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1. How teachers conceptualise shared control with an AI co‐orchestration tool: A multiyear teacher‐centred design process

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13372  

   Lawrence, LuEttaMae ; Echeverria, Vanessa ; Yang, Kexin ; Aleven, Vincent ; Rummel, Nikol ( August 2023 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance teachers' capabilities by sharing control over different parts of learning activities. This is especially true for complex learning activities, such as dynamic learning transitions where students move between individual and collaborative learning in un‐planned ways, as the need arises. Yet, few initiatives have emerged considering how shared responsibility between teachers and AI can support learning and how teachers' voices might be included to inform design decisions. The goal of our article is twofold. First, we describe a secondary analysis of our co‐design process comprising six design methods to understand how teachers conceptualise sharing control with an AI co‐orchestration tool, calledPair‐Up. We worked with 76 middle school math teachers, each taking part in one to three methods, to create a co‐orchestration tool that supports dynamic combinations of individual and collaborative learning using two AI‐based tutoring systems. We leveraged qualitative content analysis to examine teachers' views about sharing control withPair‐Up, and we describe high‐level insights about the human‐AI interaction, including control, trust, responsibility, efficiency, and accuracy. Secondly, we use our results as an example showcasing how human‐centred learning analytics can be applied to the design of human‐AI technologies and share reflections for human‐AI technology designers regarding the methods that might be fruitful to elicit teacher feedback and ideas. Our findings illustrate the design of a novel co‐orchestration tool to facilitate the transitions between individual and collaborative learning and highlight considerations and reflections for designers of similar systems.

   What is already known about this topic:

   Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help teachers facilitate complex classroom activities, such as having students move between individual and collaborative learning in unplanned ways.

   Designers should use human‐centred design approaches to give teachers a voice in deciding what AI might do in the classroom and if or how they want to share control with it.

   What this paper adds:

   Presents teacher views about how they want to share control with AI to support students moving between individual and collaborative learning.

   Describes how we adapted six design methods to design AI features.

   Illustrates a complete, iterative process to create human‐AI interactions to support teachers as they facilitate students moving from individual to collaborative learning.

   Implications for practice:

   We share five implications for designers that teachers highlighted as necessary when designing AI‐features, including control, trust, responsibility, efficiency and accuracy.

   Our work also includes a reflection on our design process and implications for future design processes.

    

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2. A human‐centred learning analytics approach for developing contextually scalable K‐12 teacher dashboards

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13383  

   Wiley, Korah ; Dimitriadis, Yannis ; Linn, Marcia ( September 2023 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   This paper describes a Human‐Centred Learning Analytics (HCLA) design approach for developing learning analytics (LA) dashboards for K‐12 classrooms that maintain both contextual relevance and scalability—two goals that are often in competition. Using mixed methods, we collected observational and interview data from teacher partners and assessment data from their students' engagement with the lesson materials. This DBR‐based, human‐centred design process resulted in a dashboard that supported teachers in addressing their students' learning needs. To develop the dashboard features that could support teachers, we found that a design refinement process that drew on the insights of teachers with varying teaching experience, philosophies and teaching contexts strengthened the resulting outcome. The versatile nature of the approach, in terms of student learning outcomes, makes it useful for HCLA design efforts across diverse K‐12 educational contexts.

   What is already known about this topic

   Learning analytics that are aligned to both a learning theory and learning design support student learning.

   LA dashboards that support users to understand the associated learning analytics data provide actionable insight.

   Design‐based research is a promising methodology for Human‐Centred Learning Analytics design, particularly in the K‐12 educational context.

   What this paper adds

   Leveraging a longstanding, yet fluid, research‐practice partnership is an effective design‐based research adaptation for addressing the high variation in instructional practices that characterize K‐12 education.

   Using both quantitative and qualitative data that reflects students' developing knowledge effectively supports teachers' inquiry into student learning.

   Teachers' use of learning analytics dashboards is heavily influenced by their perspectives on teaching and learning.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Impact on student learning outcomes, alongside usability and feasibility, should be included as a necessary metric for the effectiveness of LA design.

   LA dashboard developers should both leverage learning data that reflect students' developing knowledge and position teachers to take responsive pedagogical action to support student learning.

   LA researchers and developers should utilize a long‐term, yet fluid, research‐practice partnership to form a multi‐stakeholder, multidisciplinary design team for Human‐Centred Learning Analytics design.

