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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)Knowledge Tracing (KT) focuses on quantifying student knowledge according to the student's past performance. While KT models focus on modeling student knowledge, they miss the behavioral aspect of learning, such as the types of learning materials that the students choose to learn from. This is mainly because traditional knowledge tracing (KT) models only consider assessed activities, like solving questions. Recently, there has been a growing interest in multi-type KT which considers both assessed and non-assessed activities (like video lectures). Since multi-type KT models include different learning material types, they present a new opportunity to investigate student behavior, as in the choice of the learning material type, along with student knowledge. We argue that student knowledge can affect their behavior, and student interest in learning materials may affect their knowledge. In this paper, we model the relationship between students' knowledge states and their choice of learning activities. To this end, we propose Pareto-TAMKOT which frames the simultaneous learning of student knowledge and behavior as a multi-task learning problem. It employs a transition-aware multi-activity KT method for two objectives: modeling student knowledge and student behavior. Pareto-TAMKOT uses the Pareto Multi-task learning algorithm (Pareto MTL) to solve this multi-objective optimization problem. We evaluate Pareto-TAMKOT on one real-world dataset, demonstrating the benefit of approaching student knowledge and behavior modeling as a multi-task learning problem.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)This paper was written with the help of ChatGPT. Recent advancements in the development and deployment of large generative language models to power generative AI tools, including OpenAIż˝fs ChatGPT, have led to their broad usage across virtually all fields of study. While the tools have been trained to generate human-like-dialogue in response to questions or prompts, they are similarly used to compose larger, more complex artifacts, including social media posts, essays, and even research articles. Although this abstract has been written entirely by a human without any input, consultation, or revision from a generative language model, it would likely be difficult to discern any difference as a reader. In light of this, there is growing debate and concern regarding using these models to aid the writing process, particularly concerning publication. Aside from some notable risks, including the unintentional generation of false information, citation of non-existing research articles, or plagiarism by generating text that is sampled from another source without proper citation, there are additional questions pertaining to the originality of ideas expressed in a work has been partially-written or revised by a generative language model. We present this paper as both a case study into the usage of generative models to aid in the writing of academic research articles but also as an example of how transparency and open science practices may help in addressing several issues that have been raised in other contexts and communities. While this paper neither attempts to promote nor contest the use of these language models in any writing task, it is the goal of this work to provide insight and potential guidance into the ethical and effective usage of these models within this domain.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)With the support of digital learning platforms, synchronous and collaborative learning has become a prominent learning paradigm in mathematics education. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) has emerged as a valuable tool for enhancing mathematical discourse, problem solving, and ultimately learning outcomes. This paper presents an innovative examination of Graspable Math (GM), a dynamic mathematic notation and learning online platform, to enable synchronous, collaborative learning between pairs of students. Through analyzing students' online log data, we adopt a data-driven method to better understand the intricate dynamics of collaborative learning in mathematics as it happens. Specifically, we apply frequency distributions, cluster analysis to present students' dynamic interaction patterns and identify distinctive profiles of collaboration. Our findings reveal several collaboration profiles that emerge through these analyses. This research not only bridges the gap in current CSCL tools for mathematics, but also provides empirical insights into the effective design and implementation of such tools. The insights gained from this research offer implications for the design of digital learning tools that support effective and engaging collaborative learning experiences.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)This study investigates the influence of short breaks on self-regulated learning within an online learning platform and their impact on student attrition and performance outcomes. The research focuses on 7th-grade students¿½f mathematics performance using an online learning platform in 2016. Building on this goal, we conducted two regression analyses to investigate the number of students who stopped out and returned to finish the assignments and explore the duration of breaks between questions among those students who returned to complete the assignments. Specifically, the study analyzes session durations, break intervals, and their correlation with student performance after stopping out. Results reveal that, despite prevalent breaks between problems, break duration does not significantly affect learning performance. The findings provide correlations between short breaks and the completeness and correctness within self-regulated learning contexts. The study emphasizes the need for an exploration of predicting diverse assignment difficulty, break duration, and completeness. This research contributes valuable insights into self-regulated learning on online learning platform and predicting the potential for student success.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)K-12 Computer Science (CS) education has seen remarkable growth recently, driven by the increasing focus on CS and Computational Thinking (CT) integration. Despite the abundance of Professional development (PD) programs designed to prepare future CS teachers with the required knowledge and skills, there is a lack of research on how teachers' perceptions and attitudes of CS and CT evolve before and after participating in these programs. To address this gap, our exploratory study aims to study the dynamics of pre-and in-service teachers' experiences, attitudes, and perceptions towards CS and CT through their participation in a K-12 CS education micro-credential program. In this study, we employed topic modeling to identify topics that emerged from teachers' written pre- and post-CS autobiographies, conducted statistical analysis to explore how these topics evolve over time and applied regression analysis to investigate the factors influencing these dynamics. We observed a shift in teachers' initial feelings of fear, intimidation, and stress towards confidence, fun, and feeling competent in basic CS, reflecting a positive transformation. Regression analysis revealed that features, such as experienced teacher status and CT conceptual understanding, correlate with participants' evolving views. These observed relationships highlight the micro-credential's role in not only enhancing technical competency but also fostering an adaptive, integrative pedagogical mindset, providing new insights for course design.