Towards efficient provision of feedback supported by learning analytics

Proceedings of: 2012 12th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2012). Rome, Italy, 04-06 July, 2012.Problem-based learning lab sessions shape a demanding environment, both for students as well for the teaching staff, due to the additional support required. This applies particularly to overcrowded classes. Under these conditions, some aspects do not perform well, like the efficiency of the provision of feedback and the orchestration of the session, jeopardizing the effectiveness of the learning activity. Based on empirical observation, a characterization of lab sessions has been carried out, integrating both qualitative and quantitative parameters describing the interactions that take place. Based on such characterization, a supporting tool is proposed to make use of the students' logs, learning analytics and visualization techniques for providing monitoring and awareness mechanisms for leveraging the detected problems and thus improving the learning and assessment processes.Research partially supported by the Spanish Plan Nacional de I+D+I projects “Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI) and “EEE” (TIN2011-28308-C03-01), and the Madrid regional project “eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650).Publicad

Developing teacher-researchers: a practice-based Masters of Education

Teachers’ work can increasingly be described as knowledge work conducted in a rapidly changing globalised, digital environment. In order to support contemporary teachers’ work, professional learning needs to be grounded in the contexts and identities of teachers, while engaging them in theoretical discourse. Such an approach challenges traditional approaches to the offering of a Masters in Education by distance learning. This presentation reports on a university-educational authority partnership designed to enable practising teachers to gain Masters qualifications through practice-based ethnographic data collection and research. The context of this partnership is a new professional learning program being offered by Deakin University, Australia and the Catholic Education Office Melbourne. Teachers plan and conduct projects in which they identify an issue to be addressed at their school; research the issue identified; develop and implement an intervention to address the issue; and report on the intervention. Teachers have the option of gaining credit towards a Masters of Education by submitting their work for formal assessment. The participants in this mixed methods study are teachers who are undertaking the post-graduate units embedded in a professional learning program. Teachers are invited to undertake anonymous online pre- and post- surveys with both qualitative and quantitative data collected. Data is also collected through teacher interviews and collection of classroom artefacts including planning documents and work samples. Initial findings illustrate that a practice-based approach to Masters studies engages teachers as creators rather than reproducers of knowledge. The use of a range of print and new digital media both within the design and operation of an online learning environment and pedagogies for effective adult professional learning enable flexible and creative pedagogical responses and knowledge creation by teachers

Perception towards sustainability polytechnic campus in Malaysia

The higher learning institutions in Malaysia are currently in the stage of integrating sustainable components in the campus planning and management. In the case of campuses that are located within a fast growing urban context and threatened by uncontrolled physical and social development, it is very important to ensure the sustainability of the campus environment. Due to the piecemeal planning, buildings are isolated and the public spaces are illegible. As a result, the campus environment is found to be less responsive, environmentally and socially. The aim of this study is to examine the aspects of green and eco-nature based on the users’ perception that influence the environmental and social sustainability of polytechnic campuses in Malaysia. Questionnaire surveys were conducted on 300 polytechnic communities from two premier polytechnics to identify their perceptions towards the institution in the context of sustainability. It is discovered that comfort, health, green and safety are highlighted as the most important components of sustainable campus environment. The survey results indicate that polytechnic communities in Malaysia are strongly concerned with the recreational needs and the functional use of the spaces. The need is to provide learning and working environment that support the well-being of the campus community. The findings of this study are useful reference for planners, architects, urban designers and Department of Polytechnic, Ministry of Higher Education in their effort to create a sustainable polytechnic campus. This will be in line with the aim of the polytechnics Transformation Plan 2010 to transform polytechnics into a preferred institution for higher learning

Discovering Schema-based Action Sequences through Play in Situated Humanoid Robots

