Cyberlearning Synthesis and Design Workshop Projects
Designing Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystems
Award #1824854
Investigators:
Robert Kadel, rob.kadel@gatech.edu (Principal Investigator)
Ashok Goel (Co-Principal Investigator)
Stephen Harmon (Co-Principal Investigator)
Yakut Gazi (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: Georgia Tech
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description
The U.S. is currently at a crossroads in higher education where access to quality post-secondary education is a prerequisite for entry into the middle class but the ability to afford such an education is becoming increasingly limited. Georgia Tech proposes the Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystem to address this mismatch. Building on successful online education programs that have offered Master's degrees in computer science and analytics, Georgia Tech hosts a workshop for higher education administrators and researchers to establish components of Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystems that can be applied across colleges and universities. The goal of Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystems is to create educational experiences that can be scaled to growing populations of students while providing the personalized attention that has typically been the domain of unscalable individual, face-to-face teaching and advising.
Technical Description
Georgia Tech hypothesizes that with growing demand for higher education, but with a limited supply of professors, advisors, and budgets to meet such demand, Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystems can be used to provide personalization and customization for large populations of students. Human activity and expertise are used to guide the creation of this ecosystem's innovations, but day-to-day operations are machine-driven. The innovations include: Personalized Learning Systems that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to establish customized educational plans for each student; Intelligent Tutoring Systems that modify the presentation and sequence of materials in response to student performance; Data Mining and Learning Analytics that extract useful and actionable information to understand student uses of learning resources and outcomes; Scalable Online Environments that deliver high-quality, high-engagement learning experiences; and Immersive Learning Environments that simulate a physical presence in real or imagined worlds, overlay content on those worlds, and merge real and virtual worlds to produce new learning opportunities. The workshop is held on November 29 and 30, 2018 at the Global Learning Center on the Georgia Tech campus in Midtown Atlanta, and participating institutions are selected by proposals submitted that describe each institution's interest in Scalable Advanced Learning Ecosystems and the institution?s commitment to action to improve educational access.
Resources
NSF Project Information
Project Website
Designing STEM Learning Environments for Individuals with Disabilities
Award #1824540
Investigators:
Sheryl Burgstahler, sherylb@u.washington.edu (Principal Investigator)
Institution: University of Washington
Start Date: 9/1/18
Project Description
This workshop is funded through the "Dear Colleague Letter: Principles for the Design of Digital Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning Environments (NSF 18-017)." This workshop is led by the DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) Center at the University of Washington and will inform the design of the next generation of digital learning environments for STEM through addressing issues relevant for individuals with disabilities. This project will advance knowledge relevant to improving the success of individuals with disabilities in digital learning environments and foster synergistic and lasting relationships among participants that will result in systemic changes toward more inclusive digital learning. These efforts will serve to broaden participation in STEM by improving learning environment design based on the unique expertise and perspectives of individuals with disabilities, making online opportunities more welcoming and accessible to everyone.
The workshop is grounded on four research questions: (1) What challenges do learners with different types of disabilities face in using current and emerging digital learning tools and engaging in online learning activities? (2) How do current digital learning research and practices contribute to the marginalization of individuals with disabilities? (3) What advances in digital learning design are required to support multi-modal learning and engagement that is fully accessible to and usable by students with disabilities? (4) What specific actions can digital learning researchers, funding agencies, educators, and other stakeholders take to systematically address issues with respect to disabilities? To address these questions, an interdisciplinary team will create an online community of practice and a synthesis and design workshop to synthesize and integrate existing research related to the accessibility of digital learning to students with a variety of disabilities. Outcomes of the workshop include a white paper that contributes to the development of forward-looking, highly adaptable, distributed, collaborative digital environments that can personalize learning for diverse learners that include individuals with disabilities with potential applications across multiple and varying (a) domains of knowledge, (b) learning contexts, and (c) time spans. The project will also develop guidelines for how researchers can address disability/accessibility-related issues with respect to (a) designing and testing new technologies, (b) analyzing and reporting outcomes, and (c) designing project activities and resources.
