EC-TEL 2022: Posters

Development of Actionable Insights for Regulating Students’ Collaborative Writing of Scientific Texts

C. Hoffmann, N. Mandran, C. d’Ham, S. Rebaudo & M. Anis Haddouche

We develop indicators for teachers to monitor and regulate students’ collaborative writing on a web-based science learning environment. Visualizations of carefully selected indicators are proposed to teachers in order to facilitate the tracking, analysis and management of the students’ collaborative work process over time. Our research method is based on a user-centered approach. Via focus groups and interviews, teachers have participated in the design of the indicators and visualizations. This communication presents (a) the mapping from collected data to educational constructs underlying our analytical approach for collaborative writing, (b) indicators and visualizations produced to provide actionable insights to teachers, and (c) lessons learned from our iterative human-centered design process. The results are transferable to other learning environments and design processes.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_47

A Conceptual Framework for Creating Mobile Collaboration Tools

S. Simon, I. Marfisi-Schottman & S. George

Field trips combine a number of favourable conditions for collaborative and situated learning. Research has shown that collaboration can be improved by the use of digital tools, such as interactive tables. However, existing tools are heavy and thus unfit for field trips. This article introduces a conceptual framework for the design of collaborative tools in a mobile context. This framework is based on three features: a shared mobile interactive display, a modular tool to support collaboration and scriptable tools to design collaborative educational scenarios. The overall objective is to provide teachers with solutions for designing field-based learning activities and to support learners’ collaboration.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_56

🎤 2-Min Pitch Presentation: Poster Session B, Thursday 23/09, 9:00h @ Poster & Demo Room

Designing LADs That Promote Sensemaking: A Participatory Tool

M. Sadallah, J-M. Gilliot, S. Iksal, K. Quelennec, M. Vermeulen, L. Neyssensas, O. Aubert & R. Venant 

Learning Analytics Dashboards (LADs) are data visualization tools built to empower teachers and learners to make purposeful decisions that impact the learning process. Due to their relatively recent emergence and the scarcity of studies on their design principles, dashboard design remains a major area of investigation in learning analytics research, and large scale diffusion to their stakeholders remains limited. We promote human-centered approaches for LADs design since their success in terms of acceptance and adoption greatly depends on the level of stakeholder involvement in their design. In this paper, we present a tool to support the participatory design of LADs. First experiments during a pilot study with teachers demonstrate that the proposed tool encourages group work, and in-depth exploration of LADs use.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_54

Design Pattern for Exploration and Experimentation: Result of Field Study on a Toy-Based Serious Game Design Method

B. Marne

n this paper we report how we combined and tested a couple of similar methods to design serious games (SGs) meant to foster learning through exploration and experimentation of the systems of a domain simulation. The main method tested propose basing SG design on toy design set both in the core of the game and the domain to teach. Our experiment on both methods has two objectives: measure the efficiency of both methods and extract new design patterns to help designing serious games based on a toy and thus fostering learning through exploration and experimentation. Our experiment is a longitudinal field study four years long while we contributed and analysed the design of 25 SG prototypes made by 100+ designers. Our results show that the methods are efficient combined and identify some of their issues. Results also provide a field-tested full design pattern to help create new SGs based on a toy.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_50

Personalizing the Sequencing of Learning Activities by Using the Q-Learning and the Bayesian Knowledge Tracing

A. Yessad

n this paper, we present an approach for personalizing the sequencing of learning activities that relies on the Q-learning. The Q-learning learns a sequencing policy to select learning activities that aims to maximize the learning gain of students. On the one hand, the core of this approach is the use of the Bayesian knowledge tracing (BKT) to model the student knowledge state and to define the Q-Learning reward function. On the other hand, we defined with experts rules to generate simulated students. These simulated data were used to initialize the Q-table of the Q-Learning and answer its“cold start” problem. We present empirical results showing that…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_61

Towards an Authoring Tool to Help Teachers Create Mobile Collaborative Learning Games for Field Trips

I. Marfisi-Schottman, A. Laine, P. Laforcade, S. George, S. Simon, M. May, M. Zammit & L. Blin

Pedagogical activities that combine mobility, collaboration and game mechanics present significant advantages to attract students’ attention and maintain their engagement in learning. Teachers naturally try to combine mobility and collaboration when they create field trips. Indeed, they identify several Points Of Interest that learners physically need to go to, thus requiring mobility, and they usually group students in teams to encourage collaboration, even if such collaboration is seldom attained. However, using the third element – game mechanics – is harder for teachers because they are not familiar with game models and often not gamers themselves. In this article, we present the MOCOGA Model, a MObile COllaborative learning GAme Model that is designed to adapt to many types of field trips. This model also offers…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_49

