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Educators' acts and verbalizations toward children during daily routines can promote children's early participation, self-agency, and self-esteem. In this study, we investigate the association between the educator's type of Verbalizations (Number of Suggestions, Directions, Orders, Positive and Negative Feedback, Teaching, Questions) and the quality of their Interactive Behavior (cf. Empathy, Pedagogical Challenging, Cooperation, Reciprocity and Engagement behavior) during a collaborative activity with a child. Sixty-four educator-child dyads, with children ranging from 3- to 5-years old and educators with more than five years of professional experience, were observed while manufacturing a product of their choice for 20 min using predefined materials and tools. Videos were scored according to the Tandem guidelines and scales. Our findings suggest that the educator's verbalizations and interactive behavior are associated, creating a relational context that shapes interactions and children's participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author stresses the need to be cautious when using meta-analysis in interactive learning environment research. He states that meta-analysis allows the synthesis of data across multiple studies to reveal patterns that might be lost, or less identifiable in individual studies. He notes that meta-analysis can answer questions not explicitly considered by the original authors and revisit conflicting findings.

Hundreds of academic institutions around the world dedicated considerable funding to lecture recording to accompany face-to-face teaching prior to the massive transition to distance education due to Covid-19. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that they will continue to do so after teaching will return to the physical classroom. Thus, a methodological examination of the success of lecture recordings as augmentation to face-to-face teaching should be of managerial interest. In this study, five success categories of lecture recording in a college were evaluated based on the information system success model promulgated by DeLone & McLean (1992). Results obtained through a campus-wide questionnaire and system log files showed relatively low usage of the system by students, who gave a somewhat low evaluation of system quality, information quality, and general satisfaction, but a higher assessment for the contribution of the system to their learning. Analysis also found significant correlations between success categories suggested by DeLone & McLean, with some exceptions. These results raise questions regarding the high-cost investments in lecture recording. These questions and the implication of the findings for research and higher education decision makers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the risk of algorithmic injustice for interactive learning environments in education and the role of the "Journal of Interactive Learning Environment" (ILE) in the context of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI). Other topics include the increasing sophistication of machine learning algorithms, the use by the British government of algorithm in the calculation of student grades, and the relationship between school funding and students' examination scores.

The current study examined the effects of different types of instructor comments on student engagement in an online discussion. In particular, this study examined three comment types: (1) praise-oriented comments, agreeing with students' initial messages and recapping their ideas, (2) elaboration-encouraging comments, requesting elaboration on the initial messages, and (3) perspective-widening comments, suggesting different or thought-provoking opinions responding to the initial messages. Seventeen graduate students enrolled in an online course were recruited. A content analysis was employed to evaluate the levels of knowledge construction. Interactivity was measured by the number of posts and idea units. The findings revealed that perspective-widening comments facilitated students' evaluation on the peer postings and brought up diverse perspectives, contributing to knowledge construction. While elaboration-encouraging comments led to high interactivity among students, praise-oriented comments had no significant effect on the frequency of interactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a two-year ethnographic study of global virtual teams (GVTs) (n = 323) in a technology-enhanced global course among six universities (i.e. U.S., China, South Korea, Germany, Israel, and India), this paper presents how and in what ways the participating students made sense of and constructed understandings about the interactive learning environment. Focusing on the student engagement, this study identified three pathways in which they negotiated and developed their respective understandings about technology, culture, and teamwork in GVTs. In each pathway, it was found that students engaged in the development process of reflecting upon problematic experiences, revolving unanticipated challenges, and establishing new ways of being, doing, and thinking. This study highlights the dynamic nature of understanding construction and provides important implications about how to implement GVTs and support students to succeed in GVTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role of the interactive learning in the educational assessment in classrooms. Topics discussed include information on including the classroom communication systems as a part of the classroom activities; discussions on the use of interactive learning as a teaching method for elevating the knowledge and reasoning of the students; and the information on the Classroom Communication based teaching to keep students interested and attentive.