Resources
NSF Project Information
Project Website
Digital Science and Data Analytic Learning Environments at Small Liberal Arts Institutions
Award #1824727
Investigators:
John Symms, jsymms@carrollu.edu (Principal Investigator)
Jane Hopp (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: Carroll University
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This workshop is funded through the "Dear Colleague Letter: Principles for the Design of Digital Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning Environments (NSF 18-017)." Driven by rapid technological change, the United States is facing a critical workforce shortage in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions. Furthermore, employers across all fields are increasingly seeking employees who possess computational thinking and data science and analytics skill sets. Eighty percent of the nation's colleges and universities are classified as small institutions and enroll 5,000 or fewer students. Many of these small colleges and universities are grounded in the liberal arts and have a tradition of infusing personalized learning and common thought across disciplines within their general education curricula. This makes them particularly well-suited for preparing students in human literacy, technological literacy, and data literacy. Because computational thinking and data science and analytics work is most often conducted digitally, it is imperative that students learn these skills in digital environments to prepare them for what they will encounter in the workplace. The next generation of digital learning environments encompassing five areas (interoperability; personalization; analytics, advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; and accessibility and universal learning design) will be used by students to learn data science and analytics skill sets. Small colleges and universities often lack the financial resources to build the necessary human and technological infrastructure to support digital learning. This workshop will design digital learning environments that will meet the substantial need for data science and analytics-educated professionals, promote equity in learning, and assist small liberal arts colleges and universities to contribute to the early development of these efforts. Experts will advise teams to design digital science and analytics curricula that will be incorporated in blueprint designs for next generation of digital learning environments meeting the needs of learners and the workforce.
The goal of the project is to convene a workshop that results in blueprint designs of next generation of digital learning environments to answer the question - How can science, technology, and mathematics digital learning environments be designed to enhance the digital science and data analytic skill competencies of learners at small liberal arts institutions of higher education? The research questions include: 1) How will the innovative digital learning environments prepare students for employment that requires data science and analytics? 2) How will the design of data science and analytics digital learning environments account for the variability of learners? 3) How will data be collected and learning environments assessed to measure students' data science and analytics competency? 4) How will a national consortium form and function to sustain and expand the workshop outcomes? Based on the tradition in small liberal arts colleges and universities of offering personalized learning, universal design learning for technology will be emphasized and serve as a model for supporting more underrepresented students in STEM to persist to graduation. The complexity of data sciences and analytics skill sets require an assessment of the workshop participants' progress toward meeting the planned outcomes, and education on individual motivations, both which are done through team science. Team science is also innovatively incorporated into the data science and analytics undergraduate curriculum design to educate students how their skills can contribute to a greater product that is the result of the collective contribution of the multidisciplinary team. The project draws upon the expertise of national experts who provide content knowledge not otherwise available to small liberal arts colleges and universities. The forming of a national consortium for digital learning at small liberal arts colleges and universities will sustain and expand the workshop outcomes. It will provide authentic hands-on digital learning research experience through curriculum innovations that introduce students to computational thinking, data science, and analytic skills. The result will be prepared students who fit the workforce need in this area.
Resources:
Digitally-Mediated Team Learning
Award #1825007
Investigators:
Ronald DeMara, Ronald.Demara@ucf.edu (Principal Investigator)
Samuel Spiegel (Co-Principal Investigator)
Laurie Campbell (Co-Principal Investigator)
Charles Hartshorne (Co-Principal Investigator)
Joseph Beck (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: University of Central Florida
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This project will convene a workshop of researchers, educators, and practitioners to advance transformative pedagogical approaches for technology-enhanced team learning within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. The workshop will advance the utilization and efficacy of next-generation learning architectures through a focus on instructional technologies that facilitate digitally-mediated team-based learning. Interdisciplinary science and engineering researchers, developers, and educators will identify near-term and future research directions to facilitate adaptable digital environments for highly-effective, rewarding, and scalable team-based learning. The workshop will emphasize personalization of collaborations among diverse learners by automating the identification and utilization of learners' efficacies and knowledge gaps to create complementary collaborative teams that maximize avenues for peer teaching and learning. The workshop will advance both national and societal goals of improving STEM instruction to develop a stronger national STEM workforce, while uniting experts in data analytics, data mining, and instructional design & technology. Dissemination of the findings from the workshop will include social, traditional, and popular media outlets, and the outcomes of the workshop will benefit researchers, educators, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, while informing digitally-enhanced learner-centered approaches to learning.
