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In college cybersecurity education, problem-based learning has been introduced to promote student agency in solving a complex problem. However, a dilemma of balancing the student agency persist and previous research has focused on students’ cognitive, metacognitive, and regulatory to enhance the efficacy of PBL. Given the importance of students’ self-awareness of their agency, this study suggests a concept of meta-agency as an essential learner characteristic that influences the effectiveness of student agency in PBL. Four dimensions of meta-agency, perceptions of productive struggle, expectation alignment between instructor and students, strategies for regulating agency, and familiarity with PBL tasks, were qualitatively explored with student interview data. Features of meta-agency and how students’ meta-agency level develop through cybersecurity PBL sessions were further investigated.
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Struggling with struggle: Implications for students with diverse cognitive resources [Brief research report]
The perspectives in mathematics education and special education are in tension when it comes to productive struggle. This study describes how struggle surfaced for the students and teacher/researcher in teaching experiments using learning trajectories with three students with diverse cognitive profiles. The students’ activity helps to illustrate the relationships between struggle and mathematics learning. I share how students’ struggle led to my own challenge in navigating tensions between mathematics education and special education. I consider how my focus on productive struggle without attending to cognitive difference reflected ableist thinking. Finally, I suggest implications of these observations for reframing productive struggle.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1907840
- PAR ID:
- 10336661
- Editor(s):
- Olanoff, D.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The 43rd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Virtual/Philadelphia, USA.
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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