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1. Practical Insights into the Design of Future Disaster Response Training Simulations

   Alharthi, Sultan A; LaLone, Nick; Khalaf, Ahmed S; Torres, Ruth; Nacke, Lennart; Dolgov, Igor; Toups_Dugas, Phoebe O (May 2018, ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management)

   Boersma, Kees; Tomaszeski, Brian (Ed.)

   A primary component of disaster response is training. These educational exercises provide responders with the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared when disasters happen. However, traditional training methods, such as high-fidelity simulations (e.g., real-life drills) and classroom courses, may fall short of providing effective and cost-efficient training that is needed for today's challenges. Advances in technology open a wide range of opportunities for training using computer-mediated simulations and exercises. These exercises include the use of mixed reality games and wearable computers. Existing studies report on the usefulness of these technologies for training purposes. This review paper synthesizes prior research and development of disaster response simulations and identifies challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned. Through this review, we provide researchers and designers with an overview of current practices in designing training simulations and contribute practical insights into the design of future disaster response training. 

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2. The 4Cs for Young Children’s Technology: Create, Connect, Communicate, and Control.

   Hourcade, Juan Pablo; Currin, Flannery (September 2023, XXIII Congreso Internacional de Interacción Persona-Ordenador (Interaccion 2023))

   The phenomena surrounding computers has, during the past 10-15 years, broadened to become a non-trivial component of young children’s lives. This broadening is happening at a time when many technologies include dark patterns that induce compulsive use, disregard privacy, and lead to passive, isolating experiences. As a counter to these developments, we build on the 3Cs approach to young children’s technologies (create, connect, and communicate), and propose a 4th C: control. We call for technologies that give children and caregivers control over their activities, time, data, and decision-making. In this paper, we provide a historical and child development perspective to motivate our approach, present its characteristics, illustrate it with examples, and discuss challenges and opportunities. 

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3. Flipped Classrooms in Organic Chemistry—A Closer Look at Student Reasoning Through Discourse Analysis of a Group Activity

   https://doi.org/10.1039/9781839167782-00159  

   Mooring, Suazette R; Burrows, Nikita L; Gamage, Sujani (December 2022, The Royal Society of Chemistry)

   Students face various challenges in organic chemistry, including learning complex organic chemistry concepts, applying them to solve problems, and navigating curved arrow notation to depict organic chemistry mechanisms. Given these challenges, many chemistry education practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on implementing and assessing pedagogical practices that can produce positive outcomes for all students. In this chapter, we describe flipped classroom pedagogy as an evidence-based practice in organic chemistry that has improved student outcomes and addressed learning challenges in the course. We also review key aspects of this practice. In addition, we focus on group activities since they are a common component of flipped classrooms. We will present a case study that analyzes students' reasoning through dialogue when they were engaged in a group quiz activity that was a component of a flipped organic chemistry course. Through the results of this case study, we will make suggestions for how group activities can be implemented to improve students' reasoning skills in organic chemistry. 

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4. Multidimensional science assessment: Design challenges and technology affordances

   Gane, B; Gaur, D; Arnold, S; Damelin, D (February 2024, Educational designer)

   Contemporary views on what students should learn increasingly emphasize that students need to acquire more than a base of knowledge; they need to acquire the skills and abilities to use such knowledge in dynamic and flexible ways. To be most effective, learning environments need assessments that are aligned to these perspectives. Using a principled design framework can help guide assessment development toward such targets. Even when using a framework, however, thorny design challenges may arise. Technology-enhanced assessments offer opportunities to overcome such challenges but are not a solution in and of themselves and can also introduce new challenges. In this paper, we describe three challenges (conflict between multiple dimensions of science proficiency, authentic data, and grade-appropriate graphing tools) that we faced when designing for a specific Next Generation Science Standard, and the theoretical and design principles that guided us as we ideated design solutions. Through these designs we maintained alignment to our multidimensional assessment targets, a critical component of our larger assessment validity argument. 

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5. Importance measures for inspections in binary networks

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.22725/ICASP13.328  

   Lin, Chaochao; Pozzi, Matteo; Song, Junho (May 2019, ICASP13 - 13th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering)

   Many infrastructure systems can be modeled as networks of components with binary states (intact, damaged). Information about components’ conditions is crucial for the maintenance process of the system. However, it is often impossible to collect information of all components due to budget constraints. Several metrics have been developed to assess the importance of the components in relation to maintenance actions: an important component is one that should receive high maintenance priority. Instead, in this paper we focus on the priority to be assigned for component inspections and information collection. We investigate metrics based on system level (global) and component level (local) decision making after inspection for networks with different topology, and compare these results with traditional ones. We then discuss the computational challenges of these metrics and provide possible approximation approaches. 

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