Using self-regulated learning to improve outcomes

Photo: Linda B. Nilson

Self-regulated learning (SRL), as the name might imply, is “the ability to plan, monitor, control, and evaluate one’s learning.” according to Linda B. Nilson, Ph.D., founding director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University.

Photo: Magna Publications

 
In a recent online seminar, How to Integrate Self-Regulated Learning into Your Courses, Nilson gives actionable strategies to encourage students to learn this valuable skill, which will make them true participants in their own learning.

SRL can range from strategic planning activities (such as goal setting for studying) to self-monitoring activities (such as examining physical environment and emotional state) to evaluating one’s own learning and achievement.

The way an instructor designs activities for both inside and outside the class can assist the students in developing these skills. Some sample activities include:

“How I earned an A in this course”
Ask students at the beginning of the class to write an essay detailing how they plan to be successful in the course. They will repeat the exercise at the end of the class, enabling them to assess the effectiveness of their strategies.

Read, recall, review
Ask students to complete assigned reading and then, with the book closed, to write or recite what they remember from their reading. They then review anything they misunderstood or forgot.

Minute papers
As a type of “lecture wrapper," have students to write for one minute at the end of class about what information they could put into practice now, what stands out in their mind from the class that day, and what is hindering their understanding.

Post-test analysis
This analytical tool asks students to look at the questions they missed on the test and then decide whether they erred due to carelessness, unfamiliarity with the material, misinterpretation of the question, or failure to complete the question.

Her experience in fostering excellence in teaching is evident as she discusses real-world techniques for involving students in planning, monitoring, and assessing their own learning. Strengthened by a selection of supplemental materials, this seminar is an excellent addition to any faculty development library. 

Source: Magna Publications

More Ohio students learning via online schools

"More children than ever in Ohio are learning via online schools, a trend that local parents say is more the result of wanting more for their child than it is about their local school district." according to Eric Schwartzberg, Reporter.

Photo: Hamilton Journal News

Increased popularity for this option has seen enrollments totals blossom from 44 such schools serving approximately 17,000 students in 2004 to 27 e-schools serving 39,044 students in the 2013-14 school year.

That simultaneous decrease in the amount of schools and increase in enrollment has bolstered class ranks, leading to numerous Ohio e-learning institutions graduating their largest classes ever, including Ohio Virtual Academy, an accredited, full-time, online public community school that in June graduated 750 students, the largest graduating class in school history.

Among them was Patty Elwell’s daughter, Madeleine, who joined those ranks 10 years ago as she entered third-grade and brother Jake entered sixth grade. Elwell said she switched both children to online schooling because they needed increased academics, more than a public school education could provide.

“Their needs were not being met and everyone knew it,” said Elwell, a Hamilton resident of 26 years. 
“They needed more of everything. More challenge, more curriculum.

“I volunteered at school, we had a good relationship, and when I talked to them about making the change, they totally understood.”

Elwell, a former classroom teacher of six years, said online learning has done an “outstanding” job of doing that for both her children

Transitioning from a world with a classroom led by a teacher and full of children to learning at home was a challenge because children “don’t necessarily see that work in the same way,” Elwell said.
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Source: Hamilton Journal News

Interush and the E-Learning Revolution

We live in a world highly interconnected through multiple communication channels; while we were previously limited to the technology of the land line telephone, we can now reach others through mobile phones, watches, laptops, tablets and desktop computers. 

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This heightened level of connectivity has impacted several aspects of our daily lives, from international business interaction, leisurely activities such as shopping and recreation, to intellectual endeavors such as continuing education, making e-learning now possible.

E-learning utilizes online technology as the main conduit of information. Learning materials are transmitted through email and online messaging, classes are held virtually through streaming videos and students participate through group chats. Written assignments may also be posted on interactive online platforms such as blogs and message boards. As individuals thrive in a tech-savvy world, we are challenged to progressively learn how to fully utilize the internet to increase our knowledge, and take advantage of educational opportunities.

