Research statement: inference of human-computing algorithms from massive-scale educational interventions

The main goal of the present research statement is to develop an educational computerized framework able to detect in which tasks a child has difficulties and generate a personalized intervention based on automatic observation and evaluation of data, as part of an interdisciplinary project at the crossroads of Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Biology and Psychology. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Research statement: inference of human-computing algorithms from massive-scale educational interventions

The main goal of the present research statement is to develop an educational computerized framework able to detect in which tasks a child has difficulties and generate a personalized intervention based on automatic observation and evaluation of data, as part of an interdisciplinary project at the crossroads of Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Biology and Psychology. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Escalando la enseñanza de programación en tiempos de pandemia: desafíos y oportunidades

En el marco del proyecto de Inteligencia Artificial Interdisciplinaria de UNSAM se lanzó, enmarzo de 2020, la materia Programación en Python. La pandemia de COVID-19 nos tomó porsorpresa y esa cursada se transformó en virtual. Para el segundo cuatrimestre ya contábamoscon experiencia y capacidad de previsión lo que permitió cambiar radicalmente el enfoque del curso, y llevar adelante una completa virtualización de la metodología pedagógica. Esteescrito relata la experiencia de docencia a distancia detallando herramientas y resultadosobservados en un curso con cientos de alumnos de grado y posgrado, de Argentina y delextranjero. Culmina discutiendo sobre necesidades pendientes y posibilidades a futuro. Enparticular, si bien la pandemia de COVID-19 ha destrozado muchas de nuestras mejorescostumbres y prácticas, también ha acelerado una verdadera disrupción pedagógica generandonuevos espacios para la labor docente, que pueden aprovecharse para dictar cursos máshorizontales, federales e inclusivos.In March 2020, within the interdisciplinary artificial intelligence project from UNSAM, “Python Programming” was launched. COVID-19 pandemics surprised us and we were forced to transform a previously course thought as face-to-face into completely virtual. For the following semester, we were already experienced and with sufficient prevision we were able to completely change the focus of the course and adequate it to the new conditions. We managed to accomplish this by adding teachers from different disciplines which led us to successfully provide a completely virtual pedagogic methodology. This text resumes our virtual teaching experience detailing our pedagogic approach and observed results in a course with hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students from Argentina and abroad. We end with a discussion on pending needs and future possibilities. Although the COVID-19 pandemics has trashed our best practices and customs, it has also hastened a true pedagogical disruption creating new spaces for teachers that should be seized for more horizontal, federal and inclusive courses.Fil: Cerdeiro, Manuela. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Cálculo; ArgentinaFil: Crespo, José Emilio. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Filevich, Oscar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Instituto de Tecnologias Emergentes y Ciencias Aplicadas. - Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Instituto de Tecnologias Emergentes y Ciencias Aplicadas.; ArgentinaFil: Grimson, Rafael. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: López y Rosenfeld, Matías. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación; Argentin

Temperament Predicts Processing Speed in Low Socioeconomic Status Rural Preschoolers

Extreme poverty all over the world is concentrated in rural settings. However, studies about cognition in low socioeconomic status (SES) children are for the most part conducted in urban populations. This paper investigates, in a poor rural sample, what are the individual and socioenvironmental variables that make the difference in performance in a processing speed task. Forty four 5-year-old children were evaluated with a processing speed task; individual and socioenvironmental information was obtained from parents’ interviews. Higher scores in the effortful control dimension of temperament were associated with higher performance in the processing speed task. No other individual or socioenvironmental variable predicted the performance. These results showed that effortful control is important in processing speed and suggest that in low SES rural contexts, low effortful control children would require stronger interventions.Fil: Hermida, Maria Julia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Hurlingham; Argentina. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Argentina. Fundación Mundo Sano; ArgentinaFil: Segretin, María Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Centro de Educación Médica e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno"; ArgentinaFil: Shalóm, Diego Edgar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: López y Rosenfeld, Matías. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Centro de Educación Médica e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno"; ArgentinaFil: Abril, Marcelo Claudio. Fundación Mundo Sano; ArgentinaFil: Lipina, Sebastián Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Centro de Educación Médica e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno"; ArgentinaFil: Sigman, Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Argentina. Universidad Nebrija; Españ

School of Sciences embraces programming (Exactas Programa): reaching every corner of Science