Exercising sensorimotor and cognitive functions allows humans, including infants, to interact with the environment and objects within it. In particular, during everyday activities, infants continuously enrich their repertoire of actions, and by playing, they experimentally plan such actions in sequences to achieve desired goals. The latter, reflected as perceptual target states, are built on previously acquired experiences shaped by infants to predict their actions. Imitating this, in developmental robotics, we seek methods that allow autonomous embodied agents with no prior knowledge to acquire information about the environment. Like infants, robots that actively explore the surroundings and manipulate proximate objects are capable of learning. Their understanding of the environment develops through the discovery of actions and their association with the resulting perceptions in the world. We extend the development of Dev-PSchema, a schema-based, open-ended learning system, and examine the infant-like discovery process of new generalised skills while engaging with objects in free-play using an iCub robot. Our experiments demonstrate the capability of Dev-PSchema to utilise the newly discovered skills to solve user-defined goals beyond its past experiences. The robot can generate and evaluate sequences of interdependent high-level actions to form potential solutions and ultimately solve complex problems towards tool-use

The Effects of Field-Based Learning on the Knowledge, Behaviors and Practices of Teachers and Students

The outdoor environment has the potential to serve as a teeming laboratory with numerous opportunities for students to study various science-related phenomena and processes. However important teachers deem outdoor experiences in science, they also bear doubts about their abilities to teach in these natural surroundings. Providing teachers with the training necessary to teach using field-based activities would help develop and strengthen the teachers\u27 and consequently their students\u27 interest in science, their background knowledge of basic science concepts and processes and possibly affect their behaviors towards the environment. This study was designed to measure the extent science teachers\u27 field-based learning experiences affected their pedagogical effectiveness, the frequency of their field offerings and their students\u27 attitudes, knowledge and behaviors relating to science and environmental education. The subjects of the study were middle school and secondary education teachers (N=100) and middle school and secondary level students (N=270). The teachers participated in a program entitled PLAN-IT EARTH (Pairing Learners And Nature with Innovative Technology for the Environmental Assessment of Resources, Trends and Habitats). They took part in an intense weeklong residential workshop during the summer pertaining to training techniques and activities that focused on field-based teaching techniques and innovative instructional strategies. The program design was based on a developmental framework of exploration, concept introduction and application exercises. The teachers answered a preliminary survey before beginning their training. These data were compared with questionnaires filled out after the training and five months into the program (February and March of a regular school year). Randomly selected portfolios, which all the teachers in the program were required to keep, were viewed and evaluated. Interviews were also conducted with randomly selected teachers (n=5). The middle school and secondary students completed instruments which measured their attitudes towards science, learning methods their teachers implemented, their favorite subject areas and their feelings about learning in the outdoors. Randomly selected students (n=7) were also interviewed about their favorite methods of learning science and how their perceptions of education and the environment. Results indicated that a high percentage of teachers utilized a large number of the teaching methods indicated on the survey. There was a higher ranking of extensive use of teaching methods on the posttest than were on the pretest. Teaching in the outdoors and using field trip excursions were both high ranking methods. It was concluded based on the results of the survey that teachers incorporated teaching in the outdoors more frequently after their training. Also concluded by student surveys and student interviews, was that field-based activities fostered positive attitudes about the environment and the educational means on how to improve their surroundings. Students involved in the study overwhelmingly rated science as their favorite subject and ranked field trips/field activities as their most preferred method of learning

Application of Learning Theories in Clinical Education

Introduction: The purpose of education is learning. Several theories have been raised about learning, which have tried to explain how learning occurs. They help teachers to choose teaching methods, prepare learning environment and determine students' activities. Given the importance of learning theories in education, this study aimed to review application of learning theories in nursing education. Methods: In this study, some related published literatures during 2000-2010 were selected using key words including learning, theory and nursing education. Then the selected materials were reviewed for extracting application of learning theories in nursing education. Application of behavioral learning theories, cognitive theories (including Gestalt theory, information processing, Ausubel meaningful learning, constructivism, Bandura's social learning) and adult learning theory in nursing education were discussed in this article. Results: Some applications of behavioral theories are teaching in a sequential, simple to complex pattern teaching the skills using behavioral objectives for determining learning outcomes and assessment and providing teaching plan using the nursing process and nursing care plans and positive reinforcement. Principles of Gestalt theory have been used in mental organization towards simplicity, directed balance and equilibrium, and selective stimulus perception. Writing narratives and portfolio are samples of the application of constructive theory. Role models have been used in social cognitive theory. Based on adult learning theory, learners should be active and taught material should be applicable for them. Conclusion: Each learning theory has the particular application. Nursing educators must apply proper learning theories regarding students' experience and target material