For instance, online courses on various subjects are available from universities such as University of California, Irvine (UCI). E-learning can also take the form of skill-enhancing games, such as those featured on NobelPrize.org that showcase scientific inventions. YouTube offers educational video channels on a variety of subjects, such as the human anatomy, mathematics, history and language. 

The BBC offers a series of online videos that help educate culinary enthusiasts on both basic and advanced cooking techniques.

IRIS Academy™, offered by Interush as part of the IRIS Applications Suite, is a great example of an e-learning platform that provides a convenient way for English language learners to develop their spoken and written English through an easy-to-follow format. The intuitive program guides users to learning everyday English phrases, grouped in easily recognizable categories, and provides both audio and video guides to ensure learning speed and retention. IRIS Academy utilizes available internet technology to create a robust online academic platform.

"As a company that believes in lifelong learning and continuous education, we urge individuals to maximize all the academic opportunities available on the Internet," said Martin Matthews of Interush. Matthews recently wrote a related article on his official blog, Insider Insights, elaborating on how IRIS Academy is an excellent e-learning application, with the purpose of refining one's English and opening limitless opportunities in the competitive business world.

Interush International, LLC of Irvine, California markets within the rapidly expanding information technology sector in Asia. 
For more information on Interush International, LLC, please visit http://www.interush.com. 

Interush and the Interush logo are registered trademarks of Interush Technology, Ltd., a member of the Interush group of companies, registered in the United States and other countries. Other trademarks and names referenced are the property of their respective owners.

Source: Virtual Press Office (press release)

Survey: Technology Vital to Student Success

Michael Hart, Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal Schools writes, "Schools are seeing much more positive results from the use of digital tools than even a year ago, according to the annual Speak Up report produced by Project Tomorrow and Blackboard."

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

According to the newly released "Trends in Digital Learning: Empowering Innovative Classroom Models for Learning," the use of digital content in the classroom increased by 45 percent compared with the same survey a year ago. Likewise, mobile learning through the use of tablets and other devices grew 41 percent compared to last year and 81 percent more students participated in online classes.

Those were some of the highlight results of the annual Speak Up National Research Project which has polled K-12 students, parents and educators every year since 2003.

This year's survey also found that more than 90 percent of K-12 administrators said technology is an important part of achieving their districts' academic goals. Similarly, more than 78 percent of parents said the use of technology would help their children develop the skills they need to succeed in life. Nearly half of students said they were more interested in their classes when they used digital tools.
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Source: T.H.E. Journal

Top 12 computer programming languages that are in demand now and pay the highest salary

Follow on Twitter as @mayakamath2015

Maya Kamath, Content writer summarizes, "Top 12 computer programming skills which will help programmers and coders to earn higher salary packages."
 

Photo: Techworm

Technology keeps changing and the Computer language which was once in demand might suddenly disappear with the advent of a new language and programs. Hence if anyone aspires to become a computer programmer or coder or software engineer it is always advisable that the programmer should learn to build a software by mastering the algorithms, designing principles and technologies at all levels of the stack. In the long run they can adapt themselves to any new language and hence become a good software programmer or coder even if the languages and programs change.

This article gives details of some of the most highly paid computer languages which are currently in demand as per a report from Quartz. Lets have a quick look at these 12 computer programs / languages along with the Pay offered as per the Survey done by Quartz:
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Source: Techworm

Can an Online Teaching Tool Solve One of Higher Education’s Biggest Headaches?

Follow on Twitter as @amyxwang

Amy X. Wang, Slate intern writes, Carnegie Mellon University has a problem. It’s a good one, this time—unlike when it lost dozens of researchers and scientists to Uber. The university’s new problem is not one of lack but of excess: Too many students are interested in taking a popular computer science course, and there’s not enough physical space in the classroom to accommodate them all.