An instructional approach is presented to improve human performance in solving Bayesian inference problems. Starting from the original text of the classic Mammography Problem, the textual expression is modified and visualizations are added according to Mayer’s principles of instruction. These principles concern coherence, personalization, signaling, segmenting, multimedia, spatial contiguity, and pretraining. Principles of self-explanation and interactivity are also applied. Four experiments on the Mammography Problem showed that these principles help participants answer the questions at significantly improved rates. Nonetheless, in novel interactivity conditions, performance was lowered suggesting that more interaction can add more difficulty for participants. Overall, a leap forward in accuracy was found, with more than twice the participant accuracy of previous work. This indicates that an instructional approach to improving human performance in Bayesian inference is a promising direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviewed the literature on mobile technology-supported collaborative learning from 2007 to 2016. Several issues, such as the distributions and research methods, learning devices and learning environments, participants, research issues, application domains, grouping methods and collaborative learning strategies, are addressed. In addition, the relationship between the learning strategies and measurement issues are investigated. The review found that the amount of research on mobile collaborative learning increased and the connection between new mobile technology and collaborative learning activities became tighter. College students received the greatest emphasis, but more focus should be put on junior and elementary school students. Few studies were conducted on teachers and adults. In the most recent five years, the research was focused on improving learners' performance in science, especially social science, and in natural scenarios outside of the classroom, but less emphasis was put on developing learners’ skills and higher order skills. There was little research focusing on different selection methods of group members and the teaching effects of grouping design. Most research adopted conceptualized collaborative learning strategies. Furthermore, some studies proposed that the collaborative learning activities conducted in mobile learning environments should be designed carefully to guide students to experience more effective collaborative constructivist learning. Based on the findings, in-depth discussion and suggestions for future studies are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation process (IP), which is being implemented (sometimes as well as possible) in the national education, brings a more interactive way to lead the class. By comparing it to experimental experimentation - one of Freinet's major ideas, this text tends to show that she (IP) is inspired by it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to compare and contrast the distribution and application of metadiscourse features in news writings between English native writers and Iranian non-native writers. To this end, a comparable corpus of English news written by English native authors and Iranian authors were selected randomly. For the theoretical framework, Hyland's model (2005) was exploited. As the data represent, the English authors were more relied than the Persian ones on metadiscourse features. Also, the data revealed that in both corpora, the interactional metadiscourse features were preponderant as compared to the interactive metadiscourse features. In addition, in the interactional corpus, hedges were the most frequent as compared to transitions which were the most frequent type of metadiscourse in interactive category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive simulations can facilitate inquiry learning. However, similarly to other Exploratory Learning Environments, students may not always learn effectively in these unstructured environments. Thus, providing adaptive support has great potential to help improve student learning with these rich activities. Providing adaptive support requires a student model that can both evaluate learning as well inform relevant feedback. Building such a model for interactive simulations is especially challenging because the exploratory nature of the interaction makes it hard to know a priori which behaviors are conducive to learning. To address this problem, in this paper we leverage the student modeling framework proposed in (Kardan and Conati, 2011) to specifically address the challenge of modeling students in interactive simulations. The framework has already been successfully applied to build a student model and to give adaptive interventions for an interactive simulation for constraint satisfaction. We seek to investigate the generality of the framework by building student models for a more complex simulation on electric circuits called Circuit Construction Kit (CCK). We evaluate alternative representations of logged interaction data with CCK, capturing different amounts of granularity and feature engineering. We then apply the student modeling framework proposed in (Kardan and Conati, 2011) to group students based on their interaction behaviors, map these behaviors into learning outcomes and leverage the resulting clusters to classify new learners. Data collected from 100 college students working with the CCK simulation indicates that the proposed framework is able to successfully classify students in groups of high and low learners and identify patterns of productive behaviors that are common across representations that can inform real-time feedback. In addition to presenting these results, we discuss trade-offs between levels of granularity and feature engineering in the tested interaction representations in terms of their ability to evaluate learning, classify students, and inform feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative policies often enter schools as educational artifacts which teachers are expected to implement. Conceptualizing the interaction between teachers and artifacts as a process of interpretative negotiation, we use frame analysis to unravel the implementation practices of one exemplary artifact: the TraPS-file. This file aims at warranting continuity in educational care when students make the transition from primary to secondary school. Based on an artifact analysis and a qualitative multiple-case study, we identify three configurations in implementation: faithful use, selective use and extended use. The study adds further evidence to critically question the fidelity