Process and Self-regulation Explainable Feedback for Novice Programmers Appears Ineffectual

E. Félix, F. Amadieu, R. Venant & J. Broisin

This paper investigates how to provide novice programmers with feedback about their learning process including hints and explanations to improve their learning. The aim is to improve the feedback effectiveness and perceived utility by making it more meaningful through the use of explanations. Our proposals were implemented in the context of computer science education and an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of explainable feedback on changes in learners’ strategies, performance and perceptions. The first results of this experiment show no significant effect of process and self-regulation feedback (explained or not) on students’ strategies or learning outcomes. Also, we conducted a qualitative analysis that allowed us to propose a series of recommendations for stakeholders exploring feedback explainability.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_44

Does Deliberately Failing Improve Learning in Introductory Computer Science?

S. Thorgeirsson, T. Sinha, F. Friedrich & Z. Su

We report our experience with technology-enhanced Productive Failure (PF) in an introductory computer science course. First, we sought to assess whether the use of algorithm visualization tools during the PF problem-solving phase enhanced learning. Second, we used an experimental study to measure learning effects of administering failure-driven scaffolding (FDS) during the PF sessions, that is, explicitly nudging generation with suboptimal representations deliberately designed to lead to failures. Results from surveys and log data indicated that our visualization tools helped students explore the problem space and performance data signaled that FDS improved students’ constructive reasoning (Cohen’s d 0.194, BF01 2.55) and did not harm posttest scores (BF01 3.17) relative to no explicit scaffolding…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_57

What Teachers Would Expect from a Pedagogical Agent System Working at a Classroom Level: A Focus Group Study

E.R. Roa, D.K. Raave, I-A. Chounta & M. Pedaste

Applications of pedagogical agent (PA) systems incorporating animated characters in school settings have mainly addressed students at an individual level. However, how these systems could be used and designed for supporting teachers while taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is an open question. Therefore, we carried out a focus group to understand what teachers would expect and need from such a system at a classroom level. Our focus group protocol sought to discover design and practical considerations in four dimensions. 1) System design considerations, where teachers expect the system to incorporate speech recognition and to “learn” from them while doing their practice. 2) System collaboration, teachers wanted support in their pedagogy by considering students’ achievement profiles, and by finding and sorting learning material as needed. 3) PA role in the classroom, we identified…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_53

Instant or Distant: A Temporal Network Tale of Two Interaction Platforms and Their Influence on Collaboration

M. Saqr & S. López-Pernas

This study compared two iterations of the same course where students had the same assignments. In the first iteration, the students had to use the typical discussion forums offered by the popular Moodle learning management system. In the second iteration, students had to use Discord, the popular gaming chat application. Students’ interactions were retrieved from both platforms and cleaned. Two social networks were constructed using the same methods to evaluate the differences in patterns of interaction between the two platforms, the group interactivity, the reciprocity, and the quality of interactions. The aim is to study how far an instant messenger facilitates or otherwise constrains collaboration. We use temporal network methods to further understand the pace, rhythm, and temporality of interactions.

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_55

🎤 2-Min Pitch Presentation: Poster Session A, Wednesday 22/09, 15:30h @ Poster & Demo Room

Mobile Telepresence Robots in Education: Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Challenges

M. Perifanou, A.A. Economides, P. Häfner & T. Wernbacher

A mobile telepresence robot (MTR) is a semi-autonomous robot whose movement and interaction with its surrounding environment is controlled by a person from a distance. In education, MTR enable learners or educators to virtually participate in a class from a distance. TRinE: Telepresence Robots in Education is an EU project that aims at providing an interactive toolkit to support educators, learners, and others in order to integrate MTR in education. During January and February 2022, project’s partners conducted a qualitative study to collect the experiences and views of educators, learners, and other stakeholders (i.e., administrators, technical support staff, librarians) regarding the use of MTR in education across Austria, Germany, Greece, France, Iceland, Malta, and USA. A total of 19 persons were interviewed and 66 persons participated in 12 focus groups discussions. The findings describe…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_52

What Kind and How Many?: Exploring Feedback in Remote Training of Procedural Skills in Physiotherapy

I. Villagrán, R. Hernández, J. Fuentes, G. Torres, D. Silva, N. Araya, M. Delgado, C. Miranda, A. Neyem, J. Varas & I. Hilliger

