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1. Co-Design for Learner Help-Giving Across Physical and Digital Contexts

   Ahmed, Ishrat ; Girotto, Victor ; Mawasi, Areej ; Whitehurst, Amanda ; Wylie, Ruth ; Walker, Erin ( January 2019 , International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning)

   With the growing integration of technology in the classrooms, learners can now develop collaboration skills by applying them across diverse contexts. While this represents a great opportunity, it also brings challenges due to an increased need to support individual learners across multiple learning activities. We propose a technology-enhanced learning ecosystem called UbiCoS that supports learner help-giving during face-to-face collaboration and across three different digital learning environments: an interactive digital textbook, an online Q&A forum, and a teachable agent. In this paper, we present a first step in the development of UbiCoS: five co-design sessions with 16 learners that give insight into learners’ perceptions of help-giving. The findings provided us with technology-related and curriculum-related design opportunities for facilitating learner interaction across multiple platforms. 

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2. Board 90: EAGER: Measuring Student Support in STEM: Insights from Year 2

   Lee, W. C. ; Knight, D. B. ; Godwin, A. ; Hall, J. L. ; Verdín, D. ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The purpose of the project is to identify how to measure various types of institutional support as it pertains to underrepresented and underserved populations in colleges of engineering and science. We are grounding this investigation in the Model of Co-Curricular Support, a conceptual framework that emphasizes the breadth of assistance currently used to support undergraduate students in engineering and science. The results from our study will help prioritize the elements of institutional support that should appear somewhere in a college’s suite of support efforts to improve engineering and science learning environments and design effective programs, activities, and services. Our poster will present: 1) an overview of the instrument development process; 2) evaluation of the prototype for face and content validity from students and experts; and 3) instrument revision and data collection to determine test validity and reliability across varied institutional contexts. In evaluating the initial survey, we included multiple rounds of feedback from students and experts, receiving feedback from 46 participants (38 students, 8 administrators). We intentionally sampled for representation across engineering and science colleges; gender identity; race/ethnicity; international student status; and transfer student status. The instrument was deployed for the first time in Spring 2018 to the institutional project partners at three universities. It was completed by 722 students: 598 from University 1, 51 from University 2, and 123 from University 3. We tested the construct validity of these responses using a minimum residuals exploratory factor analysis and correlation. A preliminary data analysis shows evidence of differences in perception on types of support college of engineering and college of science students experience. The findings of this preliminary analysis were used to revise the instrument further prior to the next round of testing. Our target sample for the next instrument deployment is 2,000 students, so we will survey ~13,000 students based on a 15% anticipated response rate. Following data collection, we will use confirmatory factor analysis to continue establishing construct validity and report on the stability of constructs emerging from our piloting on a new student sample(s). We will also investigate differences across these constructs by subpopulations of students. 

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3. Supporting collaborative classroom networks through technology: An actor network theory approach to understanding social behaviours and design

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13274  

   Kumar, Vishesh ; Tissenbaum, Mike ( September 2022 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   This paper presents an implementation of Connected Spaces (CxS)—an ambient help seeking interface designed and developed for a project‐based computing classroom. We use actor network theory (ANT) to provide an underutilized posthumanist lens to understand the creation of collaborative connections in this Computational Action‐based implementation. Posthumanism offers an emerging and critical extension to sociocultural perspectives on understanding learning, by pushing us to decenter the human, and consider the active roles that human and non‐human entities play in learning environments by actively shaping each other. We analyse how students in this class adjusted their help‐seeking and collaborative habits following the introduction of CxS, a tool designed to foster (more inter‐group) collaboration. ANT proposes generalized symmetry—a principle of considering human, non‐human and more than human entities with equivalent and comparable agency, leading to describing phenomena as networks of actors in different evolving relationships with each other. Analysing collaborative interactions as fostered by CxS using an ANT approach supports design‐based research—an iterative design revision process highlighting understandings about design as well as learning—by providing a temporal and informative lens into the relationship between actors and tools within the environment. Our key findings include a framing of technologies in classrooms as bridgingagentic gapsbetween students and becoming actors engaging in different behaviours; learners enacting new agencies through technologies (for instance a more comfortable non‐intrusive help seeker), and the need for voicing and teachers to connect help networks in CxS equipped classrooms.

   What is already known about this topic

   Collaborative learning is a valuable skill and practice; opportunities to mentor others are critical in empowering minoritized learners, especially in STEM and computing disciplines.

   School norms solidify a power and expertise hierarchy between teachers and learners and fail to productively support learners in learning from each other.