approach in the study of innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking at the complexity of the post-revolutionary environment in Tunisia, this article proposes a model for renewal of teaching practices in social entrepreneurship in the framework of a partnership initiative between German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and High Institute of Management-university of Tunis (ISGT) as a case study for the method of action research. The study embraces a conceptual framework inspired by effectuation theory. Our aim here is to provide an adequate model for the process of co-production of knowledge for social entrepreneurship (SE) learning triggered by the proposal of a training of trainers for teaching within the ISGT in a collaboration agreement with the GIZ. This partnership initiative allows, at the renewal of teaching in SE, the rethinking of the method of training to use an interactive education method. Drawing from empirical and conceptual findings, the study shows (i) how the process of learning in SE is a reflexive process informed by the changes during the operation itself, and (ii) how actors interact to produce a transformative effect in the learning process. In this respect, our study grasps the micro-macro dynamics in a post-revolutionary context through which people shape what they consider suitable and actionable in their context. Therefore, adopting the effectuation theory to Action Research would foster an interactive process that is adaptable to a contingent environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradiction between the worked example effect that occurs when learners presented with more instructional guidance learn more than learners presented with less guidance and the generation effect that occurs when the reverse result is obtained can be resolved by the suggestion that the worked example effect is obtained using materials high in element interactivity, whereas simpler, low element interactivity materials result in the generation effect. A 2 (guidance: low vs. high) × 2 (element interactivity: low vs. high) × 2 (expertise: low vs. high) experiment investigated this hypothesis with high school trigonometry learners. On an immediate test, high guidance reflecting a worked example effect was found for novices, but a generation effect was obtained for more knowledgeable learners. In contrast, on a delayed test, a three-way interaction between guidance, element interactivity and expertise was found. This interaction was caused by a worked example effect for material high in element interactivity and a generation effect for material low in element interactivity for novices while for more knowledgeable learners, a generation effect was obtained for both low and high element interactivity materials. These results suggest firstly, that both the worked example and generation effects may be more likely on delayed than immediate tests and secondly, that the worked example effect relies on high element interactivity material while the generation effect relies on low element interactivity material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peers affect individual's productivity in the workforce, in education, and in other team-based tasks. Using large-scale language data from an online college course, we measure the impacts of peer interactions on student learning outcomes and persistence. In our setting, students are quasi-randomly assigned to peers, and as such, we are able to overcome selection biases stemming from endogenous peer grouping. We also mitigate reflection bias by utilizing rich student interaction data. We find that females and older students are more likely to engage in student interactions. Students are also more likely to interact with peers of the same gender and with peers from roughly the same geographic region. For students who are relatively less likely to be engaged in online discussion, exposure to more interactive peers increases their probabilities of passing the course, improves their grade in the course, and increases their likelihood of enrolling in the following academic term. This study demonstrates how the use of large-scale, text-based data can provide insights into students' learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem-solving requires creative skills, critical thinking as well the ability to implement ideas and theories in practical ways. Moreover, interactive and self-managed problem-solving experiences promote students' motivation as expressed through the developmental progression of learners' metacognitive skills, such as self-monitoring and self-reinforcement. Effective learning based on constructivist didactics, encompassing self-organized learning in combination with active and creative problem-solving in collaborative settings, advances students' concomitant cognitive and meta-cognitive processes. Hence, students' coconstruction of knowledge embodied in social dynamic learning environments, such as school-based tasks leverage the semantic relationships rising from exercising, verifying and testing of knowledge through information sharing and discussion. Future studies should focus on designing interactive, adaptable, ill-defined, real-world learning environments to elicit students' cognitive and meta-cognitive processes as a key factor for the effective training of problemsolving skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know from research across all levels of education that feedback and interactive teaching have the greatest positive effect on students’ achievement. However, in higher education, teachers’ constructive feedback often logistically cannot be delivered in time for all students to apply to future tasks. In this article, we report on a study of an interactive teaching approach using assignment exemplars to provide students with before-task ‘feedback’ or feedforward. We evaluated the effectiveness of the approach through a questionnaire and analysis of students’ grades. Our results show that while the teacher’s explanation of the exemplars was an important positive factor in students’ achievement, some students did not improve their performance although they understood the quality of work expected. We discuss implications for teachers in teaching discipline-writing skills as part of an exemplar-based approach to providing feedforward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the expansion of active pedagogies that consider the student as the centre of the teaching and learning process, their role during the assessment process cannot be overlooked. That implies a change in the teacher's role from a communicator of the student's mark to an