architecture, known as Education Cluster, is presented in this thesis as well. The Education Cluster incorporates two eLearning nodes, namely the Education Portal and the Agent Village. eLearning services and intelligent agents interact in the cluster

Coastal risks and resilience learning

The hazards that particularly affect local coastal communities require education that is conducive to the development within planetary boundaries. The paper analyses the features of education for resilience and sustainability based on good practice and the principles stipulated in strategic documents on sustainable development issued by international organizations and professional associations. In developing the curricula for strengthening resilience, focus should be placed on deeper learning about local knowledge, on stimulating local sustainability, systems thinking, integrating teaching about the environment and responsible citizenship into all school subjects. To achieve the objectives proposed it is necessary to enhance whole-institution approach and bridge the divide between the subjects in humanities and STEM areas by providing courses which afford insights into connections between various disciplines required for perceiving local and global issues and the solutions thereto, and to implement citizen science. Resilience thinking should be embedded in planning and strategic environmental assessment procedures for a wide range of themes and activities affecting coastal area environment and its communities

Language learning and technology

By and large, languages, both as first, second or foreign languages remain one of the most important core subjects at every educational level. In early stages, their inclusion in the curriculum is intricately connected with (pre-)literacy practices, but also as a main driver for the successful integration of minority students learning a second language. In addition, the attainment of a certain level of a foreign language by the end of compulsory education is a common goal in most educational systems around the globe. Arguably, the key drivers of success in learning a language range from motivational to attitudinal, but ultimately they also have to do with the amount of target language use, the access to quality input, and especially language teachers' readiness to incorporate the latest educational trends effectively in the language classroom, educational technologies amongst them

The Integrative Curriculum Management with a Boarding System in High Schools

This research addresses the pressing need for an integrated madrasah-Islamic boarding school curriculum as a strategic response to the contemporary challenges demanding graduates with both extensive knowledge and profound religious understanding. With the imperative for cognitive and spiritual intelligence in the disruptive era, the study focuses on MAN 2 Malang City, utilizing a qualitative case study approach involving observations, interviews, and document analysis. The research reveals essential aspects of the integrated curriculum, encompassing unified objectives and organized content planning. The implementation phase includes the integration of academic calendars and a structured supervision framework. The study also emphasizes the significance of an evaluative process covering contextual, input, process, and outcome dimensions. Ultimately, this research underscores the critical role of an integrated curriculum in nurturing well-rounded individuals equipped to navigate the complexities of the modern world, offering valuable insights for educational practitioners and policymakers

Ready for Tomorrow: Demand-Side Emerging Skills for the 21st Century

As part of the Ready for the Job demand-side skill assessment, the Heldrich Center explored emerging work skills that will affect New Jersey's workforce in the next three to five years. The Heldrich Center identified five specific areas likely to generate new skill demands: biotechnology, security, e-learning, e-commerce, and food/agribusiness. This report explores the study's findings and offers recommendations for improving education and training in New Jersey

RTST Trend Report: lead theme Contextualisation

Specht, M., Börner, D., Tabuenca, B., Ternier, S., De Vries, F., Kalz, M., Drachsler, H., & Schmitz, B. (2012). RTST Trend Report: lead theme Contextualisation. Deliverable 1.7 of STELLAR network of excellence. Heerlen, The Netherlands.In summary this trend-scouting report highlights different design dimensions of contextualizing learning. On the one hand designing educational context: the components and constituents of the educational setting, which also have to be orchestrated in an instructional design or the process of orchestration (Luckin, 2010, Specht, 2009) on the other hand bridging and linking learning contexts for seamless learning support: Wong et al. define design dimensions of seamless learning experiences and which gaps they identify and what challenges must be tackled to create seamless learning experiences (Wong, 2011).STELLAR Network of Excellence, Grant 23191

Evolutionary science as a method to facilitate higher level thinking and reasoning in medical training

abstract: Evolutionary science is indispensable for understanding biological processes. Effective medical treatment must be anchored in sound biology. However, currently the insights available from evolutionary science are not adequately incorporated in either pre-medical or medical school curricula. To illuminate how evolution may be helpful in these areas, examples in which the insights of evolutionary science are already improving medical treatment and ways in which evolutionary reasoning can be practiced in the context of medicine are provided. To facilitate the learning of evolutionary principles, concepts derived from evolutionary science that medical students and professionals should understand are outlined. These concepts are designed to be authoritative and at the same time easily accessible for anyone with the general biological knowledge of a first-year medical student. Thus, we conclude that medical practice informed by evolutionary principles will be more effective and lead to better patient outcomes. Furthermore, it is argued that evolutionary medicine complements general medical training because it provides an additional means by which medical students can practice the critical thinking skills that will be important in their future practice. We argue that core concepts from evolutionary science have the potential to improve critical thinking and facilitate more effective learning in medical training.The final version of this article, as published in Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, can be viewed online at: https://academic.oup.com/emph/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/emph/eow02