Automata Tutor v3

Computer science class enrollments have rapidly risen in the past decade. With current class sizes, standard approaches to grading and providing personalized feedback are no longer possible and new techniques become both feasible and necessary. In this paper, we present the third version of Automata Tutor, a tool for helping teachers and students in large courses on automata and formal languages. The second version of Automata Tutor supported automatic grading and feedback for finite-automata constructions and has already been used by thousands of users in dozens of countries. This new version of Automata Tutor supports automated grading and feedback generation for a greatly extended variety of new problems, including problems that ask students to create regular expressions, context-free grammars, pushdown automata and Turing machines corresponding to a given description, and problems about converting between equivalent models - e.g., from regular expressions to nondeterministic finite automata. Moreover, for several problems, this new version also enables teachers and students to automatically generate new problem instances. We also present the results of a survey run on a class of 950 students, which shows very positive results about the usability and usefulness of the tool

ITSB: An Intelligent Tutoring System Authoring Tool

Abstract. Intelligent Tutoring System Builder (ITSB) is an authoring tool designed and developed to aid teachers in constructing intelligent tutoring systems in a multidisciplinary fields. The teacher is needed to create a set of pedagogical fundamentals, which, in line, are inured to automatically build up a broad tutor framework and construct an intelligent tutoring system. In this paper an explanation of the theory and the architecture of the tool is outlined. A presentation of several system components, the requirements of the different components, integration of these components in ITSB tool are shown. Furthermore, implanting of requirements, cognitive principle, and common design fundamentals in the tool to ease the use of teachers. A variety of design matters, an example of building an intelligent tutoring system for teaching Java language using ITSB tool and an evaluation are presented

Working with student expectations of tutor support in distance education: testing an expectations‐led quality assurance model

Action research studies in the United Kingdom with Open University students have shown that students come to distance education courses with variable expectations of the levels of service and support they will receive from their tutors. It has been further suggested that a specific expectations-led quality assurance process that enables the sharing of these expectations before a course starts could be of mutual benefit to the student and the tutor, as well as generally improving the overall quality of tutor support provided by the distance learning organisation. This process, it is argued, would be appreciated by the students, have beneficial effects on student satisfaction with tutor support, reducing student drop-out and increasing course completion rates. Could such a process that asks tutors to collect student expectations before a course begins be instituted effectively into a distance learning organisation and how would students and tutors respond to it? This paper reports on a large-scale project carried out by Oscail (the Irish National Distance Education Centre) aimed at developing and testing how students and tutors valued being involved in just such an Open and Distance Learning expectations-led quality assurance process. In the study reported here, all 96 tutors on an Oscail B.A. distance learning programme were asked two weeks before their course began to circulate the student expectations questionnaire to the 950 students on their tutorial lists. Tutors were asked to collect the questionnaires, reflect on the expectations of the students and consider how their tutorial practice and student support might change as a result of the exercise. Tutor and student views on the effectiveness of the exercise were also gathered through questionnaires and focus group meetings. The findings suggested that the majority of students and tutors involved in the study did see the value of the process and that it did help tutors (especially newly appointed ones) consider and respond to the type of support students hoped to receive. The practice of issuing student expectation questionnaires has now been embedded in Oscail introductory courses

Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue six: Innovative practice in assessment

Welcome to this, the sixth edition of Innovative Learning in Action (ILIA) which focuses our attention on the theme of innovative practice in assessment. On the face of it, innovative assessment may be regarded as any form of assessment which involves the application of a new technique, method or tool. However, to quote Graham Mohl (2007): ‘Innovative assessment is not just some trendy new technique dreamt-up purely to save on the amount of time teachers spend on marking, it is a genuine attempt to improve quality of learning in higher education. If we do save time in the process then all the better for our own learning.’ http://www.city.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberation s/assessment/mowl_index.html. The range of work in this edition of ILIA demonstrates how colleagues are readily embracing this fundamental principle. These papers and snapshots show us how contributors are actively exploring, reviewing and modifying their practice to address assessment principles and strategies helping to produce active learners who are reasoning, critical, highly motivated, capable of self-evaluation and equipped with transferable skills to enable them to flourish in the 21st century global economy. Whilst covering diverse and extensive territory both conceptually and practically, in their entirety these works share common ground in embracing the notion of ‘the redistribution of educational power’ (Heron, 1981). Assessment therefore becomes something which is not simply ‘done to’ students, but it is also ‘done by’ and ‘done with’ students (Harris and Bell, 1990) and is as much about enhancing the quality of their learning as it is about measuring their performance. Some of these works may challenge traditional positions and approaches and in so doing I hope they will provide you with a stimulating and thought-provoking opportunity to reflect on practice and student learning

Evaluating tutor training for online PBL teamwork courses in first year engineering

The use of Problem-based Learning and other collaborative pedagogies in undergraduate engineering courses is recommended by a plethora of learning theory and research on educational best-practice, particularly for Applied Sciences such as Medicine and Engineering. One barrier to implementing and sustaining these curricular and pedagogical approaches lies in the development of the appropriate knowledge and skills and a consistent and appropriate approach in the teaching team. A significant change from the traditional pedagogies employed by tutors and the training of tutors is required, if PBL and similar methods are to be effective in delivering their numerous affordances, especially in asynchronous online environments for distance learning. This paper describes the development of a strategy to train engineering tutors in online PBL facilitation, and the evaluation framework used to assess the effectiveness of this training. Results of the evaluation of training and subsequent behavioural changes of the tutors are given. The evaluation revealed a variance between the message of the training and subsequent practice. Recommendations are made about the need for ongoing tutor development and support, and the necessity of evaluation in the implementation of PBL pedagogies

The personal created through dialogue: enhancing possibilities through the use of new media

This paper explores the relationships between a number of different developments in higher education pedagogy, which are subsumed under the broad heading of progress files. The overall concern of the paper is to explore the ways in which personal reflection and learning is enhanced through dialogue. The paper explores the ways learners engage in dialogue in two environments that use different aspects of digital technologies to support the development of portfolios. The findings from the case studies point to the ways in which different technologies facilitated personal reflection mediated through sharing and dialogue. We develop the idea of affordances as a relationship whereby the learner is involved in a purposeful engagement with the possibilities created by their environment. The affordance of digitised technologies in supporting dialogue is, therefore, conceptualised in relation to the characteristics of the learner, not as a simple technology relation

On-line assessment for e-learning: options and opportunities

The desire to produce educational multi-media packages of ever greater sophistication is such that other, more problematic, elements of e- or on- line learning receive less attention by academics and courseware developers alike. One such problematic area is that of assessment, which is surprising, as e-learning assessment procedures are more critical in defining the learning that takes place. However, because e-learning can create a much richer, more varied active learning experience than would normally occur via the passive didactic teaching mode currently utilised in most universities and centred on the use of the lecture, it also has the potential to provide new and innovative assessments modes and systems. The extent to which the potential of innovatory assessment is realised via e-learning depends on two factors. First, the level of computer component and interactivity utilised in elearning. Second, the attitude of academic staff towards their teaching role, and, more specifically, how they operate within an elearning environment. The speed of the development in online technologies and techniques is such that the information given here will not provide all the answers, it should, nevertheless, enable some of the correct questions to be pose