Adaptive Teaching and Learning Using a Classroom ...

Adaptive Teaching and Learning Using a Classroom Communication System and an Adaptive Computer-Based Assessment Tool Aguilar, Gabriela Science Education Department Cinvestav Unidad Monterrey Mexico [email protected] Gomez, Adrianna Science Education Department Cinvestav Unidad Monterrey Mexico [email protected] Kaijiri, Kenji Faculty of Engineering Shinshu University Japan [email protected]

Abstract: This paper introduces a work in progress about an adaptive computer-based assessment tool for the assessment of Chemistry in Mexican public Junior-high schools. Our main aim is to provide a tool which help M exican teachers to incorporate background knowledge and learning styles in the design of assignments and classroom activities. Furthermore, we would like to provide them of a tool which help them to apply the Social Constructivist and formative assessment approaches to supervise their teaching process and the students’ learning process. These will be done through realtime assessments using a classroom communication system and through the generation of personalized assignments. The system will generate multiple-choice questions, openended questions and problems. In order to generate problems, teachers have to write rules using a few reserved words. The system will grade multiple-choice questions and problems automatically.

Introduction Nowadays, one of the challenges in the teaching-learning process is the incorporation of the recommendations derived from the theoretical advances. One of the pending issues is the attention to the diversity (Gardner, 2004). Previous research (Salmeron, 1999) on how the students learn recommends that teachers should consider the learners’ learning styles when they are designing the class presentation, activities and assignments. Furthermore, these recommendations foster the design of the assignments taking into account each student’s understanding levels about the topics taught in class. The problem is how teachers can incorporate the background knowledge into the design of assignments or activities to do in the classroom, when they are working with groups of 35 students or more. This is the situation of many classrooms in Mexican public junior-high schools. At the same time, other research (Wang, 2006) indicates the importance of including formative assessment practices for the regulation of the learning-process. And in this way, to foster meta-cognitive attitudes in the learners that help them to learn to learn. We think that the development of an adaptive computerbased assessment tool and the use of a classroom communication system (Sharma & Khachan, 2005) can be an

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ideal tool to be used by teachers in order to include in the assignments design, each student’s learning styles and to do a real-time evaluation of the learners’ understanding levels. There are some problems related to computer-based formative assessment. These problems and the proposed solutions are given in (Tab 1). We propose in this paper the new adaptive learning system called SPEBC (Sistema Personalizado de Evaluación Basado en Computadora), an adaptive computer-based assessment system, which has the following novel points: First, the tool combines a classroom communication system (CCS) and an adaptive computer-based assessment tool. The CCS allows a formative assessment of the learners when they are in the classroom. Moreover, the CCS will be modified in such a way that SPEBC will be able to identify each learner in order to generate a personalized assignment. Second, the tool will include a variety of assessment strategies, such as: Knowledge and Prior Study Inventory (KPSI) (Tamir, P. & Lunetta, V. N., 1978), fact questions (Questions starting with What, When, etc), essays, and the generation of problems in order to simulate a laboratory of Chemistry. This paper is organized as follows: Second Section gives a brief introduction to the theoretical framework of SPEBC. Third Section, presents the characteristics of SPEBC. And then, Conclusions are given.

Problems

Proposed Solutions

1. Systems provide multiple-choice questions. Some teachers argued that open-ended questions reflect a deeper understanding about a given topic (Sharkey & Murnane, 2006).

We propose to use multiple-choice questions but at the same time, the system will provide some other assessment strategies, such as: KPSI, essays, and a simulation of a laboratory of Chemistry. The system will generate automatically questions and problems but also the system will provide an option for the input of questions. These questions can be designed by teachers and they can decide when to use those questions. KPSI and the experiments done in the virtual laboratory will be graded by the system, and the essays will be graded by teachers. The inclusion of open-ended questions and problems, will allow the learners to develop skills such as reading, writing and critical inquiry. Collaborative work options will be provided. Teachers will ask the students to answer questions in groups. And class discussion will be fostered through the use of a CCS.

