Related papers: Community structure in introductory physics course…

This paper describes the development of a new university physics course designed to integrate physics, education, research, and community partnerships. The coordinated system of activities links the new course to local community efforts in…

Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions take place under conditions that favor…

Blended courses have become the norm in post-secondary education. Universities use large-scale learning management systems to manage class content. Instructors deliver readings, lectures, and office hours online; students use intelligent…

For several decades, scholars have studied cooperation and its outcomes in the educational context. Yet, we lack a complete understanding of how different instructional strategies impact the relationship between cooperation and learning.…

We study the structure of social networks of students by examining the graphs of Facebook "friendships" at five American universities at a single point in time. We investigate each single-institution network's community structure and employ…

This paper presents a methodological approach based on the use of complex networks to analyze the structure and content of curricula. We analyze the concept network built from the final year of a particular high school Physics curriculum,…

With social media and the according social and ubiquitous applications finding their way into everyday life, there is a rapidly growing amount of user generated content yielding explicit and implicit network structures. We consider social…

Physics education researchers have developed many evidence-based instructional strategies to enhance physics students' conceptual learning. These strategies have historically been tested using assessments such as the Force Concept Inventory…

Research suggests that interacting with more peers about physics course material is correlated with higher student performance. Some studies, however, have demonstrated that different topics of peer interactions may correlate with their…

Community structure detection in complex networks is important since it can help better understand the network topology and how the network works. However, there is still not a clear and widely-accepted definition of community structure,…

A strong sense of classroom community is associated with many positive learning outcomes and is a critical contributor to undergraduate students' persistence in STEM, particularly for women and students of color. This chapter describes a…

Interacting systems are ubiquitous in nature and engineering, ranging from particle dynamics in physics to functionally connected brain regions. These interacting systems can be modeled by graphs where edges correspond to the interactions…

Many real-world complex systems such as social, biological, information as well as technological systems results of a decentralized and unplanned evolution which leads to a common structuration. Irrespective of their origin, these so-called…

Networks are widely used in the biological, physical, and social sciences as a concise mathematical representation of the topology of systems of interacting components. Understanding the structure of these networks is one of the outstanding…

Discussion forums provide a channel for students to engage with peers and course material outside of class, accessible even to commuter and non-traditional populations. As such, forums can build classroom community as well as aid learning,…

Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Yet, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions occur under conditions that favor commitment,…

Gaining insight into course choices holds significant value for universities, especially those who aim for flexibility in their programs and wish to adapt quickly to changing demands of the job market. However, little emphasis has been put…

Community structure analysis is a powerful tool for social networks, which can simplify their topological and functional analysis considerably. However, since community detection methods have random factors and real social networks obtained…

The objective of this exploratory study was to examine the interpersonal dynamics of an afterschool math club for middle schoolers. Using social network analysis, two networks were identified and analyzed: (a) a network of friendship…

We investigate the community structure of physics subfields in the citation network of all Physical Review publications between 1893 and August 2007. We focus on well-cited publications (those receiving more than 100 citations), and apply…