open system in which teachers and students get involved in the learning process and develop online assessment skills. From a description of a concrete experience of continuous e-assessment in a subject at the UOC, this paper explores the advantages of the active role of students in the e-assessment of competency acquisition. In this subject, the student is assessed, using a project based learning methodology, from two dimensions provided by continuous assessment: on the one hand, the assessment of the process followed during the development of the activities based on the outcomes of each phase of the projects and process monitoring and, on the other hand, the assessment of the final outcome. Hence, students participate in both the assessment of the process and the final outcome. The process assessment, developed in the framework of teamwork, is produced in a self-assessment process in which both the student and peer participation in a work group are analysed, thereby developing a dynamic peer-assessment. In addition, a process of reflection regarding teamwork is carried out at the end of each phase of the project, based on an interactive process among the members of the group. The evaluation of the results focuses on an interactive assessment based on the analysis of the projects developed by other groups at the final stage of the subject. In order to analyse the students' perception about the e-assessment methodology and their role during this process, a quantitative and online questionnaire was designed and administered at the final stage of the course. The results revealed a high level of satisfaction with the e-assessment activities of the course and an improvement of the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has originated from our interest in approaching mathematical concepts starting from people's common-sense intuitions and building up from there. This goal is challenging both in designing the didactical transposition and sequencing of the mathematical subject matter, and in adopting the open and interactive teaching approach needed to achieve students' active participation and reflection. To demonstrate these challenges, and our experience of trying to cope with them, we have chosen the concept of ‘inverses’ as used in group theory, and its common-sense precursor ‘opposites’. We present our approach via a series of workshop iterations, which summarizes our experience in the many actual workshops we ran in Israel and in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within this paper, we propose to present the advantages and limitations of using Wondershare Quiz Creator during the French class, an application that allows to easily create interactive Flash-based questionnaires for computer-assisted instruction and assessment. Given the multitude of advantages of using these educational programs, we believe that teachers need training in their use of ICT for education, not only on terms of technical, but especially regarding the pedagogical plan [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a usability evaluation method for educational systems or applications, called the self-report-based sequential analysis, is described herein. The method aims to extend the current practice by proposing self-report-based sequential analysis as a new usability method, which integrates the advantages of self-report in survey research (e.g., questionnaires and interviews) and lag sequential analysis to evaluate educational systems or applications and further understand students’ operational process patterns of behaviors toward the systems’ interfaces. An empirical study using a drill-based game as a platform was conducted to test the effectiveness of the self-report-based sequential analysis method. The results showed the critical mediators and behavioral transfer patterns among the different area of interests during the students’ overall operational process behaviors. For example, the health points and badges as rewards served as critical mediators between the rewards and feedback and health points and countdown timer, respectively. The self-report-based sequential analysis helped explore the participants’ operational process behaviors in the area of interests, and why behaviors shift on area of interests that can assist to diagnose the inappropriate arrangement of area of interests. Suggestions are provided based on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we used a narrative approach to investigate the function that digital, interactive tools can fulfill in inquiry teaching and learning. Such a narrative can be conceived of as 'talking through' a lesson in which a teacher supports inquiry with technology. By subsequently coding these narratives, we studied the functions that tools can fulfill related to certain learning activities and instructional settings. We created a template by distilling the coded functions of these tools. This template can be used to find alternative pedagogical functions for tools, alternative learning activities to support with a tool, and alternative instructional settings for use of the tool as educational support. Our template can support the alignment of these different aspects of toolsupported, inquiry-based learning by presenting them in a structured way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing a usable learning application is one of the key factors in ensuring effective learning. This article introduces modified group usability testing (MGUT) as a feasible framework for evaluating the usability of non-immersive virtual reality (VR) learning applications. Conventionally, usability testing of such learning applications often employs the one-to-one approach in which an evaluator conducts testing with several individual participants. As opposed to the one-to-one approach, the group approach involves several-to-many participants performing tasks simultaneously, with several evaluators observing and interacting with participants. This article describes the complete step-by-step procedure for conducting MGUT to uncover usability problems of a VR learning application that aims to educate its users on fire safety and prevention. It also proposes methods to analyze these usability problems. The effectiveness and efficiency of MGUT was then compared with DGUT, the original group testing technique and cooperative evaluation (CE), which is a typical one-to-one approach. Results indicate that all three techniques are able to reveal usability problems of different usability factors and show similar capability to discover the most critical and serious problems. MGUT is more effective than DGUT as it can collect additional usability