The project is to design and implement a Web application for realizing an innovative, hands-on interactive learning experience for the Google Maps API. This learning environment was developed based on a real-world Geographic Information System (GIS), the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Geospatial Information Support System. Significant efforts were invested not only in development of this GIS system, but also in the design and implement that turns the production system into a learning environment. The Web development aspect attracts computer science students, while the opportunity to learn GIS concepts in an interactive way to attract students from the geography department and the opportunity to learn the Google Maps API proves interesting to regular internet users. The Web learning system was given to a focus group whose feedback was collected through a survey. The survey results reveal a favorable response to the interactive, hands-on learning model and the Web implementation.

This thesis is about students’ approaches to learning (SAL) in computer science education. Since the initial development of SAL instruments and inventories in the 70’s, they have been used as a means to understand students’ approaches to learning better, as well as to measure and predict academic achievement (such as retention, grades and credits taken) and other correlating factors. It is an instrument to measure a student’s study strategies – not how “good” a student is. A Swedish short version of Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) was used to gather information on whether we, through context and content, encouraged sustainable study behaviour among our students. ASSIST was used in two distinct situations: 1) Evaluation and evolvement of an online programming course design, and 2) Engineering education in media technology and computer science in a campus environment where approaches to learning has been evaluated and studied over time during the five year long programmes. Repeated measurements have been analysed against factors predicting academic achievement, and have been evaluated on a cohort level (not individual) in order to clarify patterns rather than individual characteristics. Significant for both projects was that a surface approach to learning correlated negatively with retention. Students who adopted a combination of deep and strategic approach to learning performed better in terms of grades, ECTS credits completed and perceived value of the education. As part of developmental tools it can be beneficial to use ASSIST at a group level in order to see what kind of approach a course design or a programme supports among the students. / <p>QC 20161028</p>

This study examined the relationship between credit recovery outcomes and select causal factors. In this study, credit recovery was defined as the extent to which students successfully complete the following courses: coordinate algebra, biology, physical science, and analytic geometry. Independent variables explored in this research were student motivation, student engagement, self-regulation, blended learning models, and formative assessments. A mixed method design was used to triangulate the quantitative data with the teachers’ perceptions data collected from the qualitative data. The qualitative data examined how teachers used formative assessments to improve student learning, the perception of the effectiveness of the program, and how credit recovery helped students to graduate from high school. The quantitative data found that there was no significant relationship between the independent variables in the study and credit recovery outcomes. Additionally, the data revealed that there was no significant relationship between teacher perceptions and credit recovery outcomes. Although there was no significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables in the study, the data did indicate there was a significant relationship between gender and credit recovery outcomes. The study found there was a highly significant relationship between formative assessments and student motivation, validating what research has already demonstrated about the effectiveness of formative assessments and its potential to engage and motivate students. The research also found that there was a highly significant relationship between blended learning and student motivation, suggesting implications for how blended learning can be used to engage and motivate students in credit recovery programs.

Este trabalho verifica a possibilidade de se aplicar Algoritmos Evolutivos no aprendizado on-line de jogos. Alguns autores concordam que Algoritmos Evolutivos não são aplicáveis na prática para se atingir o objetivo em questão. É com a intenção de contestar a veracidade desta afirmação que foi desenvolvido o presente trabalho. Para atingir o objetivo proposto, foi desenvolvido um jogo de computador, no qual o algoritmo de aprendizado gera estratégias inteligentes e adaptativas para os caracteres não controlados pelo jogador através de um algoritmo evolutivo. Desta forma, a função do algoritmo evolutivo é fazer com que a estratégia utilizada pelo computador se adapte à estratégia utilizada pelo usuário a cada vez que joga. É apresentada uma revisão bibliográfica a respeito de Computação Evolutiva e as técnicas utilizadas para implementar comportamentos inteligentes para os caracteres controlados por computador nos jogos atuais, esclarecendo suas vantagens, desvantagens e algumas possíveis aplicações. São também explicados o jogo e os algoritmos implementados, assim como os experimentos realizados e seus resultados. Por fim, é feita uma comparação do algoritmo evolutivo final com uma outra técnica de adaptação, chamada Dynamic Scripting. Assim, este trabalho oferece contribuições para o campo de Computação Evolutiva e Inteligência Artificial aplicada a jogos / The goal of this work is to verify if it is possible to apply Evolutionary Algorithms to online learning in computer games. Some authors agree that evolutionary algorithms do not work properly in that case. With the objective of contesting this affirmation, this work was performed. To accomplish the goal of this work, a computer game was developed, in which the learning algorithm must create intelligent and adaptive strategies to control the non-player characters using an evolutionary algorithm. Therefore, the aim of the evolutionary algorithm is to adapt the strategy used by the computer according to the player\'s actions during the game. A review on Evolutionary Computation and the techniques used to produce intelligent behaviors for the computer controlled characters in modern game is presented, exposing the advantages, the problems and some applications of each technique. The proposed game is also explained, together with the implemented algorithms, the experiments and the obtained results. Finally, it is presented a comparison between the implemented algorithm and the Dynamic Script technique. Thus, this work offers contributions to the fields of Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Intelligence applied to games

