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1. Exploration Maps, Beyond Top Scores: Designing Formative Feedback for Open-Ended Problems

   Mallavarapu, A. ( July 2020 , Proceedings of The 13th International Conference on Educational Data Mining)

   Anna N. Rafferty, Jacob Whitehill (Ed.)

   Learners are being exposed to abstract skills like innovation, creativity and reasoning through collaborative open-ended problems. Most of these problems, like their real-world counterparts, have no definite starting or ending point, and have no fixed strategies to solve them. To help the learners explore the multiple perspectives of the problem solutions there is an urgent need for designing formative feedback in these environments. Unfortunately, there are barriers to us- ing existing EDM approaches to provide formative feedback to learners in these environments: (1) due to the vast so- lution space, and the lack of verifiability of the solutions it is impossible to create task and expert models, thus mak- ing the detection of the learners progress impractical; (2) formative feedback based on individual learner models does not scale well when many learners are collaborating to solve the same problem. In this work, we redefine formative feed- back as reshaping the learning environment and learners’ exploration paths by exposing/enlisting “fugues” as defined by Reitman [28]. Through a case study approach we, (1) val- idate methods to extract learners’ “fugues” from a collabora- tive open-ended museum exhibit, (2) design formative feed- back for learners and educators using these extracted fugues in real-time, (3) evaluate the impact of exposing fugues to group of learners interacting with the exhibit. 

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2. Collaborative Dialogue and Types of Conflict: An Analysis of Pair Programming Interactions between Upper Elementary Students

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432406  

   Tsan, Jennifer ; Vandenberg, Jessica ; Zakaria, Zarifa ; Boulden, Danielle C. ; Lynch, Collin ; Wiebe, Eric ; Boyer, Kristy Elizabeth ( March 2021 , Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   null (Ed.)

   In successful collaborative paradigms such as pair programming, students engage in productive dialogue and work to resolve con- flicts as they arise. However, little is known about how elementary students engage in collaborative dialogue for computer science learning. Early findings indicate that these younger students may struggle to manage conflicts that arise during pair programming. To investigate collaborative dialogue that elementary learners use and the conflicts that they encounter, we analyzed videos of twelve pairs of fifth grade students completing pair programming activities. We developed a novel annotation scheme with a focus on collab- orative dialogue and conflicts. We found that student pairs used best-practice dialogue moves such as self-explanation, question generation, uptake, and praise in less than 23% of their dialogue. High-conflict pairs antagonized their partner, whereas this behav- ior was not observed with low-conflict pairs. We also observed more praise (e.g., “We did it!”) and uptake (e.g., “Yeah and. . . ”) in low-conflict pairs than high-conflict pairs. All pairs exhibited some conflicts about the task, but high-conflict pairs also engaged in conflicts about control of the computer and their partner’s con- tributions. The results presented here provide insights into the collaborative process of young learners in CS problem solving, and also hold implications for educators as we move toward building learning environments that support students in this context. 

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3. Designing an Adaptive Dialogue to Promote Science Understanding

   Gerard, L. ; Bichler, S. ; Bradford, A. ; Linn, M. C. ; Steimel, K. ; Riordan, B. ( January 2022 , Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2022)

   Chinn, C. ; Tan, E. ; Chan, C. ; Kali, Y. (Ed.)

   We used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to design an adaptive computer dialogue that engages students in a conversation to reflect on and revise their written explanations of a science dilemma. We study the accuracy of the NLP idea detection. We analyze how 98 12-13 year-olds interacted with the dialogue as a part of a Diagnostic Inventory. We study students’ initial and revised science explanations along with their logged responses to the dialogue. The dialogue led to a high rate of student revision compared to prior studies of adaptive guidance. The adaptive prompt encouraged students to reflect on prior experiences, to consider new variables, and to raise scientific questions. Students incorporated these new ideas when revising their initial explanations. We discuss how these adaptive dialogues can strengthen science instruction. 

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4. Exploring the Utility of Social-Network-Derived Collaborative Opportunity Temperature Readings for Informing Design and Research of Large-Group Immersive Learning Environments

   https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2022.7419  

   Mallavarapu, A. ; Lyons, L. ; Uzzo, S. ( January 2022 , Journal of learning analytics)

   Large-group (n > 8) co-located collaboration has not been adequately studied because it demands different conceptual framings than those used to study small-group collaboration, while also posing pragmatic constraints on data collection. Working within these pragmatic constraints, we use video data to devise an indicator of the current possibilities for learner collaboration during large-group co-located interactions. We borrow conceptualizations from proxemics and social network analysis to construct collaborative opportunity networks, allowing us to define the concept of collaborative opportunity temperature (COT) readings: a “snapshot” of the current configuration of the different social subgroup structures within a large group, indicating emergent opportunities for collaboration (via talk or shared action) due to proximity. Using a case study of two groups of people (n = 11, n = 12) who interacted with a multi-user museum exhibit, we outline the processes of deriving COT. We show how to quickly detect differences in subgroup configurations that may result from educational interventions and how COT can triangulate with and complement other forms of data (audio transcripts and activity logs) during lengthier analyses. We also outline how COT readings can be used to supply formative feedback on social engagement to learners and be adapted to other learning environments. 

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5. Continuing to Talanoa: storytelling dialogues for youth engagement in climate action and justice

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s42055-023-00070-7  

   Hautzinger, Sarah ( February 2024 , Sustainable Earth Reviews)

   This article recounts a classroom application of a dialogue, story-telling process used at COPs beginning in 2017. In that year, the Fijian President of the United Nations climate summit, COP23 in Bonn, proposed the entire assembly use his nation’s Talanoa Dialogue process for building ambition for national commitments to the Paris Agreement. When youth, women’s and Indigenous voices were heard in unprecedented ways, many committed to continuing the practice. A florescence of the Asian-Pacific-inspired, conflict-resolution storytelling and dialogue practice ensued, with some continuing for years afterward. This paper recounts eight rounds of varied Talanoa Dialogues employed in higher education contexts. Purposes ranged from internal team-building, to forging community partnerships, to serving as vehicles for youth representation in international contexts like climate COPs. All dialogues nonetheless prioritized listening, recording, and representation through ethnographic, anthropological lenses. These experiences support recommendations to (1) Create chances for youth to listen empathetically to the stories of others in ways attentive to varied national, ethnic and other intersectional (e.g. gendered, class-based) social locations, expanding their awareness and linking their affective and intellectual selves; (2) Make opportunities for youth to voice their own stories and perspectives on climate challenges and work, considering their developmental trajectories in intergenerational contexts, while emphasizing the need to “scale” from individual through global dimensions; (3) Explore the implications of borrowing from exogenous cultural traditions, considering what factors may render this relatively legitimate, as opposed to appropriative. I explore particularities of the cultural origins of Talanoa Dialogues, which mediate hierarchy and egalitarianism, arguing that this function is especially apt for navigating conundrums of youth leadership and so-called “youth-washing.”

    

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