Starting this fall, Carnegie Mellon will offer "blended learning" for one of its most popular computer science courses. 
Photo: Slate Magazine (blog)

Rather than move the course to a football stadium, the Pittsburgh-based university plans to open the course up to more students by moving the majority of its instructional content from the classroom to the Internet. But it’s not just uploading a series of lectures and calling it an online course. The university will rely on a “blended learning” approach, combining video lectures, optional minilectures, and a handful of face-to-face group meetings between students and instructors for concepts that need to be reinforced in person. The program, which is backed by a $200,000 prize from Google’s Computer Science Capacity Awards program, will debut in the fall, and some of its materials may also be used in high schools next year.

What Carnegie Mellon’s trying to address is an important problem. Universities across America often struggle with disproportionate interest-to-availability ratios in their courses. Courses in computer science especially face an oversubscription problem. Some schools just allow classes to be overcrowded, resulting in large auditorium lectures in which students squeeze shoulder to shoulder along the walls; others try to tackle the issue by capping courses and determining enrollment with an application or a lottery system. In both cases, though, students lose out. Schools could hire more teachers for extra classes, but new instructors have to be paid, even if they are cheap adjunct.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

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Source: Slate Magazine (blog)

What the Heck are Predictive Models?

Photo: Jeffrey Strickland, Ph.D

"Predictive modeling does not lie solely in the domain of Big Data Analytics or Data Science. I am sure that there are a few “data scientists” who think they invented predictive modeling." according to Jeffrey Strickland, Ph.D., Author of Predictive Analytics Using R and a Senior Analytics Scientist with Clarity Solution Group. 

Photo: icrunchdata News

However, predictive modeling has existed for a while and at least since World War II. In simple terms, a predictive model is a model with some predictive power. I will elaborate on this later.

I have been building predictive models since 1990. Doing the math, 2015 – 1990 = 25 years, I have been engaged in the predictive modeling business longer that data science has been around. My first book on the subject, “Fundamentals of Combat Modeling (2007), predates the “Data Science” of 2009 (see below).

How old is Data Science?
It is really a trick question. The term was first used in 1997 by C. F. Jeff Wu. In his inaugural lecture for the H. C. Carver Chair in Statistics at the University of Michigan, Professor Wu (currently at the Georgia Institute of Technology) calls for statistics to be renamed data science and for Statisticians to be renamed Data Scientists. That idea did not land on solid ground, but the topic reemerged in 2001 when William S. Cleveland published “Data Science: An Action Plan for Expanding the Technical Areas of the Field of Statistics.” But it was really not until 2009 that data science gained any significant following and that is also the year that Troy Sadkowsky created the data scientists group on LinkedIn as a companion to his website, datascientists.com (which later became datascientists.net). [1]

What is Predictive Modeling?
It is not a field of statistics! Yes, we do predictive modeling in statistics, but it is really a multidisciplinary field and is based more in mathematics than in other fields. Now, if you consult the most authoritative source of factual information available to the world, Wikipedia, you will find an incorrect view of predictive modeling (of course, I do not believe what I said about Wikipedia). It was formed by people with too much time on their hands and too little exposure to other disciplines, such as physics and mathematics.

Predictive modeling may have begun as early as World War II in the planning of Operation Overlord, the Normandy Invasion, but was certainly used in determining air defenses and bombing raid sizes (it may have appeared as early as 1840 [2]). Now, this is not an article about the history of operations research, so suffice it to say that the modern field of operational research arose during World War II. In the World War II era, operational research was defined as “a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control.”[3]

What is a Predictive Model?
The answer is easy: a model with some predictive power. I say that with caution and use the word “some” because more often than not, decision makers think that these model are absolute. Of course, they become very disappointed when the predictions do not occur as predicted. Rather than expand on my simplistic definition, I think some examples may help.
Read more... 

Additional resources

Predictive Analytics using R

This book is about predictive analytics. Yet, each chapter could easily be handled by an entire volume of its own. So one might think of this a survey of predictive modeling. A predictive model is a statistical model or machine learning model...
Publisher: Lulu.com (January 16, 2015). 

