DIP: Improving Collaborative Learning in Engineering Classes Through Integrated Tools

“网络学习和未来学习技术计划”资助的工作旨在支持展望学习技术的未来，并推进我们对人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的了解。开发和实施（DIP）项目建立在概念验证工作的基础上，展示了所提议的新型学习技术的可能性，以建立和完善其所提议的创新的最小可行示例，使他们能够了解未来应该如何设计和使用此类技术，并使他们能够回答有关人们如何学习，如何促进或评估学习，以及/或如何为学习设计的问题。本项目主要关注工程入门课程中协作解决问题活动的教学，并以先前的项目为基础，设计这些课程中协作绘制草图的工具。该项目基于对合作在工程中的重要性的认识，学生学习这种技能的需要，协作学习任务对学生参与真正的问题解决活动的价值，以及研究生助教（助教）在尝试以这种方式教学时遇到的困难。技术创新分为两部分。第一部分是为助教提供的一套工具，帮助他们管理课堂技术，帮助他们了解如何干预那些在内容或协作过程中遇到困难的小组。第二部分是给学生的一套工具。基于先前开发的协作草图软件，支持他们协作过程的提示将嵌入到学生将要使用的软件中，基于日志文件的分析可以帮助确定谁在何时需要什么提示。研究目标包括理解接受提示如何改变学生合作活动的性质，以及接受对学生遇到的困难的洞察如何帮助助教学习如何在课堂上促进合作学习。通过为助教和学生设计和研究工具，项目指导者正在解决在工程课程中实施合作学习活动所遇到的困难。通过迭代设计方法，pi将为助教设计和研究工具，以协调课堂和协作活动，并为学生设计和研究工具，以支持他们协作解决问题的过程。pi将调查学习分析在评估学生使用这些工具的协作实践中的使用情况；特别是，日志文件将根据先前对协作过程的研究来检查协作指标，然后聚类以寻找参与模式，最后使用机器学习技术创建成功协作过程的回归模型。将使用日志文件和视频数据对模型进行交叉验证，以避免过拟合。这些见解将提供给助教，以检查这些信息是否有助于确定如何以及何时对小组进行干预。研究结果将提供以下见解：1)助教在本科课程中成功实施协作解决问题所需的知识；2)助教们是否能在工具的支持下，学习到更多关于协作解决问题的知识，以帮助他们实施这种形式的教学法；3)学生是否可以在多周的协作活动中通过嵌入式提示学习协作解决问题的技能；4)分析在确定何时以及如何减少团队协作支持方面的潜力。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that support envisioning the future of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Development and Implementation (DIP) Projects build on proof-of-concept work that shows the possibilities of the proposed new type of learning technology to build and refine a minimally-viable example of their proposed innovation that allows them to understand how such technology should be designed and used in the future and that allows them to answer questions about how people learn, how to foster or assess learning, and/or how to design for learning. This project is focused on the teaching of collaborative problem solving activities in introductory engineering courses and builds on a prior project to design tools for collaborative sketching in these courses. The project is based on a recognition of the importance of collaborating in engineering, the need for student to learn this skill, the value of collaborative learning tasks for engaging students in authentic problem solving activities, and the difficulty that graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) encounter when trying to teach in this way. There are two parts to the technology innovation. The first part is a set of tools for the teaching assistants, to help them manage the classroom technologies, and to help them understand how to intervene in groups who are struggling with the content or collaborative processes. The second part is a set of tools for the students. Building on the collaborative sketch software previously developed, prompts to support their collaborative processes will be embedded in the software students will use, based on analysis of the logfiles that help determine who needs what prompts when. Research goals include understanding how receiving prompts changes the nature of students' collaborative activity, and how receiving insight into the difficulties students are having helps TAs learn about to foster collaborative learning in their classes.The PIs are addressing the difficulties encountered implementing collaborative learning activities in engineering courses by designing and studying tools for TAs and students in these classes. Through an iterative design approach, the PIs will design and study tools for TAs to orchestrate the classroom and collaboration activities and to tools for students which support their collaborative problem solving processes. The PIs will investigate the use of learning analytics in evaluating the collaborative practices of students using these tools; in particular, logfiles will be examined for collaborative indicators based on prior research on collaborative processes, then clustered to look for patterns of engagement, and finally used to create regression models of successful collaboration processes using machine learning techniques. Cross-validation of the models will be done with both logfile and video data to avoid overfitting. These insights will be provided to TAs to examine whether such information is helpful in determining how and when to intervene in groups. Findings from the research will provide insight into: 1) The knowledge that TAs need in order to successfully implement collaborative problem solving in undergraduate courses; 2) Whether TAs can learn more about collaborative problem solving with the support of tools aimed at helping them implement this form of pedagogy; 3) Whether students can learn collaborative problem solving skills through embedded prompts during multi-week collaborative activities and 4) The potential of analytics in determining when and how to reduce the collaboration supports from groups.