Education Commons^™

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2018, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Applying Design Thinking To Student Outreach Projects: Experiences From An Information Systems School, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman, Alan Megargel

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As countries turn into Smart Nations, Infocom Technology plays a key role in enhancing their competitiveness through high skilled workforces. Reaching to younger generations and attracting them to computing programs such as Information Systems (IS) and Computer Science (CS) is a key challenge faced by universities. Many high quality students from junior colleges either don’t choose IS programs or choose IS programs as their last option during the application process. A School of Information Systems (SIS) from a large metropolitan university decided to implement an innovative outreach program to attract high quality high school aka Junior College (JC) students. JC …

An Architectural Design And Evaluation Of An Affective Tutoring System For Novice Programmers, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Affect is prevalent in learning and it influences students’ learning achievement. This paper details the design and evaluation of an Affective Tutoring System (ATS) that tutors student in computer programming. Although most ATSs are purpose built for a specific domain, making adaptation to another domain difficult, this ATS is architected for adaptability and extensibility. This study also addresses a lack of research exploring the theories and methods of integrating affect and learning within the learning process by proposing methods of regulating the negative affect of students. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used for evaluation of the effectiveness of the …

Data Mining Approach To The Identification Of At-Risk Students, Li Chin Ho, Kyong Jin Shim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In recent years, the use of digital tools and technologies in educational institutions are continuing to generate large amounts of digital traces of student learning behavior. This study presents a proof-of-concept analytics system that can detect at-risk students along their learning journey. Educators can benefit from the early detection of at-risk students by understanding factors which may lead to failure or drop-out. Further, educators can devise appropriate intervention measures before the students drop out of the course. Our system was built using SAS ® Enterprise Miner (EM) and SAS ® JMP Pro.

Effectiveness Of Physical Robot Versus Robot Simulator In Teaching Introductory Programming, Oka Kurniawan, Norman Tiong Seng Lee, Subhajit Datta, Nachamma Sockalingam, Pey Lin Leong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study reports the use of a physical robot and robot simulator in an introductory programming course in a university and measures students' programming background conceptual learning gain and learning experience. One group used physical robots in their lessons to complete programming assignments, while the other group used robot simulators. We are interested in finding out if there is any difference in the learning gain and experiences between those that use physical robots as compared to robot simulators. Our results suggest that there is no significant difference in terms of students' learning between the two approaches. However, the control group …

From Gig Economy To Gig Education, Olga Kosheleva, Julian Viera Jr., Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Modern economy has benefited from gig economy idea, where, instead of hiring permanent employees, a company assigns each task to the person who is the most efficient in performing this task. This way, each task is performed in the best possible way -- by a person who is the most suited for this job. Why not extend this idea to education? Every student deserves the best possible teacher in every topic. So why not have a teacher who is the best in town in explaining quadratic equations teach quadratic equations to all the students from the town? In this paper, …

Should School Feel Like A Family: Lessons From Business Controversy As Interpreted By Decision Making Theory, Olga Kosheleva, Julian Viera Jr., Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Traditional business theory promoted the ideal of business as a family: everyone should feel good about each other, all employees should feel good working together towards a joint goal. Recently, however, researchers claim that the well-promoted ideal is unattainable, it is a ruse causing everyone to overwork. Instead, these researchers propose a non-emotional collaboration of adults working temporarily on a joint project. In this paper, we show that this new trend is not just based on anecdotal evidence, it actually has a solid foundation in decision theory. So maybe we should apply this new trend to teaching too - and …

Improving Knowledge Tracing Model By Integrating Problem Difficulty, Sein Minn, Feida Zhu, Michel C. Desmarais

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are designed for providing personalized instructions to students with the needs of their skills. Assessment of student knowledge acquisition dynamically is nontrivial during her learning process with ITS. Knowledge tracing, a popular student modeling technique for student knowledge assessment in adaptive tutoring, which is used for tracing student's knowledge state and detecting student's knowledge acquisition by using decomposed individual skill or problems with a single skill per problem. Unfortunately, recent KT models fail to deal with practices of complex skill composition and variety of concepts included in a problem simultaneously. Our goal is to investigate a …