Practical learning in physiotherapy education became challenging during the pandemic. Socio-sanitary constraints limited hands-on scenarios and instructors’ opportunities to provide timely feedback to their students. Asynchronous remote training through a feedback-oriented platform is an alternative with potential benefits beyond emergency distance learning. This preliminary quantitative study analyzes the results of the implementation of an asynchronous remote strategy for teaching manual techniques to Physiotherapy undergraduate students. Sixty-one students reviewed a procedure video, recorded their execution of the procedure, and uploaded it to an online platform. An instructor assessed the video through an observation scale, providing students with different feedback inputs. Students repeated the process if they did not meet the cut-off score. In the development of…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_60

Towards Effective Blended Learning Through the Eyes of Students: A Survey Study in Transition into Face-to-Face Education

G. Astudillo, I. Hilliger, F. Rodríguez & J. Baier

Many researchers consider that blended or hybrid learning implies a meaningful combination of online and face-to-face activities. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, studies had shown promising results of blended learning to improve student performance. However, the design and implementation of effective combinations is far from trivial, considering students’ differences regarding their demographics and self-regulatory capacities. This paper presents a survey study developed in an Engineering school of a Latin American university that transitioned from online learning to a hybrid format in mid-2021. Quantitative data was collected throughout an online questionnaire applied to a convenience sample of 1,124 students. Subgroup differences were identified by means of exploratory factor analysis and clustering. Two different subgroups emerged from the data: those who prefer online learning and those who prefer…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_41

Exploring Teacher’s Orchestration Actions in Online and In-Class Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

L. Hakami, I. Amarasinghe, E. Hakami & D. Hernandez-Leo

Teacher orchestration of technology-enhanced learning has received increasing attention as a factor for enhancing students’ learning gains. However, a limited number of studies have investigated the impact of learning settings on teachers’ orchestration actions. In this paper, we considered two different settings of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) activities, namely online and in-class, and studied their influence on teachers’ orchestration actions. Data was collected from five sessions for each setting. The findings indicated that during the in-class sessions there were more teacher-individual interactions, announcements, checking participation/responses tabs, and dashboard interventions conducted by the teacher. In the online setting, however, more teacher-class interactions occurred when compared to the in-class setting. The implications of this study…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_45

CLP: A Platform for Competitive Learning

A. Vats, G. Guzun & D.C. Anastasiu

We introduce the Competitive Learning Platform (CLP), an online continuous improvement tool that provides automatic partial performance feedback to students or groups of students on individual or collaborative assignments. CLP motivates students to do their best and come up with new solutions that can lead to improved assignment results before the assignment deadline. In this work, we describe the CLP system and present the results of a comprehensive set of analyses aimed at gauging the impact of utilizing this platform on student motivation, engagement, and performance. The analyses are based on a rich dataset containing CLP submission, student outcome, and student feedback data obtained from a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes using the tool at two universities over a period of five years. The sample includes 18 courses, 606 students, and 15782 CLP submissions. Results indicate that CLP…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_58

The Enablers and Barriers of Using Slack for Computer-Mediated Communication to Support the Learning Journey: A Case Study at a University of Applied Sciences

T. Papathoma

Slack is a tool originally used for computer-mediated communication within software companies as well as from academics to enable communication and collaboration. Slack is currently used in Higher Education for pedagogical purposes. This paper presents a case study of its application to support the learning journey in a German University of applied sciences. The study identifies enablers and barriers of the use of Slack as they come out from learning experience research with 20 undergraduate student interviews in their first semester as well as from observations of a Slack channel that the students and their educators used. The study identifies enablers with students reporting that Slack is easy to use, the discussions are flowing, the communication with educators is personal and friendly, and they get the opportunity to network and socialize with…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_51

Studying Cohort Influence on Student Performance Prediction in Multi-cohort University Courses

P. Vemuri, S. Poelmans, H. Pandya & M. Snoeck

Advances in educational data mining and learning analytics techniques allow instructors and institutions to analyze log data generated from learning management systems to inform themselves about student learning and success. Over the years, several machine learning techniques have been developed, used, and researched to provide more accurate predictions of students’ performance in courses. These techniques commonly need and are focused on large sample sizes and low dimensionality which is not the case for university courses in blended contexts. In some studies, student cohorts across years and programs are merged together to increase sample sizes and achieve better prediction accuracies. While there have been other recent studies experimenting with…

📄 Read more: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16290-9_59