22,591 research outputs found
Introduction of CAA into a mathematics course for technology students to address a change in curriculum requirements
The mathematical requirements for engineering, science and technology students has been debated for many years and concern has been expressed about the mathematical preparedness of students entering higher education. This paper considers a mathematics course that has been specifically designed to address some of these issues for technology education students. It briefly chronicles the changes that have taken place over its lifetime and evaluates the introduction of Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) into a course already being delivered using Computer Aided Learning (CAL).
Benefits of CAA can be categorised into four main areas.
1. Educational – achieved by setting short, topic related, assessments, each of which has to be passed, thereby increasing curriculum coverage.
2. Students – by allowing them to complete assessments at their own pace removing the stress of the final examination.
3. Financial – increased income to the institution, by broadening access to the course. Improved retention rate due to self-paced learning.
4. Time – staff no longer required to set and mark exams.
Most students preferred this method of assessment to traditional exams, because it increased confidence and reduced stress levels. Self-paced working, however, resulted in a minority of students not completing the tests by the deadline
Discovering the Value of Multidisciplinary Approaches to Research: Insights from a Sabbatical
In this informal report, I outline my research efforts, collaborations, and
other experiences while participating in the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)'s
Advanced Graduate Research Program (AGRP), aka Sabbatical, from October 2008
through September 2009. This report is in no way intended to present the
technical details of the various research projects, but rather a broad overview
of the small ways my efforts may have contributed to ongoing research. I wish
to convey to the reader the value of multidisciplinary approaches to scientific
research and how the AGRP facilitates these opportunities.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
A Fast Quartet Tree Heuristic for Hierarchical Clustering
The Minimum Quartet Tree Cost problem is to construct an optimal weight tree
from the weighted quartet topologies on objects, where
optimality means that the summed weight of the embedded quartet topologies is
optimal (so it can be the case that the optimal tree embeds all quartets as
nonoptimal topologies). We present a Monte Carlo heuristic, based on randomized
hill climbing, for approximating the optimal weight tree, given the quartet
topology weights. The method repeatedly transforms a dendrogram, with all
objects involved as leaves, achieving a monotonic approximation to the exact
single globally optimal tree. The problem and the solution heuristic has been
extensively used for general hierarchical clustering of nontree-like
(non-phylogeny) data in various domains and across domains with heterogeneous
data. We also present a greatly improved heuristic, reducing the running time
by a factor of order a thousand to ten thousand. All this is implemented and
available, as part of the CompLearn package. We compare performance and running
time of the original and improved versions with those of UPGMA, BioNJ, and NJ,
as implemented in the SplitsTree package on genomic data for which the latter
are optimized.
Keywords: Data and knowledge visualization, Pattern
matching--Clustering--Algorithms/Similarity measures, Hierarchical clustering,
Global optimization, Quartet tree, Randomized hill-climbing,Comment: LaTeX, 40 pages, 11 figures; this paper has substantial overlap with
arXiv:cs/0606048 in cs.D
Experimental verification of vapor deposition model in Mach 0.3 burner rigs
A comprehensive theoretical framework of deposition from combustion gases was developed covering the spectrum of various mass delivery mechanisms including vapor, thermophoretically enhanced small particle, and inertially impacting large particle deposition. Rational yet simple correlations were provided to facilitate engineering surface arrival rate predictions. Experimental verification of the deposition theory was validated using burner rigs. Toward this end, a Mach 0.3 burner rig apparatus was designed to measure deposition rates from salt-seeded combustion gases on an internally cooled cylindrical collector
Viewing puzzles as two-faced: theoretical and practical implications for Puzzle-based Learning
The Puzzle-based Learning approach has been applied to several fields of knowledge. In education
research papers, the instructional usage of puzzles is considered to improve learners’ motivation
and engagement and help them to develop critical skills but difficulties concerning learners’
interaction with puzzles have also been pointed out. Our paper investigates the dynamics of the
concept of a puzzle and its interface to provide a better understanding of its form and functions,
and help learners interact with puzzles. We consider Puzzle-based Learning tenets as well as their
educational impacts on both critical thinking and learner engagement and provide an original
proposal concerning the understanding of puzzles. Our proposal centered on the dynamics of
puzzles bears conceptual and educational facets. Conceptually, puzzle dynamics is viewed as
composed of two elements: a mechanism, the Puzzle Trigger, and a process, the Puzzle-Solving.
From an educational point of view, the rationale for integrating Puzzle Triggers in Puzzle-based
Learning is meant to help learners interact with puzzles and consequently become motivated and
engaged in the Puzzle-Solving process. This way, learners’ critical thinking skills are reinforced
and focused on finding solutions to challenges. We illustrate the implementation of Puzzle
Triggers and Puzzle-Solving by considering two instructional activities in a Software Development undergraduate course of an online learning Informatics Engineering Program.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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