Class Discussion Management And Analysis Application, Venky Shankararaman, Swapna Gottipati, Seshan Ramaswami, Chirag Chhablan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Discussion-based teaching is popular in several courses because it creates opportunities for students to practice important skills useful for the working environment. In order to make this pedagogy impactful and effective, instructors employ technologies such as online discussion forums and student response systems to conduct and manage classroom discussions. More recently mobile devices have become prevalent and researchers have been exploring how this device can help support education. In this paper we report the innovative use of mobile technology and supporting backend tools to manage classroom discussions. We have implemented a class discussion and management application, LiveClass. This application records …

Vt-Revolution: Interactive Programming Tutorials Made Possible, Lingfeng Bao, Zhenchang Xing, Xin Xia, David Lo, Shanping Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Programming video tutorials showcase programming tasks and associated workflows. Although video tutorials are easy to create, it isoften difficult to explore the captured workflows and interact withthe programs in the videos. In this work, we propose a tool named VTRevolution – an interactive programming video tutorial authoring system. VTRevolution has two components: 1) a tutorial authoring system leverages operating system level instrumentation to log workflow history while tutorial authors are creating programming video tutorials; 2) a tutorial watching system enhances the learning experience of video tutorials by providing operation history and timeline-based browsing interactions. Our tutorial authoring system does not …

A Mixed Method Study Of Prospective Teachers' Epistemic Beliefs And Web Evaluation Strategies Concerning Hoax Websites, Jennifer Coccaro-Pons

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers need to be equipped with the tools necessary to evaluate content on the Internet and determine if it is a credible source, or a hoax website since they are expected to instruct and prepare students on how to evaluate the sites which is now a relevant phenomenon. The purpose of the mixed‑method study was to obtain an understanding of the web evaluation strategies of prospective teachers regarding the evaluation of hoax websites and how their epistemic beliefs may influence their evaluation. Another aspect of this study was to find out what outcomes resulted from providing guidance, or not to …

Girls Who Code 3rd-5th, Khristina Polivanov

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of the club is to encourage girls to be confident in themselves and their abilities while teaching them basic concepts used in computer science.

Comparing Us And Russian Grading Scales, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the US, grades are usually based on comprehensive written exams: the larger the proportion of topic in which the student shows knowledge, the higher the student's grade. In contrast, in Russia, the grades are based on oral exams, and the bulk of the grade comes from a student answering questions of a few (usually, three) randomly selected topics. A natural question is: what is the relation between the two grading scales? It turns out that "excellent" and "good" grades means the same in both scales, while the US "satisfactory" level is higher than a similar Russian level.

Psychological Behavior Of English Learners Utilizing A Cognitive Tutor In An Online Pre-Calculus, Julian Viera Jr., Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The educational landscape is becoming a digital learning environment. Students in today's digital world draw from multiple sources of information; from hypertext, videos, social media, to video games and internet searches. English Learners, individuals learning two languages at once, who use software written in English have a passive relationship with the computer when software is not in their native language. They feel that this educational software belongs to another culture. This paper will present findings from a study with English Learners' engagement in a fully online pre-calculus course. The authors utilized Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to describe how English Learners' created …

Exploring Experiential Learning Model And Risk Management Process For An Undergraduate Software Architecture Course, Eng Lieh Ouh, Yunghans Irawan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper shares our insights on exploring theexperiential learning model and risk management process todesign an undergraduate software architecture course. The keychallenge for undergraduate students to appreciate softwarearchitecture design is usually their limited experience in thesoftware industry. In software architecture, the high-level designprinciples are heuristics lacking the absoluteness of firstprinciples which for inexperienced undergraduate students, thisis a frustrating divergence from what they used to value. From aneducator's perspective, teaching software architecture requirescontending with the problem of how to express this level ofabstraction practically and also make the learning realistic. Inthis paper, we propose a model adapting the concepts ofexperiential learning …

Ums Data Governance Annual Report 2018, University Of Maine System Data Advisory Committee

General University of Maine Publications

The newly formed University of Maine System Data Governance program was launched to improve the System's capacity to collect information and deploy resources in service to the students and in response to Maine's dire demographic and workforce challenges.

