Participatory learner modelling design: a methodology for iterative learner models development

Learner models are built to offer personalised solutions related to learning. They are often developed in parallel to the development of adaptive learning systems and thus, linked to the system’s development. The adaptive learning systems literature reports numerous accounts of learner model development, but there are no reports on the methodological aspects of developing learner models and the relation between the development of the learner model component and the rest of the system. This paper presents the Participatory Learner Modelling Design methodology, which outlines the steps for learner model development and their relation to the development of the system. The methodology is illustrated with a case study of an adaptive educational system

A game theoretical model for a collaborative e-learning platform on privacy awareness

De nos jours, avec l'utilisation croissante des technologies numériques, l'éducation à la préservation de la vie privée joue un rôle important en particulier pour les adolescents. Bien que plusieurs plateformes d'apprentissage en ligne à la sensibilisation à la vie privée aient été mises en œuvre, elles sont généralement basées sur des techniques traditionnelles d'apprentissage. Plus particulièrement, ces plateformes ne permettent pas aux étudiants de coopérer et de partager leurs connaissances afin d’améliorer leur apprentissage ensemble. En d'autres termes, elles manquent d'interactions élève-élève. Des recherches récentes sur les méthodes d'apprentissage montrent que la collaboration entre élèves peut entraîner de meilleurs résultats d'apprentissage par rapport à d'autres approches. De plus, le domaine de la vie privée étant fortement lié à la vie sociale des adolescents, il est préférable de fournir un environnement d'apprentissage collaboratif où l’on peut enseigner la préservation de la vie privée, et en même temps, permettre aux étudiants de partager leurs connaissances. Il serait souhaitable que ces derniers puissent interagir les uns avec les autres, résoudre des questionnaires en collaboration et discuter de problèmes et de situations de confidentialité. À cet effet, ce travail propose « Teens-online », une plateforme d'apprentissage en ligne collaborative pour la sensibilisation à la vie privée. Le programme d'études fourni dans cette plateforme est basé sur le Référentiel de formation des élèves à la protection des données personnelles. De plus, la plateforme proposée est équipée d'un mécanisme d'appariement de partenaires basé sur la théorie des jeux. Ce mécanisme garantit un appariement élève-élève stable en fonction des besoins de l'élève (comportement et / ou connaissances). Ainsi, des avantages mutuels seront obtenus en minimisant les chances de coopérer avec des pairs incompatibles. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent que l'utilité moyenne obtenue en appliquant l'algorithme proposé est beaucoup plus élevée que celle obtenue en utilisant d'autres mécanismes d'appariement. Les résultats suggèrent qu'en adoptant l'approche proposée, chaque élève peut être jumelé avec des partenaires optimaux, qui obtiennent également en retour des résultats d'apprentissage plus élevés.Nowadays, with the increasing use of digital technologies, especially for teenagers, privacy education plays an important role in their lives. While several e-learning platforms for privacy awareness training have been implemented, they are typically based on traditional learning techniques. In particular, these platforms do not allow students to cooperate and share knowledge with each other in order to achieve mutual benefits and improve learning outcomes. In other words, they lack student-student interaction. Recent research on learning methods shows that the collaboration among students can result in better learning outcomes compared to other learning approaches. Motivated by the above-mentioned facts, and since privacy domain is strongly linked to the social lives of teens, there is a pressing need for providing a collaborative learning platform for teaching privacy, and at the same time, allows students to share knowledge, interact with each other, solve quizzes collaboratively, and discuss privacy issues and situations. For this purpose, this work proposes “Teens-online”, a collaborative e-learning platform for privacy awareness. The curriculum provided in this platform is based on the Personal Data Protection Competency Framework for School Students. Moreover, the proposed platform is equipped with a partner-matching mechanism based on matching game theory. This mechanism guarantees a stable student-student matching according to a student's need (behavior and/or knowledge). Thus, mutual benefits will be attained by minimizing the chances of cooperating with incompatible students. Experimental results show that the average learning-related utility obtained by applying the proposed partner-matching algorithm is much higher than the average utility obtained using other matching mechanisms. The results also suggest that by adopting the proposed approach, each student can be paired with their optimal partners, which in turn helps them reach their highest learning outcomes

Adapting Collaborative Learning Tools to Support Group Peer Mentorship

Group peer mentorship is a relatively new addition to the area of collaborative learning. We see an untapped potential in supporting this model of mentorship with the existing collaborative learning tools like peer review and wiki. Therefore, we proposed to use a modified peer review system and a modified wiki system. From our preliminary studies using both peer review and wiki systems, we found that participants preferred the peer-review system to the wiki system in supporting them for mentorship. Therefore, this dissertation specifically addresses how to adapt the peer review system to support group peer mentorship. We proposed a modified peer review system, which comprises seven stages – initial submission of the first draft of the paper by the author, the review of author’s paper by peer reviewers, release of review feedback to the author, back-evaluation of their reviews by the authors, modification of the paper by the author, submission of the final paper and the final stage where both authors and reviewers provide an evaluation of the peer review process with respect to their learning, their perception of the helpfulness of the process, and their satisfaction with the process. We also proposed to use our group matching algorithm, based on some constraints and the principles of the Hungarian algorithm, to achieve a diversified grouping of peers for each peer review session. With these, we conducted six peer review studies with the graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Saskatchewan and teachers in Chile. This dissertation reports on the findings from these studies. We found that peer review, with some modifications, is a good tool to facilitate group peer mentorship. An evaluation of the performance of our group matching algorithm showed an improvement over three other algorithms, with respect to three metrics – knowledge gain of peers, time and space consumption of the algorithm. Finally, this dissertation also shows that wiki has the potential to support group peer mentorship, but needs further research

User behaviour-driven group formation through case-based reasoning and clustering

Group formation for collaborative learning activities is a complex and time consuming task. Different criteria have been proposed for grouping learners in computer-based systems, such as performance and social characteristics. User behaviour is, however, rarely considered when groups are formed. This paper proposes an approach based on user behaviour that complements the current research on group formation based on different criteria. For this purpose, we propose a synergetic approach based on case-based reasoning and clustering to form groups on the basis of user behaviour. Case based reasoning is used to model user behaviour, while clustering uses the output of the CBR mechanism as criteria for placing learners in relevant clusters. The proposed approach is illustrated using an exploratory learning environment for mathematical generalisation called eXpresser