University faculty members' attitudes towards student centred learning

The Malaysian National Higher Education Strategic Plan launched in 2011 by the Ministry of Higher Education emphasised the student centred learning (SCL) approach for all institutions of higher education. In SCL, the focus of instruction is transferred from the teacher to the students who are expected to take greater responsibility for learning. The strategic plan also calls for a strengthening of higher education faculty members’ capacity in implementing SCL in the learning environment. Based on the aforesaid reasons, it is important for lecturers to be competent in implementing SCL. At the same time, it is also important to ensure that they possess positive attitudes towards SCL. Affective characteristics should not be overlooked as there is evidence to suggest the link between attitude and behaviour. This study explores faculty members’ attitudes towards SCL at a leading research university in Malaysia. The study also examined if gender and academic seniority had an impact on the SCL attitudes of lecturers. Descriptive results revealed that faculty members possessed positive attitudes towards SCL. Gender made a difference in attitudes towards SCL, with female faculty members favouring the SCL approach more than their male counterparts. Academic seniority, however, did not have a bearing on preference towards SCL

Sample Efficient Bayesian Reinforcement Learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been an active field of research for over a century now. The research field of AI may be grouped into various tasks that are expected from an intelligent agent; two major ones being learning & inference and planning. The act of storing new knowledge is known as learning while inference refers to the act to extracting conclusions given agent’s limited knowledge base. They are tightly knit by the design of its knowledge base. The process of deciding long-term actions or plans given its current knowledge is called planning.Reinforcement Learning (RL) brings together these two tasks by posing a seemingly benign question “How to act optimally in an unknown environment?”. This requires the agent to learn about its environment as well as plan actions given its current knowledge about it. In RL, the environment can be represented by a mathematical model and we associate an intrinsic value to the actions that the agent may choose.In this thesis, we present a novel Bayesian algorithm for the problem of RL. Bayesian RL is a widely explored area of research but is constrained by scalability and performance issues. We provide first steps towards rigorous analysis of these types of algorithms. Bayesian algorithms are characterized by the belief that they maintain over their unknowns; which is updated based on the collected evidence. This is different from the traditional approach in RL in terms of problem formulation and formal guarantees. Our novel algorithm combines aspects of planning and learning due to its inherent Bayesian formulation. It does so in a more scalable fashion, with formal PAC guarantees. We also give insights on the application of Bayesian framework for the estimation of model and value, in a joint work on Bayesian backward induction for RL

The Ripple Effect: How One Rural School Can Embrace Indigenous Learning on a Journey Towards Truth and Reconciliation

In a K–9 rural school in Alberta, the lack of opportunities for land-based learning and understanding of Indigenous truths, histories, and ways of knowing creates a significant gap in knowledge that is an ethical obligation to address. For the school to engage in social justice and transformation to address this problem of practice, it is crucial to address this gap and work towards decolonization and indigenization. The goal of this Organizational Improvement Plan is to ensure that staff gain a deep awareness and understanding of the historical oppression and marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Canada due to colonization, both historically and through colonial systems that persist today. This transformational process will require building the critical consciousness of the staff and creating a compassionate learning environment that enables them to engage in this important work. Although the school has a racially homogenous population, it is imperative to take a firm anticolonial stance to address the legacy of colonialism that has been perpetuated in Canada for centuries. The change implementation plan adopts systems thinking to facilitate social change by recognizing the interconnectedness of different parts of the school system. It allows for a comprehensive understanding of the social issue being addressed in the problem of practice. A knowledge mobilization plan is developed to effectively disseminate the insights gained from the implementation to stakeholders and the wider community. By leveraging anticolonial theory and taking a proactive approach to education, staff can build the necessary awareness, attitudes, and actions to support decolonization and indigenization in the school and beyond. Keywords: decolonization, indigenization, social justice, anticolonial theory, critical consciousness, systems thinkin