2. Systems should develop more generalized skills of reading, writing, and critical inquiry in a collaborative way.

Table 1: Problems related to computer-based learning and formative assessment and the proposed solutions

Related Research This project is being developed integrating three theoretical frameworks. First, in order to place the teaching-learning process of Chemistry, we include the Social Constructivist Paradigm and Formative Assessment Approach. Second, a CCS is used to explore the learner’s content understanding about a given subject in real-time during a class. And third, we introduce the adaptive approach, which will make possible the generation of personalized assignments. The theoretical frameworks in which is based SPEBC is introduced below: Social Constructivism and Formative Assessment Nowadays, Social Constructivism is considered the most important theoretical perspective in science education research (Duit & Treagust, 2003). This perspective recognizes the individual characteristics of the learners and the social relations established in the classroom, therefore, under this perspective, a personalized tool should attend several levels of ideas construction of the learners and their learning styles. Moreover it should attend social dynamics and interpersonal relationships which are established in the classroom. The attention to diversity in the classroom and the simultaneous fostering of formative assessment from the point of view of the Social Constructivism is a challenge for the teacher in science education. Limited time, large class size and the long list of topics to be studied are some aspects that make difficult the implementation of mechanisms for personalized pedagogical support.

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Given the complexity of the teaching-learning process, we assume the challenge using several means of support. One of them is SPEBC, designed to give support to teachers in the generation of personalized assignments in real-time, furthermore, this system will provide information about the learners’ achievement and it will allow a continuous assessment of the teaching-learning process. Classroom Communication System’s Overview Real time assessment is realized in several systems, for example, CCS and they can be used in the classroom. SPEBC uses the same real-time assessment approach, but it will identify each student and will generate a personalized assignment for each learner. The required equipment to be used with SPEBC is: Computer, projector, display, and hand held remote control pads or a laptop, Internet connection, and the interface between computer and hand held remote control pads. In class teachers will use a projector and a display, in their presentations. Questions and a list of answers will be deployed and the students will choose the answer they believe to be correct, and use their remote devices to immediately send it in. In SPEBC, the remote control has two functions: the first one is to compute in real-time the students’ content understanding. In this way, teachers will have information in real-time to take decisions. The data that will be deployed are histograms showing the percentage of the group who understood and not understood the given subject. The second function is to identify each student. Students have to send in their student ID using their remote devices, at the beginning of the class. In this way, the system will be able to identify them, to grade them and generate a personalized assignment. There are two installation options. The first one is to use a remote control. And in the second one, students will use a computer with Internet connection. Both installation options are used to send the number of answers in. When learners use a computer to send the answer in, they have the advantage that SPEBC will be able to generate same questions asked to the rest of the group but with a personalized presentation. Adaptive Systems There are some previous works about adaptive systems such as those shown in (Tab 2). In previous works (Aguilar & Kaijiri, 2006) we proposed an adaptive approach for the implementation of an Adaptive Webbased Tutorial System. And SPEBC is based on the established adaptive approach, using for example some of the same personalization factors.

The Components of the Adaptive Computer-based Assessment Tool The structure of the system consists of the following components, see (Fig. 1): Questions-Answers Generator and Maintenance Module The questions and answers generator will generate the questions and answers to be included in the assignment. This module was thought to cope with the combinatorial problem of the personalization factors. A first prototype is being implemented to generate questions about entities, processes, causes and conditions in chemical events. The generated questions start with What, Who, Why, When. We are going to improve the first prototype taking in account approaches such as: Modeling (White & Fredericksen, 1998), problem solving (Nickerson, 1994), and cooperative learning (Lazarowitz & Hertz-Lazorowitz, 2003). And these will be provided as system’s options. Each question will be taken from a Word file, which can be a textbook, a paper, etcetera. Multiple choice questions will be implemented in such a way that the student will have to choose the best answer. Each question will be generated according to the learning styles given by Soloman (Salmeron, 1999). The following are examples of questions that will be generated using the verbal and visual learning styles, respectively:

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1. 2.

Select an answer which best describes the distribution of the chemical elements in the periodic table. Select the draw which best represents the distribution of the chemical elements in the periodic table.

SPEBC will provide a virtual laboratory of Chemistry. In this laboratory, learners can do experiments, trying different substances and mixing them, and the consequences of these combinations will be simulated. Teachers will use a few reserved words to write the rules of each different experiment. Writing for example, what are the maximum and minimum limits for a given substance, and what happen if that limit is exceeded and what are the different substances that can be used in the same experiment. The system will process these rules and it will generate similar problems changing for example the quantities or the substances that can be used in similar experiments. The system will grade automatically the student’s performance. The questions and answers maintenance module controls the input, edition and organization of questions and answers. Resea rch

Type Tool

Pear & CroneTodd (2002)

computeraided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) computerbased assessment

Alfon seca (2005)

Propo sed Tool

Peat (2002)

of

Description

Adap tive?

Uses a CCS?

Constructi vist And Formative Framework ?

Proposed Tool

In CAPSI, the quality of the answer depends on how well it is argued as judged by the feedback it evokes from others.