   Additionally, lack of awareness about peers' knowledge is a common hindrance in students knowing who to ask for help and how.

   What this paper adds

   An example of a designed interface called Connected Spaces with potential to foster more inter‐student collaboration, especially outside of mandated within‐group collaboration—in the form of cross‐group help seeking and help giving.

   A design based research study using actor network theory highlighting the limitations of Connected Spaces in sparking notable behaviour change among students by itself but being retooled as a teacher support tool in enabling cross‐group collaborations.

   Presenting conceptions of collaboration through technologies as bridging agentic gaps and acting with new agencies in performing help‐seeking related actions.

   Provoking the idea of testing emerging technologies in classrooms along with sharing our analyses and reflections with the classroom as a key idea in computing education—surfacing the gap between designed intentions and the different kinds of extra social work needed in the on‐ground success of different technologies.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Designers and researchers should create and test more interfaces alongside teachers across different classrooms and contexts aimed at supporting different kinds of voluntary collaborative interactions.

   Curricula, standards and school practices should further center providing students with opportunities to engage as mentors and build communities of learning across disciplines to empower minoritized students.

   Researchers engaging in design based research should consider using more posthumanist lenses to examine educational technologies and how they affect change in learning environments.

    

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4. EAGER: Student Support in STEM: Developing and Validating a Survey Instrument for Assessing the Magnitude of Institutional Support Provided to Undergraduate Students at a College Level

   Lee, W.C. ; Knight, D.B. ; Godwin, A. ; Moyer, L.A. ; Hasbun, I.M. ( June 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Student-retention theories traditionally focus on institutional retention, even though efforts to support students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occur at the college level. This study bridges this gap between research and practice by extending and empirically testing the Model of Co-Curricular Support (MCCS), which specifically focuses on supporting and retaining underrepresented groups in STEM. The MCCS is a student-retention model that demonstrates the breadth of assistance currently used to support undergraduate students in STEM, particularly those from underrepresented groups. The aim of this exploratory research is to develop and validate a survey instrument grounded in the MCCS that can be used by college administrators and student-support practitioners to assess the magnitude of institutional support received by undergraduate students in STEM. To date, such an instrument does not exist. Our poster will present a summary of the instrument development process that has occurred to date. We are developing the survey following best practices outlined in the literature. We are clearly defining the construct of interest and target population; reviewing related tests; developing the prototype of the survey instrument; evaluating the prototype for face and content validity from students and experts; revising and testing based on suggestion; and collecting data to determine test validity and reliability across four institutional contexts. Our institutional sample sites were purposefully selected because of their large size and diversity with respect to undergraduates in STEM. The results from our study will help prioritize the elements of institutional support that should appear somewhere in a college’s suite of support efforts. Our study will provide scientific evidence that STEM researchers, educators, administrators, and policy makers need to make informed decisions to improve STEM learning environments and design effective programs, activities, and services. 

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5. Partnering to Develop a Coordinated Engineering Education Program Across Schools, Museum Field Trips, and Afterschool Programs

   Harlow, D. ( January 2020 , Connected science learning)

   Engineering Explorations are curriculum modules that engage children across contexts in learning about science and engineering. We used them to leverage multiple education sectors (K–12 schools, museums, higher education, and afterschool programs) across a community to provide engineering learning experiences for youth, while increasing local teachers’ capacity to deliver high-quality engineering learning opportunities that align with school standards. Focusing on multiple partners that serve youth in the same community provides opportunities for long-term collaborations and programs developed in response to local needs. In a significant shift from earlier sets of standards, the Next Generation Science Standards include engineering design, with the goal of providing students with a foundation “to better engage in and aspire to solve the major societal and environmental challenges they will face in decades ahead” (NGSS Lead States 2013, Appendix I). Including engineering in K–12 standards is a positive step forward in introducing students to engineering; however, K–12 teachers are not prepared to facilitate high-quality engineering activities. Research has consistently shown that elementary teachers are not confident in teaching science, especially physical science, and generally have little knowledge of engineering (Trygstad 2013). K–12 teachers, therefore, will need support. Our goal was to create a program that took advantage of the varied resources across a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education ecosystem to support engineering instruction for youth across multiple contexts, while building the capacity of educators and meeting the needs of each organization. Specifically, we developed mutually reinforcing classroom and field trip activities to improve student learning and a curriculum to improve teacher learning. This challenging task required expertise in school-based standards, engineering education, informal education, teacher professional development, and classroom and museum contexts. 

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