Recentemente, houve um aumento rápido na criação e disponibilidade de repositórios de dados, o que foi percebido nas áreas de Mineração de Dados e Aprendizagem de Máquina. Este fato deve-se principalmente à rápida criação de tais dados em redes sociais. Uma grande parte destes dados é feita de texto, e a informação armazenada neles pode descrever desde perfis de usuários a temas comuns em documentos como política, esportes e ciência, informação bastante útil para várias aplicações. Como muitos destes dados são criados em fluxos, é desejável a criação de algoritmos com capacidade de atuar em grande escala e também de forma on-line, já que tarefas como organização e exploração de grandes coleções de dados seriam beneficiadas por eles. Nesta dissertação um modelo probabilístico, on-line e incremental é apresentado, como um esforço em resolver o problema apresentado. O algoritmo possui o nome DV-INBC e é uma extensão ao algoritmo INBC. As duas principais características do DV-INBC são: a necessidade de apenas uma iteração pelos dados de treino para criar um modelo que os represente; não é necessário saber o vocabulário dos dados a priori. Logo, pouco conhecimento sobre o fluxo de dados é necessário. Para avaliar a performance do algoritmo, são apresentados testes usando datasets populares. / Recently the fields of Data Mining and Machine Learning have seen a rapid increase in the creation and availability of data repositories. This is mainly due to its rapid creation in social networks. Also, a large part of those data is made of text documents. The information stored in such texts can range from a description of a user profile to common textual topics such as politics, sports and science, information very useful for many applications. Besides, since many of this data are created in streams, scalable and on-line algorithms are desired, because tasks like organization and exploration of large document collections would be benefited by them. In this thesis an incremental, on-line and probabilistic model for document classification is presented, as an effort of tackling this problem. The algorithm is called DV-INBC and is an extension to the INBC algorithm. The two main characteristics of DV-INBC are: only a single scan over the data is necessary to create a model of it; the data vocabulary need not to be known a priori. Therefore, little knowledge about the data stream is needed. To assess its performance, tests using well known datasets are presented.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to create derivative-focused web pages as a new part of a high school mathematics educational web portal. The web portal is operated by the Department of Mathematics Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague. It is primarily intended as an additional learning resource for high school students. The diploma thesis consists of two main parts. The first part describes a search for and evaluation of similar web pages in Czech, Slovak, English and Hebrew, which deal with the topic of derivative. The second part details the creation of new web pages. In creating the web pages the author integrated interactive elements based on JavaScript, and interactive applets created with use of GeoGebra software. To display mathematical expressions on the web, the author used the technology MathJax, which works with languages of the typesetting systems TeX and LaTeX.

abstract: The purpose of this action research study was to measure the transactional distance of computer science students who participated in an online virtual community after completing a college preparation program. Using data and results generated from previous cycles of research I developed and moderated an online virtual community designed to lessen transactional distance using a sequential exploratory mixed-methods research design. This study addressed the following research questions: 1. How and to what extent will participation in a virtual community influence the transactional distance between students and course content? 2. How and to what extent will participation in a virtual community influence the transactional distance between students and their instructors/teaching assistants? 3. How and to what extent will participation in a virtual community influence the transactional distance between students and other students in the same courses? The participants for this action research study included approximately 200 students enrolled in six online sections of an entry level computer programing course from various locations around the world. Also participating in the community were the online instructors who taught the course, teaching assistants, advisors, and the action researcher. Using the sociocultural, transactional distance, self-determination, and adult learning theories as a framework, the virtual community provided occasions for students and instructional team members to share experiences and support each other academically and socially. The community was designed to enable students to give and receive frequent feedback, increase autonomy and their sense of belonging, and provide additional opportunities for them to learn from each other. Through a descriptive analysis of the transactional distance survey results, I was able to determine that transactional distance between students and their teachers, and students the course content slightly increased, while the transactional distance between students and their classmates somewhat decreased. There was also an increase in average final grade and pass rate and a decrease in student withdrawal rate. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2018

