Faisal Ahmad

Linking learning goals and educational resources through interactive concept map visualizations

Concept browsing interfaces can help educators and learners to locate and use learning resources that are aligned with recognized learning goals. The Strand Map Service enables users to navigate interactive visualizations of related learning goals and to request digital library resources aligned with learning goals. These interfaces are created using a programmatic Web service interface that dynamically generates interactive visual components. Preliminary findings suggest that these library interfaces appear to help users stay focused on the scientific content of their information discovery task, as opposed to focusing on the mechanics of searching.

Computational foundations for personalizing instruction with digital libraries

This paper describes our progress towards automating adaptive personalized instruction based on student conceptual understandings using digital libraries. The reported approach merges conversational learning theory with advances in natural language processing to enable personalized pedagogical interactions. Multi-document summarization techniques serve as the computational basis to process digital library resources and automatically construct a rich domain model on earthquakes and plate tectonics for high school age learners. Shallow semantic analysis and graph-based techniques are used to computationally diagnose student understandings that enable conceptual personalizations integrating digital library resources. The evaluation of the implemented algorithms indicates that digital libraries may serve as knowledge platforms to support the automated construction of rich domain models and the diagnosis of student conceptual understandings. Furthermore, this approach introduces a novel and effective alternative to prior work in adaptive learning environments in terms of scalability and portability, thus tackling important challenges associated with supporting personalized instruction using digital libraries.

Designing a language for creating conceptual browsing interfaces for digital libraries

Conceptual browsing interfaces can help educators and learners to locate and use learning resources in educational digital libraries; in particular, resources that are aligned with nationally-recognized learning goals. Towards this end, we are developing a strand map library service, based on the maps published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This service includes two public interfaces: (1) a graphical user interface for use by teachers and learners and (2) a programmatic interface that enables developers to construct conceptual browsing interfaces using dynamically generated components. We describe our iterative, rapid prototyping design methodology, and the initial round of language type components that have been implemented and evaluated.

Towards automatic conceptual personalization tools

This paper describes the results of a study designed to validate the use of domain competency models to diagnose student scientific misconceptions and to generate personalized instruction plans using digital libraries. Digital library resources provided the content base for human experts to construct a domain competency model for earthquakes and plate tectonics encoded as a knowledge map. The experts then assessed student essays using comparisons against the constructed domain competency model and prepared personalized instruction plans using the competency model and digital library resources. The results from this study indicate that domain competency models generated from select digital library resources may provide the desired degree of content coverage to support both automated diagnosis and personalized instruction in the context of nationally-recognized science learning goals. These findings serve to inform the design of personalized instruction tools for digital libraries.

Pedagogically Useful Extractive Summaries for Science Education

This paper describes the design and evaluation of an extractive summarizer for educational science content called COGENT. COGENT extends MEAD based on strategies elicited from an empirical study with science domain and instructional design experts. COGENT identifies sentences containing pedagogically relevant concepts for a specific science domain. The algorithms pursue a hybrid approach integrating both domain independent bottom-up sentence scoring features and domain-aware top-down features. Evaluation results indicate that COGENT outperforms existing summarizers and generates summaries that closely resemble those generated by human experts. COGENT concept inventories appear to also support the computational identification of student misconceptions about earthquakes and plate tectonics.

Dynamically generating conceptual browsing interfaces for digital libraries

A system is described that supports the dynamic generation of conceptual browsing interfaces. These interfaces are comprised of interacting visual components that contain different views onto a concept space that can be modeled as nodes and links. This algorithm uses a combined approach of tree-based processing with a grid-based drawing system to automatically generate the visual components. This algorithm is part of a larger digital library service, the NSDL Strand Map Service, which aims to provide educators and learners with conceptual browsing interfaces that help them to locate and use learning resources in educational digital libraries.

Improving Conceptual Learning through Customized Knowledge Visualization

This paper describes a customized scaffolding approach to improve learners conceptual understandings through knowledge visualization. We propose a framework to use natural language processing and graph based algorithms to automatic visualize individual learners prior knowledge states, domain knowledge, new encountered concepts and to reveal the semantic relationships between them. Thus, we are able to help learners to solve their uncertainties of new merging ideas and concepts in their learning process in order to integrate new knowledge with their preconceptions.

The Concept Space Interchange Protocol

The Concept Space Interchange Protocol supports the deployment of conceptual browsing interfaces in digital libraries. The protocol provides a programmatic interface to dynamically generate interactive visual components that enable users to navigate a concept space, request information about concepts, and request library resources aligned with concepts. The Concept Space Interchange Protocol has been implemented as part of the NSDL Strand Map Service, which enables digital library developers to create user interfaces and services based on nationally recognized K-12 science learning goals developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The protocol, the principles underpinning its design, and the problem-centered design methodology used to create it are described.

A comparison of two educational resource discovery systems

We describe the results from a pilot study that compared two different discovery systems designed and built to operate in the same educational digital library - one based on searching over metadata records and another hybrid system which combined metadata and content-based indexing.

A personalized learning environment

We report on the current research activities and results obtained through the Concept Learning service for Concept Knowledge (CLICK) and present a demonstration of the system. This poster session will focus on a demonstration of the CLICK system and the results of the learning study