    

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3. A learning analytics approach towards understanding collaborative inquiry in a problem‐based learning environment

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13198  

   Saleh, Asmalina ; Phillips, Tanner M. ; Hmelo‐Silver, Cindy E. ; Glazewski, Krista D. ; Mott, Bradford W. ; Lester, James C. ( February 2022 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   This exploratory paper highlights how problem‐based learning (PBL) provided the pedagogical framework used to design and interpret learning analytics from Crystal Island: EcoJourneys, a collaborative game‐based learning environment centred on supporting science inquiry. In Crystal Island: EcoJourneys, students work in teams of four, investigate the problem individually and then utilize a brainstorming board, an in‐game PBL whiteboard that structured the collaborative inquiry process. The paper addresses a central question: how can PBL support the interpretation of the observed patterns in individual actions and collaborative interactions in the collaborative game‐based learning environment? Drawing on a mixed method approach, we first analyzed students' pre‐ and post‐test results to determine if there were learning gains. We then used principal component analysis (PCA) to describe the patterns in game interaction data and clustered students based on the PCA. Based on the pre‐ and post‐test results and PCA clusters, we used interaction analysis to understand how collaborative interactions unfolded across selected groups. Results showed that students learned the targeted content after engaging with the game‐based learning environment. Clusters based on the PCA revealed four main ways of engaging in the game‐based learning environment: students engaged in low to moderate self‐directed actions with (1) high and (2) moderate collaborative sense‐making actions, (3) low self‐directed with low collaborative sense‐making actions and (4) high self‐directed actions with low collaborative sense‐making actions. Qualitative interaction analysis revealed that a key difference among four groups in each cluster was the nature of verbal student discourse: students in the low to moderate self‐directed and high collaborative sense‐making cluster actively initiated discussions and integrated information they learned to the problem, whereas students in the other clusters required more support. These findings have implications for designing adaptive support that responds to students' interactions with in‐game activities.

   What is already known about this topic

   Learning analytic methods have been effective for understanding student learning interactions for the purposes of assessment, profiling student behaviour and the effectiveness of interventions.

   However, the interpretation of analytics from these diverse data sets are not always grounded in theory and challenges of interpreting student data are further compounded in collaborative inquiry settings, where students work in groups to solve a problem.

   What this paper adds

   Problem‐based learning as a pedagogical framework allowed for the design to focus on individual and collaborative actions in a game‐based learning environment and, in turn, informed the interpretation of game‐based analytics as it relates to student's self‐directed learning in their individual investigations and collaborative inquiry discussions.

   The combination of principal component analysis and qualitative interaction analysis was critical in understanding the nuances of student collaborative inquiry.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Self‐directed actions in individual investigations are critical steps to collaborative inquiry. However, students may need to be encouraged to engage in these actions.

   Clustering student data can inform which scaffolds can be delivered to support both self‐directed learning and collaborative inquiry interactions.

   All students can engage in knowledge‐integration discourse, but some students may need more direct support from teachers to achieve this.

    

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4. Constructionist co‐design: A dual approach to curriculum and professional development

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13084  

   Kelter, Jacob ; Peel, Amanda ; Bain, Connor ; Anton, Gabriella ; Dabholkar, Sugat ; Horn, Michael S. ; Wilensky, Uri ( May 2021 , British Journal of Educational Technology)

   This paper reports on the first iteration of the Computational Thinking Summer Institute, a month‐long programme in which high school teachers co‐designed computationally enhanced mathematics and science curricula with researchers. The co‐design process itself was a constructionist learning experience for teachers resulting in constructionist curricula to be used in their own classrooms. We present three case studies to illustrate different ways teachers and researchers divided the labour of co‐design and the implications of these different co‐design styles for teacher learning and classroom enactment. Specifically, some teachers programmed their own computational tools, while others helped to conceptualise them but left the construction to their co‐design partners. Results indicate that constructionist co‐design is a promising dual approach to curriculum and professional development but that sometimes these two goals are in tension. Most teachers gained considerable confidence and skills in computational thinking, but sometimes the pressure to finish curriculum development during the institute led teachers to leave construction of computational tools to their co‐design partners, limiting their own opportunities for computational learning.

   What is already known about this topic?

   Computational tools can support constructionist science and math learning by making powerful ideas tangible.

   Supporting teachers to learn computational thinking and to use constructionist pedagogies is challenging.

   What this paper adds?

   Constructionist co‐design is a promising approach to simultaneously support curriculum development and professional development, but there are tensions to navigate in trying to accomplish both goals simultaneously.

   Implications for practice and/or policy

   Designers of professional development should consider constructionist co‐design as an approach but should be aware of potential tensions and prepare for them.

    

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5. 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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