Evaluating a Professional Development Program for Course Redesign With Technology

This study evaluated a California State University Course Redesign Professional Development program, focusing on the user experience of STEM faculty as they learned about technology and applied their learning to develop technology-enriched instructional strategies that enhanced students' own educational experiences. Data were collected from the first two academic years of the professional development program. A conceptual framework that melded andragogy, Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK), Diffusion of Innovation, and Communities of Practice theories were used to analyze archived professional development training content and faculty-produced electronic portfolios. The findings demonstrate that faculty collaborative processes in the online training and in site-based collaborative efforts were the main aspect of the course redesign program that facilitated technology integration, instructional development, and positive student learning outcomes.

Student Perceptions Regarding Clickers

This mixed-methods research study shows that the incorporation of real-time polling in an introductory Anthropology course (n = 107) taught in a large lecture class at a mid-size university can have a positive impact on students' perceptions of (1) satisfaction; (2) participation; and (3) whether the instructor was able to use the polling results effectively to gauge students' understanding. Independent sample t-test and ANOVA results indicated gender, race, and extroversion level were shown to have significant impacts on participation and understanding. Students did not show a significant preference for either of the two real-time polling systems (TopHat or TurningPoint) used in this study. This study shows how the incorporation of real-time polling in large, introductory, lecture classes can have a positive impact on students and has the potential to decrease the attrition rates and to improve student learning enrolled in these classes.

Development of an Interactive Narrative for Adult Literacy Learners

This chapter describes development efforts that build upon the Interactive Strategy Trainer for Active Reading and Thinking-2 (iSTART-2), an intelligent tutoring system that provides self-explanation strategy instruction to improve reading comprehension. The chapter reflects on considerations of the unique needs of adult literacy learners, and outlines the specific guidelines followed to adapt the system to these learners. Several modifications have been made to adapt iSTART to adult learners, including the following: 1) two additional strategy instructional modules for summarization and deep question asking, 2) a text library with life-relevant texts for adult learners, and 3) an interactive narrative which allows instantiated practice of reading strategies using life-relevant artifacts. The authors also describe results from two attitudinal studies examining learners' perceptions of the interactive narrative.

Development of an Educational Video Game That Can Be Modified by End-Users

The development of educational video games can be a challenging process. Typically, games are created for one content area and are designed to specifically facilitate learning in regards to that content. However, this approach inherently limits the utility of the game to specific content. In this chapter, the authors describe the development and systematic iterative playtesting of an educational game designed to be modified by end-users (e.g., teachers, researchers, students). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through three phases of beta-testing, and the results from each test informed the subsequent version of the software. Overall, the results indicated that, aside from fixing software glitches, the addition of aesthetically pleasing graphical user interfaces and the integration of sound effects appear to have made the biggest contributions to players' perceptions of the game.

Assessing User Experience via Biometric Sensor Affect Detection

Traditional user experience assessments rely on self-report, human-system performance, and observational data that incompletely capture users' psychological demands, processing, or affect. Specifically, self-report measures require users to identify and articulate subjective responses to product features, yet users may not possess accurate awareness or may be unwilling or unable to express themselves. Similarly, human-system performance and observational measures require analysts to make inferences about hidden psychological states based on observed external patterns. This chapter discusses how biometric sensor-based affect detection technologies (e.g., eye tracking and EEG) may supplement traditional methods. By measuring biometric indicators of psychological states, researchers can gain potentially richer and more accurate insights into user experience. These technologies are gaining traction in educational technology development and functionality, and thus the extension of these tools for usability and user experience evaluation is highly feasible.

Balancing Student Needs and Learning Theory in a Social Interactive Postdigital Textbook

Digital technologies are revolutionizing many aspects of contemporary education. Nevertheless, the bulk of formal learning still takes place in classrooms and despite several decades of computers in classrooms, the textbook is often the primary instructional resource. This chapter will explore how user-centered design can define a future for the digital textbook in ways that incorporate emerging learning technologies but preserve the traditional functions of textbooks in classroom communities. The authors describe the methods and results of three separate user-centered design pilots we conducted to understand user needs: a diary study, a creative writing exercise, and a participatory prototyping activity. Results from each exploration are integrated to highlight commonalities and differences. The chapter closes with a reflection on the overall strengths and limitations of this approach.

The Design Implementation Framework

This chapter explores three broad principles of user-centered design methodologies, including participatory design, iteration, and usability considerations. We discuss characteristics of teachers as an important type of ITS end user, including barriers teachers face as users and their role in educational technology design. To exemplify key points, we draw upon our own experiences in developing an ITS for writing strategies (i.e., the Writing Pal). We conclude by offering a tentative design approach—the Design Implementation Framework (DIF)—that builds upon existing cyclical design methods but with some tailoring to ITS and educational technology contexts.

Logic Models as a Framework for Iterative User Research in Educational Technology

Educational technology development is a design problem. Product developers must optimize between what educational research suggests would be most effective, technological or other software development constraints, and the practical needs of end users and key stakeholders. Creating a logic model and using it to guide a user research program can help product developers tackle this problem. A logic model is a structured description of how a specific product achieves an intended learning outcome. Developing a logic model helps product developers make explicit their assumptions about users, product features, and use cases. Then a user research program can be constructed to test each of these assumptions and provide actionable feedback for further iterations of the product. In this chapter, we present three cases that highlight how the logic model approach can guide a program of research, and how that research has led to tangible product improvements.

Educational Software Design

Educational software is somewhat unique in that the goal of the software is not to facilitate use of the software itself, but to produce an impact on the user - learning - that will affect the user's behavior outside of the software. Although there are many areas where educational software designers can learn from practices in productivity and game design, there are reasons to be cautious in applying such principles to educational software. This chapter considers several design elements in educational software and discusses ways that software principles taken from other areas do or do not apply to educational software design.

Via

This chapter describes the testing of the computer-human interface of Virtual Internship Authorware (VIA), an authoring tool for creating web-based virtual internships. The authors describe several benchmark tasks that would be performed by authors who create lessons on the subject matter of land science. Performance on each task was measured by task completion times and the likelihood of completing the task. Data were collected from ten novices and three experts familiar with the broader learning environment called Intershipinator. Task completion times and the number of steps to complete the tasks were also modeled by GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection), a theoretical model that predicts these measures of user interaction based on a computational psychological model of computer-human interaction. The output from the GOMS simulations of task completion times and number of steps robustly predicted the performance of both novices and experts. Large deviations between model predictions and human performance are expected to guide modifications of the authoring tool.