Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have generated considerable excitement and considerable skepticism since their recent inception (e.g., Kim, 2014; Perna et al., 2014). By fall 2015, approximately 35 million people had participated in 4200 courses offered by over 550 institutions (Shah, 2015). In addition to MOOCs’ potential for expanding access...
In the current education environment, many instructors make use of some type of software, such as Visual Studio or a software library like OpenGL, in the classroom. Incorrect setup and configuration on an individual’s own system is a common problem when using these software tools. This thesis explores the difficulty...
Open Educational Resources (OER) are increasingly used
in the higher education landscape as a solution for a variety of
copyright, publishing and cost-prohibiting issues. While OERs are
becoming more common, reports of usability tests that evaluate how
well learners can use them to accomplish their learning tasks have
lagged behind....
Collaboration is tricky, but often beneficial in the context of numerous software related activities, from learning core concepts, to the design and implementation of large software products. The growth of online classes, from small structured seminars to massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the isolation and impoverished learning experience some...
The Introductory Physics 20X series has developed an advanced, metacognitive curriculum which requires a high degree of active learning in order for students to succeed in the class. Recently, the series has been transferred to the online campus, Ecampus, and is now available for distance learners. My work is focused...
We design a commitment device for college students, “Study More Tomorrow,” conduct a randomized controlled trial testing a model of its takeup, and measure its effect on tutoring attendance and grades. The device commits students to attend tutoring if their midterm grade falls below a pre-specified threshold. Unlike other commitment...
Many online learning environments use prerecorded video lectures as a primary mode for disseminating learning content. Despite the commonality of this lecture-based video format, it is not clear to what degree video length and the incorporation of active learning elements influence learner success. We investigated the efficacy of segmenting pre-recorded...
Web-based online learning is seeing great adoption alongside the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom model. Online collaborative applications, tutorials and learning platforms have been a great source of knowledge for users. However, most of these applications do not provide much organizational structure to help guide and motivate users in learning new skills....