The UMS campuses and administrative units make up a complex system that requires a strategic approach to data collection and analysis. From understanding the intricacies of distance education and online programs, to aligning human resource and financial department codes, unified data governance is essential to ensuring the integrity and reliability of the University of Maine System's data.

Sufat: An Analytics Tool For Gaining Insights From Student Feedback Comments, Siddhant Pyasi, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Teacher evaluation is a vital element inimproving student learning outcomes. Course and instructor feedback given bystudents, provides insights that can help improve student learning outcomes andteaching quality. Teaching and course evaluation systems help to collectquantitative and qualitative feedback from students. Since manually analysingthe qualitative feedback is painstaking and a tedious process, usually, onlythe quantitative feedback is often used for evaluating the course and theinstructor. However, useful knowledge is hidden in the qualitative comments, inthe form of sentiments and suggestions that can provide valuable insights tohelp plan improvements in the course content and delivery. In order toefficiently gather, analyse and provide …

Research Innovation And Institutional Growth: Digital Humanities, Usm, And The University Of Maine System, Janet M. Billson, Katherine Bessey

Research Innovation and Institutional Growth

No abstract provided.

Teaching Basic Programming To Pre-University Students Through Blended Learning Pedagogy: A Descriptive Study, Vandana Ramachandra Rao, Ngee Mok Heng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Students enrolling for undergraduate programmes in Singapore would have either finished their polytechnic diploma or completed Junior College (JC) studies. Most pre-university students coming through the JC pathway are not exposed to programming as computing is offered as a subject in a very few JCs. The authors of this paper conducted four runs of an introductory programing course between 2016 and 2017 for a research project funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore. The project named “Let’s Code!” was intended to introduce fundamental programming concepts to students and guide them to consider taking a computer-science related degree for their university …

An Examination Of Factors Correlating With Course Failure In A High School Computer Science Course, Steven Mcgee, Ronald I. Greenberg, Lucia Dettori, Andrew M. Rasmussen, Randi Mcgee-Tekula, Jennifer Duck, Erica Wheeler

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Across the United States, enrollment in high school computer science (CS) courses is increasing. These increases, however, are not spread evenly across race and gender. CS remains largely an elective class, and fewer than three-fourths of the states allow it to count towards graduation. The Chicago Public Schools has sought to ensure access for all students by recently enacting computer science as a high school graduation requirement. The primary class that fulfills the graduation requirement is Exploring Computer Science (ECS), a high school introductory course and professional development program designed to foster deep engagement through equitable inquiry around CS …

Visualization Of Geospatial Data As An Analytical And Educational Tool, Richard A. Vu

STAR Program Research Presentations

World Wind is an open-source API developed for Java, Android, and browsers that is designed to visualize and interact with geospatial data. The Web World Wind client is composed of four major components: the HTML template, the globe, geospatial features, and application features. The template was implemented using Bootstrap and hosts the globe provided by World Wind. This globe draws its data from multiple imagery sources, including the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service and Web Map Tile Service. This enables the application to perform and visualize complex calculations with multiple types of data such as weather and terrain. …

Applied Computing For Behavioral And Social Sciences (Acbss) Minor, Farshid Marbouti, Valerie Carr, Belle Wei, Morris Jones, Amy Strage

Faculty Publications

The growing digital economy creates unprecedented demand for technical workers, especially those with both domain knowledge and technical skills. To meet this need, an ACBSS (Applied Computing for Behavioral and Social Sciences) minor degree has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of faculty at San José State University (SJSU). The minor degree comprises four courses: Python programming, algorithms and data structures, R programming, and culminating projects. The first ACBSS cohort started in Fall 2016 with 32 students, and the second cohort in Fall 2017 reached its capacity of 40 students, 62% of whom are female and 35% are underrepresented minority …