Las herramientas computacionales juegan un rol cada vez mas importante en casi todas las disciplinas cientificas y tecnologicas, asi como el sector gubernamental y la industria. El saber programar, por otro lado, no ha sido formalmente incorporado como conocimiento requerido para los graduados de las distintas instituciones educativas, tales como laFacultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (o simplemente Exactas como la llamamos) de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en Argentina. Esta fuerte contradiccion podria llevarnos a que los futuros cientificos tengan una pobre preparacion en terminos de las herramientas computacionales que deberian utilizar en sus tareas diarias. Para solucionar este complejo escenario, es necesario incorporar el potencial que ofrece la Computacion en las diferentes carreras. Saber como escribir un programa para resolver un problema es mucho que aprender a programar, es una aproximacion activa que ayuda a los estudiantes a organizar su razonamiento logico en forma de pasos claros y concisos.Ayuda a consolidar el entendimiento del problema en si, mas alla de la disciplina de que se trate. Nuestro objetivo al crear Exactas Programa es proveer los elementosesenciales de programacion, sin introducir una asignatura completa en su plan de estudios ya exigente, buscando que los estudiantes puedan incorporar a la computadora como una herramienta practica que los asista en la resolucion de problemas.Con este objetivo en mente, hemos formado un equipo de trabajo conformado por profesores, auxiliares, estudiantes de doctorado de diferentes disciplinas para asegurar una mirada interdisciplinaria que combine diferentes motivaciones para el uso de la computadora para presentar desafios transversales a las distintas disciplinas. El resultado, ExactasPrograma, no es un curso de programacion, es un taller de resolucion de problemas en el que la computadora tiene el rol principal.En este trabajo, compartimos la estructura del curso, los detalles de las actividades incluidas y algunas lecciones que aprendimos luego de haber dictado el taller en cinco oportunidades.Computational tools play an increasingly central role in almost all scientific and technological disciplines, as well as throughout both Government and Industry sectors. Programming skills, on the contrary, have not been formally incorporated as required knowledge for graduates of educational institutions, such as the School of Sciences (or simply Exactas as we call it in Spanish) of the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. This sharp contradiction could lead to the poor preparation of future scientists in terms of the necessary use of computational tools in their daily activities. To address this skill gap, it is necessary to incorporate the great potential of computing into the different curricula. Knowing how to write a program to solve a problem is far more than learning to write a piece of code; it is an active learning approach that helps students organize the logical reasoning steps and fosters a solid understanding of the subject matter, regardless of the discipline. Our objective in creating Exactas Programs was to provide the essential elements of programming- without introducing another stumbling block in their already challenging degree programs- so that students of any major can incorporate the computer as a practical problem solving tool. With this objective in mind, we formed a working group of professors, teaching assistants, and doctoral students of different scientific backgrounds to ensure a multidisciplinary initiative that combines different motivations and contexts for the use of the computer in addressing challenges that traverse all majors. The result, Exactas Programs, is not a programming course; it is a short problem-solving workshop in which the computer is the central tool. In this work, we share our proposal’s structure, the details of some of the activities that comprise it, and the lessons learned after five editions of the workshop.Fil: López y Rosenfeld, Matías. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: Mocskos, Esteban Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: González Lebrero, Mariano Camilo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Crespo, José Emilio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Arrar, Mehrnoosh. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Caridi, Délida Inés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Cálculo; ArgentinaFil: Sued, Raquel Mariela. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Cálculo; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Up-scaling Mate Marote: a university-industry interaction experience

The new digital era opens up great possiblilities in education. Mate Marote is a platform including activities and educational games for massive scale interventions. Recent creation of Fundación Sadosky, has favored the collaboration between industry and academia in projects involving novel methods and ideas with big scale software platforms which require experience in architecture and high-end software development. The collaboration established showed exceptional conditions for the mutual benefit: the incorporation of academic research in educational neuroscience in the industry and the transference of well-established methodology and software development experience in the academic environment.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Up-scaling Mate Marote: a university-industry interaction experience

The new digital era opens up great possiblilities in education. Mate Marote is a platform including activities and educational games for massive scale interventions. Recent creation of Fundación Sadosky, has favored the collaboration between industry and academia in projects involving novel methods and ideas with big scale software platforms which require experience in architecture and high-end software development. The collaboration established showed exceptional conditions for the mutual benefit: the incorporation of academic research in educational neuroscience in the industry and the transference of well-established methodology and software development experience in the academic environment.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Peer audience effects on children’s vocal masculinity and femininity

Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this ‘self-presentation’ is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8–10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively). Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children's vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed

Up-scaling Mate Marote: a university-industry interaction experience

The new digital era opens up great possiblilities in education. Mate Marote is a platform including activities and educational games for massive scale interventions. Recent creation of Fundación Sadosky, has favored the collaboration between industry and academia in projects involving novel methods and ideas with big scale software platforms which require experience in architecture and high-end software development. The collaboration established showed exceptional conditions for the mutual benefit: the incorporation of academic research in educational neuroscience in the industry and the transference of well-established methodology and software development experience in the academic environment.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Exploraciones interdisciplinarias para el escalamiento de intervenciones experimentales

Uno de los aspectos esenciales a tener en cuenta al abordar la gran cantidad de información disponible en forma digital sobre diferentes aspectos del desarrollo humano, es cómo organizarla para responder diferentes preguntas de diferentes actores sociales. En este contexto, las visualizaciones constituyen una de las herramientas disponibles para contribuir con tal objetivo...Fil: López y Rosenfeld, Matías. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET; ArgentinaFil: Segretin, María Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET; ArgentinaFil: Lipina, Sebastián Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET; Argentin