YES

NO

Social Constructivist Tool

Provides results that are available to a large first year biology class. These materials include: weekly quizzes; a mock exam; quiz sections in tutorials; and special self-assessment modules (SAMS) .

NO

NO

Formative and Summative Tool

Adaptive Computer Assisted Assessment

He proposes the evaluation of openended questions adapted to each student

YES

NO

?

The system will attend the diversity, through the negotiation of the meaning of the questions and assignments and the coordination of activities among teachers and students, through the realtime assessment. Supports in real-time the continuous assessment of the students and teachers. Personalized assignments promote the self-assessment. While the real-time assignments generation promotes the coassessment of the students. The system will provide a feedback to teachers in such a way that they will be able to improve the teaching-learning process. The integration of the assessment and teaching, will allow the teachers to improve their professional achievement (Black, 2003). SPEBC will use traditional assessment and constructed response system and it will adapt the assignments to the learner’s characteristics.

Adaptive computerbased assessment tool

a tool which combine a real-time assessment in the classroom and the generation of personalized assignments.

YES

YES

Constructivist and Formative Tool

Tabl e 2: Characteristics of previous works and characteristics of the posit tool. Pedagogical Module The pedagogical module controls the selection of questions and help teachers in the planning of the generation of assignments. The questions to be included in each assignment will be based on the right and

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wrong answers given by the student during a class. The assignment’s presentation will be introduced based on the learner’s learning styles. The system will adapt the learning style personalization factor statically and the background knowledge personalization factor, statically and dynamically. Teachers can identify to the advanced students who can help the less advanced ones. In planning the generation of assignments, a number of decisions must be made regarding exactly how the assignments will be administered to the students. This will include information such as which study unit will be assessed, which item bank will be used, the order in which they will be administered, etcetera. The pedagogical module accesses the base of questions in order to select which will be the questions to be included in the assignment. The pedagogical module accesses the student model in order to gather the learner’s personal characteristics. The questions selection process is based on each learner’s learning styles, background knowledge and grades. The first factor to be considered by the pedagogical module, when the system is initialized, is the background knowledge. Background knowledge will be updated dynamically based on the student’s right and wrong answers given in real-time during a class and with the assignments’ evaluation. After that, the factor to be considered is : learning styles and learning styles quotients. These are used to classify the presentations of the questions to be included in an assignment.

File Request Rules

answers

Evaluation Module

Questions And Answers Generator

Learner’s data

Static Adaptation Module

inventory

Student Q And A KPSI Problems

Student Model

Items

Q And A KPSI Problems

Questions And Answers Maintenance

Learner’s Data

Pedagogical Module

Assignment

Teacher

Q And A Figure 1: Design of the Adaptive Computer-based Assessment Tool Evaluation Module The evaluation module will grade the learners’ answers. The evaluation module will save the learners results on the student model. By using an evaluation module, the system will grade the learner's answers, pinpointing the places where the learner had difficulties. Static Adaptation Module The Static adaptation module controls the application of psychological tests and background knowledge evaluations. The static adaptation module will introduce to the learners: Soloman Learning Styles inventory (Salmeron, 1999) and background knowledge evaluations. This module will initialize the student model with the learners’ learning styles and background knowledge (Static Adaptation).

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Student Model and Items Database The student model will reflect the static and dynamic adaptations. The personalization factors allow the system to create a learner’s model and based on this model, the learners can learn in an adaptive teachinglearning environment. The student model will be updated with the learner’s changes, in this way the system will be able to control the changes in learning styles after each course, and background knowledge after each assignment or class. The student model includes the learner’s learning styles and learning style quotient and also includes data such as: student’ name and ID, the date and time of a test administration, the applied learning style, the answers given to each item, whether those answers were correct or incorrect, grade, etcetera. In the items database data such as question, answer, learning style to which belongs the question, unit, grade of difficulty, KPSI inventories, problems, etcetera will be saved.

Conclusions and Further Research The rapid progress made in the use of computers in the classroom for all educational levels in the world, requires developing systems which effectively help teachers to improve the teaching and learning process. The design of the system considers this, through the real-time students’ assessment and its adaptive approach. Finally, we should take the initial idea about the implementation of the theoretical recommendations of science education research, in the classroom. The proposed design will attend in real-time the diversity in the classroom. However, it is also necessary an effectiveness evaluation of the system. We are aware that one of the most important challenges will be the effective use of the tool by teachers and students. Also, we have to evaluate the generation of questions and the approximation of difficulties levels . The results will help us to improve the design and the generation of recommendations for a better use of the tool.

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