‘A double-edged sword. This is powerful but it could be used destructively’: Perspectives of early career education researchers on learning analytics

Learning analytics has been increasingly outlined as a powerful tool for measuring, analysing, and predicting learning experiences and behaviours. The rising use of learning analytics means that many educational researchers now require new ranges of technical analytical skills to contribute to an increasingly data-heavy field. However, it has been argued that educational data scientists are a ‘scarce breed’ (Buckingham Shum et al., 2013) and that more resources are needed to support the next generation of early career researchers in the education field. At the same time, little is known about how early career education researchers feel towards learning analytics and whether it is important to their current and future research practices. Using a thematic analysis of a participatory learning analytics workshop discussions with 25 early career education researchers, we outline in this article their ambitions, challenges and anxieties towards learning analytics. In doing so, we have provided a roadmap for how the learning analytics field might evolve and practical implications for supporting early career researchers’ development

Enhancing Free-text Interactions in a Communication Skills Learning Environment

Learning environments frequently use gamification to enhance user interactions.Virtual characters with whom players engage in simulated conversations often employ prescripted dialogues; however, free user inputs enable deeper immersion and higher-order cognition. In our learning environment, experts developed a scripted scenario as a sequence of potential actions, and we explore possibilities for enhancing interactions by enabling users to type free inputs that are matched to the pre-scripted statements using Natural Language Processing techniques. In this paper, we introduce a clustering mechanism that provides recommendations for fine-tuning the pre-scripted answers in order to better match user inputs

Aerospace medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 177

This bibliography lists 112 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1978

Design features for computer-supported complex systems learning and teaching in high school science classrooms

While research on teaching and learning about complex systems has achieved solid grounding in the learning sciences, few educational studies have focused on articulating design features for classroom implementation that can serve a modular purpose for building curricular and instructional experiences. Furthermore, despite the fact that several studies describe important roles for teachers in constructing successful classroom learning experiences, only a few of them examine how teachers’ instructional practices, knowledge, and beliefs influence student learning outcomes and the extent to which teachers are interested and willing to teach through complex systems approaches. Furthermore, we do not know what supports teachers themselves say that they need to teach about complex systems in their classrooms. In this study, we present a curriculum and instruction framework that outlines how teaching and learning about complex systems in high school science classroom contexts can be done. We articulate the features of the framework and provide examples of how the framework is translated into practice. We follow with evidence from an exploratory study conducted with 10 teachers and over 300 students aimed at understanding change in teachers’ instructional practices; the extent to which students learned from the activities; what teachers’ perceptions were in terms of utility and usability; and what other supports teachers needed

Design-activity-sequence: A case study and polyphonic analysis of learning in a digital design thinking workshop

In this case study, we report on the outcomes of a one-day workshop on design thinking attended by participants from the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning conference in Philadelphia in 2017. We highlight the interactions between the workshop design, structured as a design thinking process around the design of a digital environment for design thinking, and the diverse backgrounds and interests of its participants. Data from in-workshop reflections and post-workshop interviews were analyzed using a novel set of analytical approaches, a combination the facilitators made by possible by welcoming participants as coresearchers

Impacts on student understanding of scientific practices and crosscutting themes through an NGSS–designed computer-supported curriculum and instruction project

This paper presents a curriculum intervention intentionally designed to align with Next Generation Science Standards in the high-school biology classroom. The project emphasizes learning about complex systems through an agent-based modeling tool called StarLogo Nova. Five curricular units have been developed on the topics of enzymes, ecology, protein synthesis, gene regulation, and sugar transport. In this exploratory study we were interested in understanding the extent to which students demonstrated understanding and skills in NGSS areas as they were designed. Evidence is gleaned from classroom observations and interviews with 50 students selected from the larger population of 352 students who worked with project resources during the 2013-2014 school year. Findings revealed that students demonstrated understanding and skills in all NGSS scientific practices and crosscutting themes particularly in the areas of developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, cause and effect, and systems and system models

Bridgewater College Catalog, Session 2014-15

https://digitalcommons.bridgewater.edu/college_catalogs/1120/thumbnail.jp