David M. Majerich

Facilitating Authentic Reasoning About Complex Systems in Middle School Science Education

Abstract In order to tackle problems in the modern world, individuals must possess a strong ability to reason about and understand complex systems in a practical and useful way. Past research has indicated that experts and novices possess fundamentally different kinds of understanding of complex systems. Therefore, to adequately prepare students to address problems pertaining to complex systems, it is important to help them acquire an authentic expert- like understanding of these systems. We approach this problem from two angles: first, we create an interactive environment in which students may investigate complex systems in a manner similar to that of scientists and engineers; secondly, we embed metacognitive agents in the interactive environments such that the agents provide situated guidance towards expert-like understanding of complex systems. In this paper, we detail the design of these two systems, referred to as MILA and MeTA respectively, and the way in which they help students obtain a more authentic and advanced understanding of complex systems. We also briefly describe the deployments of these tools in a science summer camp for middle school students and preliminary results of students’ interaction with them.

Instructor and graduate teaching assistant development and training for a blended linear circuits and electronics course

This paper discusses a training program that we are developing and are using for instructors who teach a circuits and electronics course in a blended format. The course has over 450 students enrolled in nine different sections each semester and has been taught in a blended format for six semesters. A key motivation for teaching the course in this format is to improve consistency across sections, which necessitates the need for training among the instructors on how to teach blended courses.

A feedback-based approach for evolving a blended class model for large enrollment, multiple section circuits courses

The development of a feedback-based method for evolving the blended class format for large, multiple section courses is presented with the application to two circuits courses taught at Georgia Tech: ECE 2040 is a circuits course for ECE majors and ECE 3710 is a circuits and electronics course for non-majors. These are both multi-section, high-enrollment courses, with a combined enrollment of over 600 students per term. The courses utilize two MOOCs that provide all of the online content. ECE 3710 was first offered in a flipped mode in the Summer of 2013 and has evolved over five semesters based on feedback from the student surveys, focus groups, instructor feedback, discussion forum questions, and performance on tests. ECE2040 has been offered two semesters in the blended mode using a modified version of the blended model developed for ECE3710.