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Full-Text Articles in Education

Ldentifying And Characterizing Cognitive Factors Significant To Practicing And Learning Meteorology, Peggy M. Mcneal Dec 2017

Ldentifying And Characterizing Cognitive Factors Significant To Practicing And Learning Meteorology, Peggy M. Mcneal

Dissertations

To see the world as a meteorologist, one must understand and interpret atmospheric processes through representations depicted on two-dimensional weather charts and maps that encode large amounts of spatial and numerical data. This is a cognitively demanding and spatially challenging task, especially for students with burgeoning levels of meteorology knowledge, who lack the expertise of practiced meteorologists that read such charts and maps with ease. With little prior work informing meteorology and meteorology education through a cognitive science lens, this study surveys the literature and follows models of discipline-based education and cognitive science research to identify the discrete intelligence factors …


Apathy And Concern Over The Future Habitability Of Earth: An Introductory College Assignment Of Forecasting Co2 In The Earth’S Atmosphere, Benjamin J. Burger Nov 2017

Apathy And Concern Over The Future Habitability Of Earth: An Introductory College Assignment Of Forecasting Co2 In The Earth’S Atmosphere, Benjamin J. Burger

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Non-science, first year regional undergraduate students from rural Utah communities participated in an online introductory geology course and were asked to forecast the rise of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The majority of students predicted catastrophic rise to 5,000-ppm sometime over the next 3,100 years, resulting in an atmosphere nearly uninhabitable to human life. However, the level of concern the students exhibited in their answers was not directly proportional with their timing in their forecasted rise of CO2. This study showcases the importance of presenting students with actual data and using data to develop student forecasted models. …


Using The Nasa Worldwind Agrosphere Web App As A Climate Change Modeling Tool In The Classroom, Nicholas Rubel, Patrick Hogan, Stacey Chen, Endia Irazarry, Atreya Iyer, John Nguyen, Mingda Tang Sep 2017

Using The Nasa Worldwind Agrosphere Web App As A Climate Change Modeling Tool In The Classroom, Nicholas Rubel, Patrick Hogan, Stacey Chen, Endia Irazarry, Atreya Iyer, John Nguyen, Mingda Tang

STAR Program Research Presentations

Climate change is a clear and imminent threat to the world today. While there are Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for teaching climate change in the classroom, students may have a difficult time understanding the seriousness of the issue. One of the standards in the NGSS is for students to develop their own explanation of climate change and its impact. That’s where AgroSphere comes in. AgroSphere is a web-based app that utilizes NASA open-source software WorldWind. WorldWind allows developers to create their own Java, Android, or web-based apps that can display data on the globe. AgroSphere displays historical weather (climate) …


Game Design & Development Curriculum: History & Future Directions, Elizabeth L. Lawley, Roger Altizer, Tracy Fullerton, Andrew Phelps, Constance Steinkuehler Aug 2017

Game Design & Development Curriculum: History & Future Directions, Elizabeth L. Lawley, Roger Altizer, Tracy Fullerton, Andrew Phelps, Constance Steinkuehler

Presentations and other scholarship

It has been nearly twenty years since the first undergraduate degree program in computer game development was established in 1998. Since that time, the number and size of programs in game design and development have grown at a rapid pace. While there were early efforts to establish curricular guidelines for the field, these face a number of challenges given the diverse range of academic homes for game-related programs. This panel will address the history of curricular development in the field, both in individual programs and across institutions. It will also explore the potential risks and rewards of developing curricular and/or …


Mining Capstone Project Wikis For Knowledge Discovery, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman, Melvrivk Goh Jul 2017

Mining Capstone Project Wikis For Knowledge Discovery, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman, Melvrivk Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Wikis are widely used collaborative environments as sources of information and knowledge. The facilitate students to engage in collaboration and share information among members and enable collaborative learning. In particular, Wikis play an important role in capstone projects. Wikis aid in various project related tasks and aid to organize information and share. Mining project Wikis is critical to understand the students learning and latest trends in industry. Mining Wikis is useful to educationists and academicians for decision-making about how to modify the educational environment to improve student's learning. The main challenge is that the content or data in project Wikis …