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)In feedback generation for logical errors in programming assignments, large language model (LLM)-based methods have shown great promise. These methods ask the LLM to generate feedback given the problem statement and a student¿½fs (buggy) submission. There are several issues with these types of methods. First, the generated feedback messages are often too direct in revealing the error in the submission and thus diminish valuable opportunities for the student to learn. Second, they do not consider the student¿½fs learning context, i.e., their previous submissions, current knowledge, etc. Third, they are not layered since existing methods use a single, shared prompt for all student submissions. In this paper, we explore using LLMs to generate a ``feedback-ladder'', i.e., multiple levels of feedback for the same problem-submission pair. We evaluate the quality of the generated feedback-ladder via a user study with students, educators, and researchers. We have observed diminishing effectiveness for higher-level feedback and higher-scoring submissions overall in the study. In practice, our method enables teachers to select an appropriate level of feedback to show to a student based on their personal learning context, or in a progressive manner to go more detailed if a higher-level feedback fails to correct the student¿½fs error.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)Recent advances in artificial intelligence for education leverage generative large language models, including using them to predict open-ended student responses rather than their correctness only. However, the black-box nature of these models limits the interpretability of the learned student knowledge representations. In this paper, we conduct a first exploration into interpreting latent student knowledge representations by presenting InfoOIRT, an Information regularized Open-ended Item Response Theory model, which encourages the latent student knowledge states to be interpretable while being able to generate student-written code for open-ended programming questions. InfoOIRT maximizes the mutual information between a fixed subset of latent knowledge states enforced with simple prior distributions and generated student code, which encourages the model to learn disentangled representations of salient syntactic and semantic code features including syntactic styles, mastery of programming skills, and code structures. Through experiments on a real-world programming education dataset, we show that InfoOIRT can both accurately generate student code and lead to interpretable student knowledge representations.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)There is a growing community of researchers at the intersection of data mining, AI, and computing education research. The objective of the CSEDM workshop is to facilitate a discussion among this research community, with a focus on how data mining can be uniquely applied in computing education research. For example, what new techniques are needed to analyze program code and CS log data? How do results from CS education inform our analysis of this data? The workshop is meant to be an interdisciplinary event at the intersection of EDM and Computing Education Research. Researchers, faculty, and students are encouraged to share their AI- and data-driven approaches, methodologies, and experiences where data transforms how students learn Computer Science (CS) skills. This full-day hybrid workshop will feature paper presentations and discussions to promote collaboration.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)The educational data mining community has extensively investigated affect detection in learning platforms, finding associations between affective states and a wide range of learning outcomes. Based on these insights, several studies have used affect detectors to create interventions tailored to respond to when students are bored, confused, or frustrated. However, these detector-based interventions have depended on detecting affect when it occurs and therefore inherently respond to affective states after they have begun. This might not always be soon enough to avoid a negative experience for the student. In this paper, we aim to predict students' affective states in advance. Within our approach, we attempt to determine the maximum prediction window where detector performance remains sufficiently high, documenting the decay in performance when this prediction horizon is increased. Our results indicate that it is possible to predict confusion, frustration, and boredom in advance with performance over chance for prediction horizons of 120, 40, and 50 seconds, respectively. These findings open the door to designing more timely interventions.more » « less
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            Benjamin, Paaßen; Carrie, Demmans Epp (Ed.)Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) involve high learner agency in defining learning goals and multiple pathways to achieve those goals. These tasks involve learners transitioning through self-regulated learning (SRL) phases by actively setting goals, applying different strategies for those goals, and monitoring performance to update their strategies. However, because of the flexibility, how learners react to impasses and errors has a critical influence on their learning. An intelligent pedagogical agent (IPA) continuously modeling learner activities could help support learners in these environments. However, this continuous comprehension of behaviors and strategies is difficult in OELEs with evolving goals, ill-defined problem structures, and learning sequences. In this paper, we draw from the literature on SRL phases and cognitive states to investigate the utility of two different methods, Sequence Mapping, and Hidden Markov Models, in building learner activity models from log data collected from a summer camp with 14 middle school girls in an open-design environment. We evaluate the effectiveness of these models separately, and combined, in identifying 7 states: Forethought, Engaged Concentration, Acting, Monitoring, Wheel Spinning, Mind Wandering, and Reflect and Repair. Lastly, we recommend dialogue intervention strategies for an IPA to support learning in OELEs.more » « less
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