The project will focus on technical objectives of: (1) identifying new research in learning analytics required to automate more optimal composition, formation, and adaptation of learner design teams; (2) detecting advances in physical and virtual learning environments that can achieve more effective and scalable observation and assessment of learner teams in real-time; (3) distinguishing data mining techniques to leverage devices such as monitors, trackers, and automated camera observations to increase efficacy of team learning; and (4) extending collaborative learning technologies to broaden participation and achievement of diverse learner groups, including women and other underrepresented and underserved populations in STEM. Prior to the workshop, a call for papers will solicit submission of an expertise profile and position abstract. During the two-day workshop, participants will be afforded opportunities to participate in a poster session, keynote, panel session, breakout technical sessions, and action committees. The workshop will result in 1-, 3-, and 5+ year research and development plans organized into tracks for each technical focus. In addition to social and popular media, dissemination activities will include a white paper, executive summary, infographics, and public-facing website to maximize the outreach towards the goal of providing a unifying roadmap for the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of digitally-mediated teams advancing the achievement of all learners.
Resources:
NSF Project Information
Project Website
Distributed Collaboration in STEM-Rich Project-Based Learning
Award #1824924
Investigators:
Eric Hamilton, eric.hamilton@pepperdine.edu (Principal Investigator)
Institution: Pepperdine University
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This project will convene a synthesis and design workshop on next generation science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning. It envisions a two-tier timeline that looks three years and then ten years into the future. One primary workshop topic involves design considerations for "boundary-crossing" project-based learning, by which students (middle school through college) collaborate on challenging STEM projects while they reside in different national, economic, cultural, and academic settings. Based on preliminary research, such "distributed" collaboration has important potential to become a life changing, abundant, and seamless aspect of enhanced, next generation STEM learning. The workshop, along with its preparations and the discussions and draft iterations that follow, will culminate in a synthesis and design paper suitable for use by the National Science Foundation and by STEM education practitioners, designers, policy-makers, and researchers. The workshop will benefit from the participation of internationally prominent participants from Finland, Mexico, and Singapore, engaged in similar next generation STEM education design efforts in their countries.
This workshop, along with a preceding series of webinars, is intertwined with crucial and exciting areas currently unfolding in education research, innovation, and the learning sciences. Its primary theoretical frameworks originate in computer supported collaborative learning and social cognition literature. The synthesis represents a prospectus that incorporates the interconnections of next generation teacher roles, sociocultural and affective dynamics in STEM cognition, computational thinking, and the integration of content, assessment, and management in personalized and collaborative learning. The design task of the workshop is to organize principles responsive to the synthesis, while furnishing overall design guidance by which a) the energy and intrinsic draw of distributed collaboration; b) the appeal, challenge, and intrigue of STEM-rich collaborative projects; c) the intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction of teaching others and helping others to succeed; and d) the intrinsic satisfaction of creating and making, are all operational and mutually reinforcing.
Resources:
The Future of Embodied Design for Mathematical Imagination and Cognition
Award #1824662
Investigators:
Mitchell Nathan, mnathan@wisc.edu (Principal Investigator)
Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
The next generation of digital learning environments for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content will be more interactive, more personalized yet more collaborative; provide developers and teachers with rich, real time data from users to track engagement and support formative assessment; and target both conscious and unconscious learning processes. Embodied cognition research provides promising findings that show how body movement contributes to STEM education by allowing learners to physically engage with ideas, and by describing how teachers naturally use their bodies in ways such as gestures to enhance their instructional effectiveness. Mathematics education, in particular, can benefit from such innovation in embodied cognition because it serves as the connective representational "language" across the STEM fields. Technologies exist now that can track people's movement in real time and provide feedback. Yet there is no current consensus on the best ways to design educational technology for supporting embodied cognition for mathematics education. The timing for motion capture technology, theories of embodied cognition, and interest among teachers for movement based educational innovations is ideal for bringing scholars and classroom practitioners together for a workshop on embodied design for mathematics education. During a 3-day workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the spring of 2019, teachers and research scholars will gather to discuss ways in which new computer technologies support embodied approaches for improved math education. The workshop participants examine learning in and out of school, but with a focus on the design of systems for promoting embodied ways of learning and teaching in classroom settings.