abstract: This dissertation report follows a three-paper format, with each paper having a different but related focus. In Paper 1 I discuss conceptual analysis of mathematical ideas relative to its place within cognitive learning theories and research studies. In particular, I highlight specific ways mathematics education research uses conceptual analysis and discuss the implications of these uses for interpreting and leveraging results to produce empirically tested learning trajectories. From my summary and analysis I develop two recommendations for the cognitive researchers developing empirically supported learning trajectories. (1) A researcher should frame his/her work, and analyze others’ work, within the researcher’s image of a broadly coherent trajectory for student learning and (2) that the field should work towards a common understanding for the meaning of a hypothetical learning trajectory. In Paper 2 I argue that prior research in online learning has tested the impact of online courses on measures such as student retention rates, satisfaction scores, and GPA but that research is needed to describe the meanings students construct for mathematical ideas researchers have identified as critical to their success in future math courses and other STEM fields. This paper discusses the need for a new focus in studying online mathematics learning and calls for cognitive researchers to begin developing a productive methodology for examining the meanings students construct while engaged in online lessons. Paper 3 describes the online Precalculus course intervention we designed around measurement imagery and quantitative reasoning as themes that unite topics across units. I report results relative to the meanings students developed for exponential functions and related ideas (such as percent change and growth factors) while working through lessons in the intervention. I provide a conceptual analysis guiding its design and discuss pre-test and pre-interview results, post-test and post-interview results, and observations from student behaviors while interacting with lessons. I demonstrate that the targeted meanings can be productive for students, show common unproductive meanings students possess as they enter Precalculus, highlight challenges and opportunities in teaching and learning in the online environment, and discuss needed adaptations to the intervention and future research opportunities informed by my results. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mathematics Education 2018

This case study explores what differences exist between two online course models by investigating the results of a student end-of-course evaluation survey and teacher communication logs in two online high school courses. The two course models were designed with different types and levels of interaction, one with high levels of student content interaction, the second with high levels of student-content and student-teacher interaction. The majority of research on interaction in online learning has been conducted with adult learners at the university level. There is far less literature focusing on K-12 online learning while investigating interaction, student satisfaction, and teacher time investment. This case study addresses this gap by exploring the results of 764 student surveys and investigating the teacher time investments of four teachers. In this study the students' perception of their learning experience in both models met the online program's acceptable levels. In some dimensions of the course evaluation, the interactive course had a higher rating that was statistically significant. The teacher communication logs showed a higher teacher time investment in the more interactive courses, with the highest time investment coming from reaching out to inactive students. Due to the shortage of available literature in K-12 online settings regarding interaction, student satisfaction, and teacher time investment, the author recommends additional research in these areas. By continuing to research and understand better about K-12 online learners, this understanding could influence the development of course interaction standards, assist designers in building better courses, and ultimately lead to higher satisfaction for students.

This study compared graduate student attitudes toward different instructional approaches within online, blended, and face-to-face courses in a public institution of higher learning. The participants completed an online survey questionnaire that was designed by the researcher using 4 learning theories in education: behavioral, cognitive, constructivism, and humanistic (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007) approaches toward teaching and learning. There were 210 total responses from graduate students enrolled during 2013 spring semester. There were more female (71.4%) than male (28.6%) students who responded. Previous studies have compared face-to-face (F2F) and online methods of instructions and have shown mixed results. Whereas some studies have shown F2F instructional methods as favorable to students, others found no differences between F2F and online methods. This study was guided by 4 research questions. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t test statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. The findings of this study showed significant differences in students’ preference in instructional methods and in instructional approaches (behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and constructivist). The study found that full-time graduate students tended to prefer F2F instructional methods, while part-time students preferred online methods. Additionally younger students (< 35 years) reported stronger preference for F2F methods of instruction than older students (> 36 years) in cognitive and constructivist instructional approaches with no significant differences by age for behavioral and humanistic instructional approaches.