problems of various factors and of different levels of severity. MGUT is as effective as CE as both techniques can identify usability problems which are more or less comparable in terms of quantity and quality. As for efficiency, MGUT and DGUT are more efficient than CE as these group testing approaches require lesser testing time, lesser effort in terms of the intensive interaction with participants although with slight more effort in the preparation of the physical setting. In addition, it is also obvious that MGUT and DGUT involve richer participation than CE. MGUT is also more feasible than DGUT as it allows some flexibility in the computer arrangement setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on two studies that evaluated the statistical validity of the Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire as a universal screening and early identification observation instrument within the North American context. The Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire was first proposed and tested in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s. It has been used as an integral part of the school procedures in the Hong Kong school system since it was first launched and has spawned a number of intervention programs for students within the Hong Kong Educational Authority. The Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire (CLDQ) has been adapted from the Hong Kong study as a Tier I observation instrument to be used in the North American context. Results of the principal component analysis (PCA) in Study 1 (N = 820) extracted six components, which exhibited adequate to high levels of internal consistency. Results of Study 2 (N = 117) indicated statistically significant and negative relationships between the CLDQ subscales and Teacher Rating Form (TRF) (Achenbach, 1991) variables, demonstrating evidence of convergent validity. Based on the findings of these studies, the authors conclude that the screening protocol does present as a robust instrument capable of supporting screening at a primary prevention level. Based on this study, it is argued that classroom teachers hold a wealth of information concerning each student and that this, when presented in a systematic fashion, leads to greater understanding of individual and group learning needs and may lead to pre-emptive actions which would benefit students' learning trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Conventional medical curriculum is the rule of medical teaching in Greek Medical Schools. Medical students are often taught irrelevant details with little or no reference to their potential clinical significance. Alternatively, integrated teaching warrants that the complete teaching material is covered by each faculty member not considering areas of personal expertise. The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of integrated teaching in ophthalmic training. Methods: The main outcome measures of this retrospective study were a) comments and recommendations made anonymously by the fifth-year medical students in the evaluation questionnaires filled in at the end of their training, and b) scores obtained by students in their final examination at the end of their training in the 2nd Department of Ophthalmology as part of the core Curriculum of the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The latter outcome was analyzed with respect to the implementation of integrated teaching. Results: The score obtained by students in the final examination, which is an objective outcome measure, increased significantly after the implementation of integrated teaching. The final grade (scores out of 10) of students who were trained with the integrated system (6.17±1.67, mean ± standard deviation) was significantly higher compared to those (5.52±2.20) trained with the conventional system (P<0.001). The positive outcome of this process was evident as there was a significant increase in the number of students satisfied with the teaching process compared to previous academic years. Conclusion: Based on the experience of eight academic years and as a result of interactive assessment process our department has modified its medical student teaching process from conventional to integrated; all teaching staff members are involved in the teaching process, while students are divided in small groups. In conclusion, integrated teaching in small student groups appears to be an efficient teaching method (for both theoretical and clinical skills) of ophthalmic training for medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creative Commons (CC) mechanism has been suggested as a potential means to foster a reliable environment for online knowledge sharing activity. This study investigates the role of the CC mechanism in supporting knowledge sharing among a group of university students studying programming from the perspectives of social cognitive and social capital theories. By gathering 40 university students' feedbacks and their behaviors, this study found that, in terms of trust, sharing self-efficacy and outcome expectations, the students had a more positive perception of the CC-integrated platform than that of conventional online sharing. In addition, the students were more likely to favor the CC-integrated sharing platform in which they believed that individual identification and profit were more effectively sustained and protected in the process of knowledge sharing. The students' activities on these platforms and their perception of knowledge sharing also revealed relationships that differed from those found in their performance of programming tasks on other online sharing platforms. This study suggests that the employment of the CC mechanism could be helpful in promoting a more positive perception of and willingness to engage in knowledge sharing, thus ensuring the effectiveness of peer communication and collaboration in stimulating programming performance within the Internet-based collaborative context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solving well-structured problems often requires using considerable related concepts which are usually scattered and introduced throughout different learning units of a subject. In addition, poor learning of related concepts of preceding units may block the learning of subsequent units, and eventually leads to the inability to solve well-structured problems of a subject. Thus, this work proposes using across-unit diagnostic feedback, which can identify weak concepts not only within a unit but also in different units. Furthermore, the provided feedback can be used to recommend remedial learning paths for students, and inform the students