Embodied design for mathematics education, a research-oriented pedagogical design framework rooted in theories of embodiment and design-based research as practiced within the learning sciences, supports the improvement of instructional methodology for students' mathematical proficiency in the classroom. Currently there is a convergence of theoretical, technological, and methodological developments in formation that make this a particularly promising time to support advancements in embodied design for mathematics education. The workshop will bring research scholars and classroom teachers together in order to achieve four central objectives: (1) synthesize current research into a coherent theory of embodied mathematical imagination and cognition, (2) identify the most promising opportunities for conceptual and methodological integration, (3) curate a set of evidence-based design principles for enhancing mathematics education and broadening participation in all STEM fields, and (4) articulate a future research agenda in the growing area of embodied cognition. This workshop will assemble an interdisciplinary set of scholars from education research, cognitive science, the learning sciences, developmental psychology, movement science, linguistics, computer science, and mathematics. Presentations and discussions will span grades K through 16 on topics in arithmetic and algebra, proportional reasoning and fractions, geometry, complex numbers, statistics, and calculus. The workshop will bring together an intellectually and ethnically diverse group of scholars to synthesize the evidence for embodied design as a means to enhance mathematical reasoning and thereby promote STEM education and participation. The workshop organization will promote interdisciplinary research and theory building in the learning sciences and identify current challenges and future research efforts. The approach is tightly connected to the societal need to foster an educated and technically competent workforce. A particular emphasis on mathematics is intended to broaden participation in math and STEM by creating new entry points for historically underserved ethnic, racial, economic, and gender groups.
Resources:
NSF Project Information
Project Website
Principles for the Design of Digitally-Distributed, Studio-Based STEM Learning Environments
Award #1825076
Investigators:
Jill Castek, jcastek@email.arizona.edu (Principal Investigator)
Leslie Sult (Co-Principal Investigator)
Jennifer Nichols (Co-Principal Investigator)
Kevin Bonine (Co-Principal Investigator)
Blaine Smith (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: University of Arizona
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This workshop is funded through the "Dear Colleague Letter: Principles for the Design of Digital Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning Environments (NSF 18-017)." In today's educational climate, organizations are creating physical learning spaces for hands-on STEM activities, often called makerspaces, co-working spaces, innovation labs, or fablabs. These spaces have evolved to be interdisciplinary centers that personalize learning for individual, diverse learners in collaborative settings. When designed well, these physical spaces create communities that contextualize learning around participants' goals and thus address STEM learning in a dynamic and integrated way. Participation in these learning environments encourages the cultivation of STEM identities for young people and can positively direct their career trajectories into STEM fields. This workshop will bring together a community of collaborators from multiple stakeholder groups including academia, public libraries, museums, community based organizations, non-profits, media makers and distribution channels, and educators within and beyond K-12 schools. Led by the University of Arizona, and held at Biosphere 2, an international research facility, participants will engage in activities that invite experimentation with distributed learning technologies to examine ways to adapt learning to the changing technological landscape and create robust, dynamic online learning environments. The workshop will culminate in a synthesis of design principles, assessment approaches, and tools that will be shared widely. Partnerships arising from the workshop will pave the way for sustained efforts in this area that span research and practice communities. Outcomes will address research and development of the next generation of digitally distributed learning environments.
The three day workshop convening will provide a unique forum to (1) exchange innovative ideas and share challenges and opportunities, (2) connect practical and research-based expertise and (3) form cross-institutional and cross-community partnerships that envision, propose, and implement opportunities for collecting and analyzing data to systematically inform the collective understanding. Participation-based activities will include design-based experiences, participatory activities, demonstrations of works in progress, prototyping, creative pitching, practitioner lightning talks, small group breakouts, hands-on design activities, and an 'unconference' style synthesis of bold ideas. Participants will be invited to experiment with distributed learning technologies. Five focus areas for the workshop include (1) inclusivity of learning spaces that invite multiple perspectives and full participation, (2) documenting learning in ways that are linked to outcomes and impacts for all learners, (3) implementing the use of new technologies in diverse settings, such as the workforce, (4) interpersonal interactions and peer-to-peer learning that may encourage a STEM career-path, and, (5) methods for collecting and analyzing data at the intersection of people, the learning environment, and new technologies at multiple levels. Outcomes of the workshop will serve to advance knowledge regarding critical gaps and opportunities and identify and characterize models of collaboration, networking, and innovation that operate within and across studio-based STEM learning environments.
