Related papers: Understanding Student Pathways in Context-rich Pro…
This paper presents a novel approach to understand specific student behavior in MOOCs. Instructors currently perceive participants only as one homogeneous group. In order to improve learning outcomes, they encourage students to get active…
Developing expertise in physics entails learning to use mathematics effectively and efficiently as applied to the context of physical situations. Doing so involves coordinating a variety of concepts and skills including mathematical…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than contexts, is considered a hallmark of expertise in physics problem solving. With inspiration from a classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we compared…
Students' interactions with online tools can provide us with insights into their study and work habits. Prior research has shown that these habits, even as simple as the number of actions or the time spent on online platforms can…
Researchers working within knowledge-in-pieces traditions have often employed observational approaches to investigate micro-processes of learning. There is growing evidence from this line of work that students' intuitive thinking about…
We investigated the effects of student-generated problems on exams. The process was gradual with some training throughout the semester. Initial results were highly positive with the students involved performing significantly better, and…
In humans and animals, curriculum learning -- presenting data in a curated order - is critical to rapid learning and effective pedagogy. Yet in machine learning, curricula are not widely used and empirically often yield only moderate…
Student attitudes and approaches to problem solving can impact how well they learn physics. Prior research in the US using a validated Attitude and Approaches to Problem Solving (AAPS) survey suggests that there are major differences…
To investigate the detection of students' behavioral engagement (On-Task vs. Off-Task), we propose a two-phase approach in this study. In Phase 1, contextual logs (URLs) are utilized to assess active usage of the content platform. If there…
The paper considers the problem of multi-objective decision support when outcomes are uncertain. We extend the concept of Pareto-efficient decisions to take into account the uncertainty of decision outcomes across varying contexts. This…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
Improvements in performance and approval obtained by first year engineering students from University of Concepcion, Chile, were studied, once a virtual didactic model of multiple-choice exam, was implemented. This virtual learning resource…
This paper presents n-coding, a theoretical model of multiple internal mental representations. The n-coding construct is developed from a review of cognitive and imaging studies suggesting the independence of information processing along…
Students in introductory physics courses often rely on ineffective strategies, focusing on final answers rather than understanding underlying principles. Integrating scientific argumentation into problem-solving fosters critical thinking…
Helping students learn from their own mistakes can help them develop habits of mind while learning physics content. Based upon cognitive apprenticeship model, we asked students to self-diagnose their mistakes and learn from reflecting on…
We redesigned an advanced physics laboratory course to include a project component. The intention was to address learning outcomes such as modeling, design of experiments, teamwork, and developing technical skills in using apparatus and…
Learning advanced physics, in general, is challenging not only due to the increased mathematical sophistication but also because one must continue to build on all of the prior knowledge acquired at the introductory and intermediate levels.…
We describe a study focusing on students' and faculty members' reasoning about problems of differing cognitive complexity related to the double-slit experiment (DSE) with single particles. In the first phase of the study, students in…
We measure the performance of in-context learning as a function of task novelty and difficulty for open and closed questions. For that purpose, we created a novel benchmark consisting of hard scientific questions, each paired with a context…
The paper presents a study of local search heuristics in general and variable neighborhood search in particular for the resolution of an assignment problem studied in the practical work of universities. Here, students have to be assigned to…