Integrating Non-Euclidean Geometry Into High School, John Buda May 2017

Integrating Non-Euclidean Geometry Into High School, John Buda

Honors Thesis

The purpose of this project is to provide the framework for integrating the study of non-Euclidean geometry into a high school math class in such a way that both aligns with the Common Core State Standards and makes use of research-based practices to enhance the learning of traditional geometry. Traditionally, Euclidean geometry has been the only strand of geometry taught in high schools, even though mathematicians have developed several other strands. The non-Euclidean geometry that I focus on in this project is what is known as taxicab geometry. With the Common Core Standards for Math Practice pushing students to “model …


A Study Of Perceptions Of Math Mindset, Math Anxiety, And View Of Math By Young Adults, Tami L. Hocker Apr 2017

A Study Of Perceptions Of Math Mindset, Math Anxiety, And View Of Math By Young Adults, Tami L. Hocker

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

This study’s purpose was to determine whether instruction in growth math mindset led to change in perceptions of 18-22-year-old at-risk students in math mindset, math anxiety, and view of math. The experimental curriculum was created by the researcher with the guidance of experts in mathematics and education and focused on the impact of brain growth and learning supported by positive math mindset. Young adult public charter high school at-risk students were surveyed before and after completion of the experimental intervention to measure their perceptions in the domains of Math Mindset, Math Anxiety, and View of Math. The results revealed significant …


Polygons, Pillars And Pavilions: Discovering Connections Between Geometry And Architecture, Sean Patrick Madden Mar 2017

Polygons, Pillars And Pavilions: Discovering Connections Between Geometry And Architecture, Sean Patrick Madden

Journal of Catholic Education

Crowning the second semester of geometry, taught within a Catholic middle school, the author's students explored connections between the geometry of regular polygons and architecture of local buildings. They went on to explore how these principles apply famous buildings around the world such as the monuments of Washington, D.C. and the elliptical piazza of Saint Peter's Basilica at Vatican City within Rome, Italy.


The Interactions Of Relationships, Interest, And Self-Efficacy In Undergraduate Physics, Remy Dou Mar 2017

The Interactions Of Relationships, Interest, And Self-Efficacy In Undergraduate Physics, Remy Dou

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This collected papers dissertation explores students’ academic interactions in an active learning, introductory physics settings as they relate to the development of physics self-efficacy and interest. The motivation for this work extends from the national call to increase participation of students in the pursuit of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. Self-efficacy and interest are factors that play prominent roles in popular, evidence-based, career theories, including the Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) and the identity framework. Understanding how these constructs develop in light of the most pervasive characteristic of the active learning introductory physics classroom (i.e., peer-to-peer interactions) has …


Music Times: A Music Learning Game, Emily Woo Mar 2017

Music Times: A Music Learning Game, Emily Woo

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Music Times is a two dimensional educational video game with the purpose of gamifying learning of musical concepts. It has elements of adventure and visual novel games, and incentivizes the player to learn music to explore new levels. It is developed in the Unity game engine, scripted in C#, and targeted for mobile devices. It has six working levels: three lesson levels and three corresponding challenge levels. Each level contains slight differences in visual and aural feel.


Playful Ai Education, Todd W. Neller Feb 2017

Playful Ai Education, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this talk, Neller shared how games can serve as a fun means of teaching not only game-tree search in Artificial Intelligence (AI), but also such diverse topics as constraint satisfaction, logical reasoning, planning, uncertain reasoning, machine learning, and robotics. He observed that teachers teach best when they enjoy what they share and encouraged AI educators present to teach to their unique strengths and enthusiasms.


Guest Editors' Introduction: Research On Equity And Sustained Participation In Engineering, Computing, And Technology, Tiffany Barnes, Jamie Payton, George K. Thiruvathukal, Kristy Elizabeth Boyer, Jeff Forbes Jan 2017

Guest Editors' Introduction: Research On Equity And Sustained Participation In Engineering, Computing, And Technology, Tiffany Barnes, Jamie Payton, George K. Thiruvathukal, Kristy Elizabeth Boyer, Jeff Forbes

George K. Thiruvathukal

The guest editors introduce best papers on broadening participation in computing from the RESPECT'15 conference. The five articles presented here are part one of a two-part series representing research on broadening participation in computing at all levels of education: from K-12 schools through graduate school, with a focus on diversity with regard to gender, race, and ethnicity.