Effectiveness Of Bite-Sized Lecture On Student Learning Outcomes, Noi Sian Koh, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Bite-Sized teaching approach uses relatively small learning units with short term focused activities. The paper presents the effectiveness of Bite-Sized lecture pedagogy on learning outcomes for an analytics course offered by the School of Information Technology at Nanyang Polytechnic. The methodology involves breaking a typical 1 hour lecture into 3 to 4 short lectures followed by related tutorial / practical exercises relevant to each respective short lecture. The results from the exercises shows statistically significant improvements in the assessed learning outcomes for the Bite-Sized lecture over the traditional one hour lecture. 75% of the surveyed respondents agreed that the speed …

Glocalizing The Composition Classroom With Google Apps For Education, Daniel L. Hocutt, Maury Elizabeth Brown

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Composing practices in a digitally networked world are inherently intercultural, and situate local needs and constraints within global opportunities and concerns. Global technologies like Google Apps for Education (GAFE) allow students to compose collaboratively across place and time; to do so, students and teachers must navigate a complex local network of institutional policy, learning outcomes, situational needs, and composing practices while also being aware of the global implications of using the interface to compose, review, edit, and share with others. The chapter describes using GAFE in locally situated composition classes. Using such technologies requires a focus on glocalization and an …

Introducing Hpc To Local High School Curriculums, Madison Matli, Devin Smoot, Jeremy Evert

Student Research

High Performance Computing is a topic that hasn’t been introduced or discussed in most Oklahoma high school curriculums. While students are being pushed to take more general electives, they are missing out on important knowledge pertaining to their field of study. This process usually occurs because students lack access to educational materials or because the school simply does not offer certain specialty courses. Learning high level information at a young age can help students excel in future college courses and research projects. My research is focused on providing Oklahoma high schools with a simplistic High-Performance Computing guide that walks through …

Perfsonar And Offn: Diagnosing And Testing Science Dmz Connections For The High-Speed Transfer Of Large Datasets On Oneoklahoma Friction Free Network, Dylan Ortega, Jeremy Evert

Student Research

The OneOklahoma Friction Free Network (OFFN) is a Science DMZ network that is designed with the purpose of enabling collaboration between high performance computing centers and higher learning institutions from across the state of Oklahoma. OFFN allows researchers the ability to transfer datasets at speeds faster than a standard internet connection by allowing direct connections to servers on OFFN by not having to deal with firewalls. We use PerfSonar to measure the performance of OFFN. A PerfSonar testing server is needed on each OFFN node to monitor the health of the network as a whole. PerfSonar can perform response testing, …

This Is Not A Brain, Allison Wusterbarth

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

An exploration of machine learning and its ethical consequences.

(Slides for the discussion are at the end of the file.)

Rpp Panel Chicago: History Of Cafecs, Lucia Dettori, Dale Reed, Steven Mcgee, Don Yanek, Andrew Rasmussen, Ronald Greenberg

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Does The Test Work? Evaluating A Web-Based Language Placement Test, Avizia Long, Sun-Young Shin, Kimberly Geeslin, Erik Willis

Faculty Publications

In response to the need for examples of test validation from which everyday language programs can benefit, this paper reports on a study that used Bachman’s (2005) assessment use argument (AUA) framework to examine evidence to support claims made about the intended interpretations and uses of scores based on a new web-based Spanish language placement test. The test, which consisted of 100 items distributed across five item types (sound discrimination, grammar, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and vocabulary), was tested with 2,201 incoming first-year and transfer students at a large, Midwestern public university. Analyses of internal consistency and validity revealed the …

Equal Outcomes 4 All: A Study Of Student Learning In Ecs, Steven Mcgee, Randi Mcgee-Tekula, Jennifer Duck, Catherine Mcgee, Lucia Dettori, Ronald I. Greenberg, Eric Snow, Daisy Rutstein, Dale Reed, Brenda Wilkerson, Don Yanek, Andrew M. Rasmussen, Dennis Brylow

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study investigated patterns in the development of computational thinking practices in the context of the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) program, a high school introductory CS course and professional development program designed to foster deep engagement through equitable inquiry around CS concepts. Past research indicates that the personal relevance of the ECS experience influences students’ expectancy-value towards computer science. Expectancy-value is a construct that is predictive of career choices. We extended our research to examine whether expectancy-value influences the development of computational thinking practices. This study took place in the context of two ECS implementation projects across two states. Twenty …