Source: icrunchdata News

UCSI University offers foundation programmes in arts and sciences

"Foundation programmes are pathways for school leavers to qualify themselves to degree programmes." continues The Borneo Post.

UCSI University’s Foundation leads to various degree programmes and gives students wider opportunities.
Photo: The Borneo Post 

Many private higher educational institutions in Malaysia have foundation programmes in science and art based subjects and that includes UCSI University.

The programmes would lead students to over 100 programmes in UCSI University campuses of Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak and Kuala Terengganu.

According to its press statement on Thursday, other than the ordinary business programmes that most Foundation in Arts programmes lead to, students can also choose to continue their studies in Architecture, Actuarial Sciences, Logistics Management, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Oil and Gas Management, Mass Communication, Psychology, and Language programmes.
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Source: The Borneo Post

Albert clock uses math to tell time

Follow on Twitter as @Emily

If you want to know what time it is, you’ll have to do a little work with this clock. Meet Albert, a wall clock for children that breaks down the current time into math problems. 

The Albert clock is a large clock meant for a wall
Photo: Gizmag

Named after Albert Einstein, the clock makes you solve equations in order to tell the time. 

The Albert Clock - MNTNT - Kickstarter 


Time is broken down with the hour on the top line of the clock and minutes on the bottom. Each line has a relatively simple math problem on it, which you need to solve to know the corresponding digit. For instance, rather than displaying "9" for 9pm, the clock would display "12-3 / 1."

"Had Albert Einstein owned such a clock, he probably would also have become a brilliant mathematician," says Alex Schindlbeck, the product designer. He created the clock while in art school in Germany. Einstein was his inspiration for clock, because he felt the inventor had a "child-like glee" when performing research.
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Source: Gizmag and lucymarko Channel (YouTube)

Is The Declaration of Independence A ‘Scientific Paper’? by Joe Romm

Photo: Joe Romm

Joe Romm, Senior Fellow at American Progress and a Ph.D. in physics from MIT reports, "Most people don't understand just how deeply steeped in science the founding fathers were."

Photo: ThinkProgress

Nearly twelve score years ago, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Interdependence:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Okay, the Declaration of Interdependence sounds a lot like the Declaration of Independence.

By saying that it is a self-evident truth that all humans are created equal and that our inalienable rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, our Founding Fathers were telling us that we are all in this together, that we are interdependent, that we have a moral duty to protect these inalienable rights for all humans. President Lincoln, perhaps above all others, was instrumental in making clear that the second sentence of the Declaration was “a moral standard to which the United States should strive,” as Wikipedia puts it.

The double appeal to “Nature” — including the explicit appeal to “the laws of Nature” in the first sentence — is particularly salient. For masters of rhetoric like the authors of the Declaration, a repeated word, especially in an opening sentence, is repeated for the singular purpose of drawing attention to it.

Some argue that the phrase “laws of nature” meant something different to Jefferson than it does to us (see here).

Title page of Principia, first edition (1686/1687). 
Photo: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But I don’t think most people understand just how deeply steeped in science — and Sir Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” — the founding fathers were, particularly Jefferson. Because the connection between science and politics is so important today, I’ll do a post discussing this point in detail later.

It’s worth noting now that for nearly two decades — including the entire time Jefferson was Vice President and President of this country — he was also President of The American Philosophical Society, the nation’s oldest scientific society, which was founded by the great American scientist Ben Franklin. “Natural Philosophy” was the phrase used for the natural sciences back then, which is why it’s in the title of Newton’s famed Principia.

In his book, “Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence,” the historian Gary Wills calls the Declaration a “scientific paper,” and explains that “the Declaration’s opening is Newtonian. It lays down the law.” The Principia, of course, famously lays out Newton’s 3 laws of motion, which many at the time called the “laws of nature.”

How familiar was Jefferson with the Principia? Very. Newton’s masterpiece was widely revered among the founding fathers. But Jefferson in particular had studied it closely, and he even wrote a letter identifying what he calculated to be a tiny mathematical error in it.
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Source: ThinkProgress