CRII: Cyberlearning: Keeping Computer Programming Learners Engaged Online

这项研究旨在创建创新的软件，以扩大免费在线编程教育的访问。随着计算在21世纪世纪变得越来越重要，越来越多的人转向自由支配的在线资源来学习相关技能，如计算机编程。这些资源是大量教育公众的重要工具，这对经济发展和创新非常重要。然而，这些资源中的许多都很难让用户参与进来，这是学习的关键组成部分。建立能够检测用户脱离并适应他们需求的交互式系统，在教育下一代学习者方面将变得越来越重要。获得这些类型的免费、定制的学习体验将使每个人受益，尤其是那些代表性不足的群体和/或生活在农村或低收入地区的人，他们可能无法获得高质量的计算教育资源。这个项目建立在Gidget的基础上，Gidget是一个在线教育学习工具，旨在通过调试难题来教授新手入门计算机编程概念。该项目旨在将预测器集成到可以检测挣扎和脱离学习者的工具中，以便采取适当的行动来帮助他们。课程生成器组件将生成和提供定制的水平，为学习者提供更多的实践与他们有困难的概念。重新参与组件将及时产生和显示反馈，以帮助重新参与脱离学习者。这项研究将揭示新的见解，这些技术的有效性学习者的参与（可操作的总时间使用的工具和完成的概念总数）和学习成果（由知识的前后测试确定）在一个在线教育编程工具，并通知其他交互式教育工具的设计。这项工作有助于计算教育，交互式教育工具，人机交互，智能辅导系统和学习科学领域。

This research aims to create innovative software to broaden access to free online programming education. As computing continues to be increasingly important in the 21st century, more people are turning to discretionary online resources to learn related skills such as computer programming. These resources are great tools to teach the public in large numbers, which is important for economic development and innovation. However, many of these resources struggle to keep their users engaged, which is a critical component for learning. Building interactive systems that can detect users' disengagement and adapt to their needs will become increasingly important in teaching the next generation of learners. Access to these types of free, customized learning experiences will benefit everyone, but especially those in underrepresented groups and/or those living in rural or low income areas, who might not have quality computing education resources available to them otherwise.This project builds on Gidget, an online educational learning tool designed to teach novices introductory computer programming concepts through debugging puzzles. This project aims to integrate predictors into the tool that can detect struggling and disengaged learners, so that appropriate action(s) can be taken to help them. The curriculum generator component will produce and deliver customized levels to provide struggling learners more practice with concepts they are having difficulty with. The reengage component will produce and display just in time feedback to help reengage disengaged learners. This research will shed new insights into the effectiveness of these techniques on learners' engagement (operationalized as total time spent using the tool and total number of concepts completed) and learning outcomes (determined by a pre-post test of knowledge) in an online educational programming tool, and inform the design of other interactive educational tools. This work contributes to the fields of computing education, interactive educational tools, human-computer interaction, intelligent tutoring systems, and learning science.