the priority of the paths to understand which weak unit should be remedied first and which weak concepts within a unit should be remedied first. Students can refer to the instructions and use the provided corresponding remedial materials to conduct remedial learning in a systematic way. To discriminate the learning effect among various feedback types, this project will compare the proposed system, the Across-Unit Diagnostic Feedback System (AUDFS), with two other systems, the Single-Unit Diagnostic Feedback System (SUDFS) and the Traditional Feedback System (TFS). Experiment results show that the proposed system significantly enhanced learning achievement and the ability to solve well-structured problems for students. The mean student retention time of the proposed system is significantly higher than that of other systems, indicating that the proposed system enables sustained connection between students and the system. Additionally, positive correlations exist between student retention time of the proposed system and student post-test scores. Through a questionnaire and interviews, most students expressed positive attitudes to the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The current paper presents a pilot study of interactive assessment using information and communication technology (ICT) to evaluate the knowledge, skills and abilities of staff with no formal education who are working in Swedish elderly care. Methods Theoretical and practical assessment methods were developed and used with simulated patients and computer-based tests to identify strengths and areas for personal development among staff with no formal education. Results Of the 157 staff with no formal education, 87 began the practical and/or theoretical assessments, and 63 completed both assessments. Several of the staff passed the practical assessments, except the morning hygiene assessment, where several failed. Other areas for staff development, i.e. where several failed (>50%), were the theoretical assessment of the learning objectives: Health, Oral care, Ergonomics, hygiene, esthetic, environmental, Rehabilitation, Assistive technology, Basic healthcare and Laws and organization. None of the staff passed all assessments. Number of years working in elderly care and staff age were not statistically significantly related to the total score of grades on the various learning objectives. Conclusion The interactive assessments were useful in assessing staff members' practical and theoretical knowledge, skills, and abilities and in identifying areas in need of development. It is important that personnel who lack formal qualifications be clearly identified and given a chance to develop their competence through training, both theoretical and practical. The interactive e-assessment approach analyzed in the present pilot study could serve as a starting point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcription of handwritten text in (old) documents is an important, time-consuming task for digital libraries. Although post-editing automatic recognition of handwritten text is feasible, it is not clearly better than simply ignoring it and transcribing the document from scratch. A more effective approach is to follow an interactive approach in which both the system is guided by the user, and the user is assisted by the system to complete the transcription task as efficiently as possible. Nevertheless, in some applications, the user effort available to transcribe documents is limited and fully supervision of the system output is not realistic. To circumvent these problems, we propose a novel interactive approach which efficiently employs user effort to transcribe a document by improving three different aspects. Firstly, the system employs a limited amount of effort to solely supervise recognised words that are likely to be incorrect. Thus, user effort is efficiently focused on the supervision of words for which the system is not confident enough. Secondly, it refines the initial transcription provided to the user by recomputing it constrained to user supervisions. In this way, incorrect words in unsupervised parts can be automatically amended without user supervision. Finally, it improves the underlying system models by retraining the system from partially supervised transcriptions. In order to prove these statements, empirical results are presented on two real databases showing that the proposed approach can notably reduce user effort in the transcription of handwritten text in (old) documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Online instruction is quickly gaining in importance in U.S. higher education, but little rigorous evidence exists as to its effect on student learning. We measure the effect on learning outcomes of a prototypical interactive learning online statistics course by randomly assigning students on six public university campuses to take the course in a hybrid format (with machine-guided instruction accompanied by one hour of face-to-face instruction each week) or a traditional format (as it is usually offered by their campus, typically with about three hours of face-to-face instruction each week). We find that learning outcomes are essentially the same-that students in the hybrid format are not harmed by this mode of instruction in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized assessment of statistical literacy. We also conduct speculative cost simulations and find that adopting hybrid models of instruction in large introductory courses has the potential to significantly reduce instructor compensation costs in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's world of text messaging and emails, we found that students learn visually as well as aurally. In other words, students are learning from "visual listening" - listening related to reading texts, emails, and tweets. This exploration is a by-product of our earlier investigation of active productive listening as a key element in the process of thinking critically. Students stated, in interactive workshops, that in order for them to listen critically, professors must add visuals to their class presentations, have in depth knowledge of the subject matter, and explain to students why the material in the course is necessary in their "real" day to day lives. Students' perceived need for practical information far exceeded their requirement for abstract knowledge for the future and superseded knowledge that was purely theoretical in nature. Students do not listen unconditionally. This paper explores student learning - listening and "visual listening" in order to think critically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]