The Need For Research In Broadening Participation, Tiffany Barnes, George K. Thiruvathukal Jan 2017

The Need For Research In Broadening Participation, Tiffany Barnes, George K. Thiruvathukal

George K. Thiruvathukal

Underrepresentation in computing is a global problem, marked by a disturbing lack of access to computing resources and education among people underrepresented by race, ethnicity, gender, income, disability, and sexual-orientation status. It is urgent that we address this divide between those with and without the knowledge to create computational artifacts or even basic functional literacy. Important alliances for broadening participation (BP) are catalyzing efforts to engage more people in computing, but they are not enough. We need solid research as well.


Ai Education: Open-Access Educational Resources On Ai, Todd W. Neller Jan 2017

Ai Education: Open-Access Educational Resources On Ai, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Open-access AI educational resources are vital to the quality of the AI education we offer. Avoiding the reinvention of wheels is especially important to us because of the special challenges of AI Education. AI could be said to be “the really interesting miscellaneous pile of Computer Science”. While “artificial” is well-understood to encompass engineered artifacts, “intelligence” could be said to encompass any sufficiently difficult problem as would require an intelligent approach and yet does not fall neatly into established Computer Science subdisciplines. Thus AI consists of so many diverse topics that we would be hard-pressed to individually create quality learning …


Strategies For Using Data Analytics In Testing The Readability Levels Of Textbooks: It’S Time To Get Serious, Emily Wefelmeyer, Mary Beth Backus Jan 2017

Strategies For Using Data Analytics In Testing The Readability Levels Of Textbooks: It’S Time To Get Serious, Emily Wefelmeyer, Mary Beth Backus

Other Student Works

The idea that education in America is deteriorating is emotionally charged and controversial. While there is no disputing that education levels in the United States continue to rise, there is also a pervasive notion that this was accomplished by gradually reducing the readability level and general difficulty of textbooks. One tool often employed in the defense of education is the employment of readability indices in the evaluation of textbooks. There are a variety of these readability indices that serve the purpose of indicating a grade level for a particular piece of writing (Kinkaid, et. al., 1975). It’s relatively easy to …


A Study Of Mathematics Achievement, Placement, And Graduation Of Engineering Students, Sara Hahler Blazek Jan 2017

A Study Of Mathematics Achievement, Placement, And Graduation Of Engineering Students, Sara Hahler Blazek

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how background knowledge impacts freshmen engineering students' success at Louisiana Tech University in terms of grades in two different freshman classes and graduation. To determine what factors impact students, three different studies were implemented. The first study used linear regression to analyze which demographic and academic variables significantly impacted freshman math and engineering courses. Using regression discontinuity, the second study determined if the university's placement requirement for Pre-Calculus was appropriate. The final study analyzed factors that impact graduation for engineering students as well as other disciplines to determine which significant variables were …


Broadening Traditional Aviation Meteorology Education To Support Spaceflight Operations, Thomas A. Guinn, Nicholas J. Stapleton, Katherine A. Winters, Bradley M. Muller, Debbie M. Schaum Jan 2017

Broadening Traditional Aviation Meteorology Education To Support Spaceflight Operations, Thomas A. Guinn, Nicholas J. Stapleton, Katherine A. Winters, Bradley M. Muller, Debbie M. Schaum

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The purpose of this paper is to examine the expansion of traditional aviation meteorology education necessary to support the growing commercial space-operations industry. While spaceflight meteorological considerations do overlap with those of traditional aviation operations, there are notable differences schools must address for appropriate education and training of both meteorologists and operators. These include knowledge of increased weather sensitivities, space-weather impacts, triggered lightning, triboelectrification, and high-resolution vertical wind-profile analyses. An added challenge in the educational process is the more limited amount of publicly available weather and space-weather products necessary to support spaceflight education. Furthermore, in comparison with traditional aviation meteorology, …