Jacob Moore

In this paper, the authors discuss their continuing work on a NSF TUES Phase 1 project in which they are exploring the feasibility and effectiveness of a scalable concept map as an organizational tool for a digital textbook.  This tool, termed the Adaptive Map, is designed to promote students’ conceptual understanding by using an expert-generated concept map as an advance organizer.  Because large concept maps become visually cluttered and are therefore less effective as learning tools, information visualization techniques have been employed to visualize the digital concept map content.  These techniques structure the visual organization of the map for the content based on the users’ current focus, which provides them context for detailed content information while also managing the cognitive load imposed on the learner.  The authors are exploring the tool’s effect on conceptual understanding and cognitive load.  To measure the tool’s effect on conceptual understanding, researchers are using verbal explanation sessions, and the Statics Concept Inventory.  To measure cognitive load, researchers used self-reported values of mental effort during the data collection sessions, which were designed to ensure that students needed to explore content using the Adaptive Map or their regular textbook.  Preliminary results indicate that if students are given an opportunity to adapt to the radically different format of the Adaptive Map, they prefer the Adaptive Map tool to their traditional paper textbook.  The data also seems to suggest that the students studying with the Adaptive Map tool tend to focus more on conceptual knowledge, where students studying with the traditional paper textbook tend to focus more on procedural knowledge.

n this paper, the authors describe the development of an instructional software, where developers engaged in the process of translating educational theory into a cyber-learning tool, and the challenges encountered in evaluating its usability and effectiveness of the tool as a learning aid. Specifically, the authors reflect on their experience in creating the “Adaptive Map” – an instructional software designed to help students gain conceptual understanding of large stores of content information. This concept map-based system explicitly shows how discrete concepts are linked to the whole of the course with a large node-link diagram. This explicit mapping of expert knowledge structures has been shown to promote conceptual understanding in students. Because concept maps become visually cluttered and unusable when they get too large though, an interactive visualization tool was developed to maintain the advantages of concept maps as learning tools while managing the visual clutter in maps that cover entire courses or even an entire curriculum. In this paper, the authors discuss the process they took in integrating the educational literature with the information visualization literature to understand how to best make an information visualization that addresses educational goals. Results from a heuristic analysis using Munzner’s four level validation framework for an information visualization are also presented.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that has been identified as promoting learning outcomes consistent with ABET criteria. Although the learning benefits of PBL have been well documented, little is known about the effects of PBL on students’ motivation and engagement in learning. As  problem-based approaches are becoming more widespread in use
across engineering programs and curricula, it is particularly  important to understand the impact that such approaches have on students’ motivation. As part of a larger mixed methods study, this
paper focuses on the critical element of team facilitation. Specifically, we examine how students perceive the role of facilitators and how these perceptions influence student motivation. Grounded in the MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation, we present findings from interviews conducted with first-year engineering students at two different research sites. State U1 participants are engaged in a well-established PBL-based course. State U2 participants are engaged in a course that uses a project-based approach to integrate design projects into the class (termed traditional engineering design, or TED, for this study). We conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven men and eight women from State U1 and three men and eleven women from State U2 at the end of their first year. Audio recordings were transcribed and then analyzed using MAXQDA coding software. We developed codes inductively through the data and based on relevant literature. Our findings demonstrated that participants at both sites viewed the facilitator (PBL) or workshop leader (TED) as the grading authority, although it was most salient for the TED participants from State U2 and for participants in only one of the six PBL groups at State U1. For most participants at State U1, however, the more dominant  function of the facilitator was modeling the engineering problem solving process. These State U1 participants also expressed feelings of empowerment and were motivated to put more effort into their coursework through the engagement of faculty in the learning process.