Technology

AI for Tackling STEM Education Challenges

Artificial intelligence (AI), an emerging technology, finds increasing use in STEM education and STEM education research (e.g., Zhai et al., 2020b; Ouyang et al., 2022; Linn et al., 2023). AI, defined as a technology to mimic human cognitive behaviors, holds great potential to address some of the most challenging problems in STEM education (Neumann and Waight, 2020; Zhai, 2021). Amongst these is the challenge of supporting all students to meet the vision for science learning in the 21st century laid out, for example in the U.S.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Knut Neumann

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2023
Short Description

To best support students in developing competence, assessments that allow students to use knowledge to solve challenging problems and make sense of phenomena are needed. These assessments need to be designed and tested to validly locate students on the learning progression and hence provide feedback to students and teachers about meaningful next steps in their learning. Yet, such tasks are time-consuming to score and challenging to provide students with appropriate feedback to develop their knowledge to the next level.

AI for Tackling STEM Education Challenges

Artificial intelligence (AI), an emerging technology, finds increasing use in STEM education and STEM education research (e.g., Zhai et al., 2020b; Ouyang et al., 2022; Linn et al., 2023). AI, defined as a technology to mimic human cognitive behaviors, holds great potential to address some of the most challenging problems in STEM education (Neumann and Waight, 2020; Zhai, 2021). Amongst these is the challenge of supporting all students to meet the vision for science learning in the 21st century laid out, for example in the U.S.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Knut Neumann

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2023
Short Description

To best support students in developing competence, assessments that allow students to use knowledge to solve challenging problems and make sense of phenomena are needed. These assessments need to be designed and tested to validly locate students on the learning progression and hence provide feedback to students and teachers about meaningful next steps in their learning. Yet, such tasks are time-consuming to score and challenging to provide students with appropriate feedback to develop their knowledge to the next level.

Applying Machine Learning to Automatically Assess Scientific Models

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Peng He

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2022
Short Description

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners. This study utilized machine learning (ML), the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI), to develop an approach to automatically score student-drawn models and their written descriptions of those models.

Applying Machine Learning to Automatically Assess Scientific Models

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Peng He

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2022
Short Description

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners. This study utilized machine learning (ML), the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI), to develop an approach to automatically score student-drawn models and their written descriptions of those models.

Applying Machine Learning to Automatically Assess Scientific Models

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Peng He

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2022
Short Description

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment practices for science education. More importantly, teachers who rely on timely feedback to plan and adjust instruction are reluctant to use modeling tasks because they could not provide timely feedback to learners. This study utilized machine learning (ML), the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI), to develop an approach to automatically score student-drawn models and their written descriptions of those models.

Professional Noticing as Student-Centered: Pre-service Teachers’ Attending to Students’ Mathematics in 360 Video

Teachers’ professional noticing has been described as transitioning from descriptions of general pedagogy to analysis of students’ mathematical procedures and conceptual reasoning. Such a shift is described as a transition towards more student-centered noticing. In the present study, we used screen recordings of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) 360 video viewing to examine the relationship between where and what PSTs’ looked at and what they attended to in writing.

Author/Presenter
Karl W. Kosko

Maryam Zolfaghari

Jennifer L. Heisler

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

Teachers’ professional noticing has been described as transitioning from descriptions of general pedagogy to analysis of students’ mathematical procedures and conceptual reasoning. Such a shift is described as a transition towards more student-centered noticing. In the present study, we used screen recordings of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) 360 video viewing to examine the relationship between where and what PSTs’ looked at and what they attended to in writing.

Preservice Teachers’ Focus in 360 Videos: Understanding the Role of Presence, Ambisonic Audio, and Camera Placement

Immersive 360 videos are increasingly being used in pre-service teachers (PST) education. There is preliminary evidence that this technology may benefit future educators’ focus and attention to classroom settings and events. However, more analytical efforts are needed to better understand its potential impact on reported focus of attention (RFA) among future educators. This article addresses this gap by presenting the findings of a study on 360 videos that involved 92 PSTs.

Author/Presenter

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

Immersive 360 videos are increasingly being used in pre-service teachers (PST) education. There is preliminary evidence that this technology may benefit future educators’ focus and attention to classroom settings and events. However, more analytical efforts are needed to better understand its potential impact on reported focus of attention (RFA) among future educators. This article addresses this gap by presenting the findings of a study on 360 videos that involved 92 PSTs.

Using the COVID-19 Pandemic to Create a Vision for XR-based Teacher Education Field Experiences

If there was a bright side to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly related to education, it was the massive and rapid introduction of educational technologies to scaffold teaching and learning. Most notably, within teacher education, this included extended reality (XR) technologies to supplement or replace face-to-face field experiences. With the pandemic turning endemic, and with preK-12 schools returning to traditional modalities, there is a danger that the successes of virtual field experiences may be lost.

Author/Presenter

Richard E. Ferdig

Karl W. Kosko

Enrico Gandolfi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

This article presents a vision for 2025 to implement low cost and effective extended reality (XR) technologies to supplement teacher education field experiences, regardless of if and when another global or local crisis occurs (e.g., pandemic, war, weather). In doing so, empirical and theoretical research is presented that argues for teacher educators to seek out and employ more immersive representations of practice that take advantage of the perceptual capacity of XR.

Finding the Right Grain-Size for Measurement in the Classroom

This article introduces a new framework for articulating how educational assessments can be related to teacher uses in the classroom. It articulates three levels of assessment: macro (use of standardized tests), meso (externally developed items), and micro (on-the-fly in the classroom). The first level is the usual context for educational measurement, but one of the contributions of this article is that it mainly focuses on the latter two levels.

Author/Presenter

Mark Wilson

Year
2023
Short Description

This article introduces a new framework for articulating how educational assessments can be related to teacher uses in the classroom. It articulates three levels of assessment: macro (use of standardized tests), meso (externally developed items), and micro (on-the-fly in the classroom).

Strengthening Teaching in “Rural,” Indigenous-Serving Schools: Lessons from the Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators

This article reports on the first three years of a teacher-led professional development program on the Navajo Nation. We draw on both quantitative and qualitative data from our end-of-year surveys to highlight some of the early lessons we have gathered from the Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators (DINÉ).

Author/Presenter

Angelina E. Castagno

Marnita Chischilly

Darold H. Joseph

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2022
Short Description

This article reports on the first three years of a teacher-led professional development program on the Navajo Nation. We draw on both quantitative and qualitative data from our end-of-year surveys to highlight some of the early lessons we have gathered from the Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators (DINÉ). We highlight two guiding principles that have developed through this work, cultural responsiveness and teacher leadership, and we suggest that these guiding principles could be useful for other professional development efforts in Indigenous-serving contexts, many of which would be characterized as “rural.”