Resources:
Research Priorities in Learning Analytics
Award #1824998
Investigators:
Stephanie Teasley, steasley@umich.edu (Principal Investigator)
Rada Mihalcea (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This workshop is funded through the "Dear Colleague Letter: Principles for the Design of Digital Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning Environments (NSF 18-017)." Post-secondary educational institutions are being buffeted by three major transitions: changes in the nature of the competencies students need and want, changes in the demographic mix of people that they serve, and changes in the technologies and strategies available to build, measure, and communicate competence and expertise. Powerful new information technologies, unprecedented opportunities to gather and analyze large volumes of data, and new insights into how people learn, make it possible to imagine designing learning environments that make learning more productive, more affordable, and more gracefully adaptable to individuals throughout their lifetimes. The new field of learning analytics has made major advances in understanding how educational Big Data can produce insights to improve classroom practices. Yet, a number of critical questions remain unanswered in important areas to ensure all Americans receive the education they need to prosper in a modern economy. The aim of this workshop is to investigate the role of learning analytics in contributing to advances in technological learning environments.
The workshop will bring together interdisciplinary experts to articulate the state-of-the-art and propose research priorities for learning analytics in the coming decade. A central theme will be to explore new ways to use powerful tools in data science (machine learning, social network analysis, analytics and visualization of complex data, temporal, multi-scale and statistical models, integration of heterogeneous data, data scrubbing, wrangling and provenance tracking, data privacy and cybersecurity) to define competence, measure it, and build it using a rich array of new approaches to study learning. The workshop will also explore how the full power of these tools can be applied to the most critical challenges faced in learning analytics. The outcome of the workshop will be a clear definition of the highest priority research needs in learning analytics and a practical roadmap to guide public and private research support in these areas. The resulting white paper will provide insights to improve a wide range of learning environment contexts in in post-secondary education.
Resources:
Weaving the Fabric of Adaptive STEM Learning Environments Across Domains and Settings
Award #1825070
Investigators:
Roy Pea, roypea@stanford.edu (Principal Investigator)
Bryan Brown (Co-Principal Investigator)
Institution: Stanford University
Start Date: 9/1/18
End Date: 8/31/19
Project Description:
This workshop is funded through the "Dear Colleague Letter: Principles for the Design of Digital Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning Environments (NSF 18-017)." The goal of this workshop is to articulate a transformative vision of future STEM learning for diverse learners across domains and settings. It forges a nexus among the emerging (a) sciences of learning, (b) assessment, and (c) big data to formulate frameworks and tools for designing STEM learning environments. Taking an equity-first approach for broadening participation through innovative designs, this project convenes interdisciplinary teams to produce a white paper proposing forward-looking digitally-augmented STEM environments that bridge formal and informal learning contexts and are responsive to the needs to every learner. The white paper will also articulate a future research agenda that could lead to new breakthroughs at the Human-Technology Frontier. The open-invitation design workshop, strategically located at Stanford University, and dissemination through a public website and community outreach activities at key conferences in which these scholarly communities convene will ensure broad awareness of and access to these models, tools, frameworks, design principles, and research priorities for educators, researchers, and analysts.
The workshop is designed to construct needed new collaborations with the learning sciences, psychometrics, and computer science to design integrative STEM learning environments with robust in-process measures of adaptive learning that address key aspects of deeper learning. It convenes innovators advancing the state-of-the-art in equity-focused, technology-enhanced STEM learning, educational data mining and learning analytics, and computational psychometrics, to develop innovative ways to design and scale for a future of integrated STEM learning in an era of big data. An infrastructure of generative new algorithms and knowledge models, psychometric models, and learner pathway models will emerge from project activities at the intersection of these disciplinary perspectives to transform learning and assessment designs by incorporating signals from multimodal learning analytics and software for multi-faceted measurement of academic competencies. The project scope will be guided by three questions: (1) How can learning environments for integrated STEM learning scale successful efforts across diverse student populations and bridge formal and informal learning contexts? (2) What innovative research methods, statistical techniques and modeling formalisms are necessary to embed theoretical models in data-driven computational approaches in order to capture, characterize and support causal claims about individual and team-based learning, especially for complex, multi-source streaming data? (3) How can multi-domain threaded learning progressions be created for integrated learning and assessment of STEM subjects?