Don Davis

AMOEBA: Designing for Collaboration in Computer Science Classrooms through Live Learning Analytics.

AMOEBA is a unique tool to support teachers’ orchestration of collaboration among novice programmers in a non-traditional programming environment. The AMOEBA tool was designed and utilized to facilitate collaboration in a classroom setting in real time among novice middle school and high school programmers utilizing the IPRO programming environment. AMOEBA’s key affordance is supporting teachers’ pairing decisions with real time analyses of students’ programming progressions. Teachers can track which students are working in similar ways; this is supported by real-time graphical log analyses of student activities within the programming environment. Pairing students with support from AMOEBA led to improvements in students’ program complexity and depth. Analyses of the data suggest that the data mining techniques utilized in and the metrics provided by AMOEBA can support instructors in orchestrating cooperation. The primary contributions of this paper are a set of design principles around and a working tool for fostering collaboration in computer science classes.

Token Reinforcement of Verbal Responses Controlled by Temporally Removed Verbal Stimuli

Establishing control by verbal stimuli over the listener with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), of which circumscribed stimulus control is a defining feature (American Psychiatric Association 2013), may represent a formidable challenge to the typical verbal community. Without directed intervention, individuals with autism often respond indiscriminately to other people’s verbal behavior (Petursdottir et al. 2008; Sundberg and Sundberg 2011). Verbal stimuli are particularly complex, because their effects on the environment are merely temporary. Once the speaker stops speaking, the verbal stimulus no longer exists. The complexity is compounded when the listener with autism is asked to recount events that happened in the past. Within such verbal episodes, the listener with autism may emit prepotent verbal responses under disproportionate environmental control (Kenny et al. 2014). Biro and Russell (2001) define prepotent responses as “an erroneous response that is called out either by some salient feature of the environment or by some feature rendered salient through previous learning” (p. 98). For instance, when asked in the evening, “What did you eat for lunch today?”, the listener with autism may reply with what he/she would like to eat for lunch tomorrow (disproportionate mand control), by listing food items presently on the dinner table (disproportionate tact control), or with partial echolalia (e.g., “Lunch today.”; disproportionate echoic control). Consequently, the speaker’s verbal stimulus fails to exact control over the listener with autism.

Supporting English learners with participatory augmented reality simulations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possible merits and difficulties of utilizing participatory augmented reality simulations (PARS) with English learners (ELs) in K‐12 science classrooms.Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed literature of PARS, sheltered English instruction (SEI), and other literature relevant to science instruction for ELs. Though the authors relied primarily on empirical research related to PARS and ELs, other papers were included to increase thoroughness.Findings – The authors identified elements of PARS that address requirements for effective instruction of ELs including the modality, engagement, collaboration, language use, and identity forming aspects. The findings indicate that future research into the use of PARS in science instruction may benefit ELs.Research limitations/implications – The literature synthesis was conducted to address a gap in the literature. Additional research specifically examining the impact of PARS on ELs is necessary.Origina...

A behavioral phenomenological inquiry of maker identity.

Currently, researchers and educators are dedicating substantive energy to investigating and discussing the potential affordances of makerspaces to support students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. In particular, proponents indicate that broadening participation with makerspaces and the maker movement may increase participation by underrepresented demographic groups in STEM fields. However, many questions have arisen as to whether, how, and to what extent makerspaces are supporting participation by students underrepresented in STEM fields. This study presents an initial investigation of makerspace participation by middle school age girls in a central Texas makerspace. Specifically, this study takes a closer look at students’ verbal behaviors when explaining their participation and interest in the makerspace activities as well as the connections to students’ previous interactional histories that are both directly and indirectly evidenced. Analyses of participant interviews suggest potential benefits to identifying and purposefully facilitating relational frames that could potentially induce greater interest and concomitant participation with formal and informal STEM related content.

Designing Teacher Professional Development Workshops for Robotics Integration across Elementary and Secondary School Curriculum

This paper describes the design of a professional development workshop on integrating robotics at the elementary and secondary school curriculum. The workshop was designed to support STEM education through teacher education at the university and post-university level. Moreover, the workshop leveraged the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and an interdisciplinary approach to engage teachers with robotics. The workshops design and implementation highlights the affordances of an interdisciplinary approach for attracting a greater diversity of teachers across all content areas to provide students with educational robotics activities.

Erratum to: Token Reinforcement of Verbal Responses Controlled by Temporally Removed Verbal Stimuli

In the present study we examined the effects of token reinforcement on the convergent control of immediate and temporally removed verbal stimuli over the verbal behavior of three school-age children with autism who showed specific deficits in intraverbal responding. Throughout the study, participants were systematically introduced to a series of visitors to a university-based autism center, and subsequently probed for information about the visitor they had most recently met. Results show that contingent token reinforcement was effective at establishing control by temporally removed verbal stimuli.