Posts Tagged ‘STEM’

Sex differences in adolescents’ occupational aspirations

In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation. These sex differences were larger in countries with a higher level of women’s empowerment.

Sex differences in adolescents’ occupational aspirations: Variations across time and place

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261438

NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (ALOE)

NSF investing $20 million in Georgia-led effort to transform online education for adults

Project centers on artificial intelligence; new National Institute in AI to be headquartered at Georgia Tech

https://gra.org/blog/209

“The goal of ALOE is to develop new artificial intelligence theories and techniques to make online education for adults at least as effective as in-person education in STEM fields,” says Co-PI Ashok Goel, Professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing and the Chief Scientist with the Center for 21stCentury Universities at Georgia Tech

Research and development at ALOE aims to blend online educational resources and courses to make education more widely available, as well as use virtual assistants to make it more affordable and achievable. According to Goel, ALOE will make fundamental advances in personalization at scale, machine teaching, mutual theory of mind and responsible AI.

The ALOE Institute represents a powerful consortium of several universities (Arizona State, Drexel, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Harvard, UNC-Greensboro); technical colleges in TCSG; major industrial partners (Boeing, IBM and Wiley); and non-profit organizations (GRA and IMS).

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more on AI in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+education

 

BlockParty app against SM harassment

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970300911/block-party-aims-to-be-a-spam-folder-for-social-media-harassment

Chou is a Stanford-educated software engineer who worked at tech companies including Pinterest and Quora before setting out on her own. Along the way, she’s become a leading advocate for diversity, pushing Silicon Valley to open up about how few women work in tech — a field long dominated by men.

Block Party is also designed to help deal with the worst abuse, by letting people collect evidence of threats or stalking, even if they are deleted by the users who post them or by the platforms. That documentation is critical for filing police reports, getting restraining orders and pursuing legal cases.

STEM lab for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift

Here is the link to the Molecule Builder on Steam: https://lnkd.in/e7RqXrB

My team is investing into the development of STEM Labs for HTC Vive / Oculus Rift and are making them available through the Steam store. This past week, we launched a chemistry experience where students learn to build molecules in a space lab. Our Molecule Builder Lab teaches:

  • How atoms in a molecule bond
  • The geometric shape of the molecule
  • The polarity of the molecule

Since this is an investment we’re making internally, we have made the module available for an accessible cost through the STEAM VR store. I know this group is not for self-promotion, so as a token of appreciation for allowing us to share this information, our team would like to give away up to 10-keys for free for those interested in using this at their academic institutions.

I hope you are all having a great weekend, and again, thank you for allowing us to share this information.

Douglas Fajardo CEO | CXO 954.559.5133

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more on chemistry in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=chemistry

Chegg and academic integrity

https://www.dailyemerald.com/news/students-cheat-with-online-learning-service-professors-hope-to-identify-users/article_552d56f4-5a31-11eb-98ae-879264ec0299.html

Services like Chegg have become more accessible to students during unproctored exams in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, causing what UO chemistry professor Shannon Boettcher believes is a “huge problem with academic dishonesty across the nation in the light of remote learning and COVID-19.”

he Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice and takedown process requires that service providers remove material that a copyright owner identifies on their website through a valid notice of copyright infringement or become subject to potential secondary liability for assisting with copyright infringement, according to Copyright Alliance.

Chegg Inc. has been sued twice in federal court for claims of copyright infringement, denying allegations in both instances.

Apart from its subscription services, Chegg rents and sells textbooks. The publishing company John Wiley & Sons Inc. filed a lawsuit against Chegg on Dec. 18, 2018, in Manhattan U.S. District Court, alleging that Chegg sold counterfeit versions of its textbooks.

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This $12 Billion Company Is Getting Rich Off Students Cheating Their Way Through Covid

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2021/01/28/this-12-billion-company-is-getting-rich-off-students-cheating-their-way-through-covid

Chegg is based in Santa Clara, California, but the heart of its operation is in India, where it employs more than 70,000 experts with advanced math, science, technology and engineering degrees. The experts, who work freelance, are online 24/7, supplying step-by-step answers to questions posted by subscribers (sometimes answered in less than 15 minutes).

Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig has profited handsomely. His holdings in Chegg plus after-tax proceeds from stock sales add up to $300 million. Rosensweig, who declined to speak to Forbes, has said that Chegg Study was “not built” for cheating. He describes it instead as the equivalent of an asynchronous, always-on tutor, ready to help students with detailed answers to problems. In a 2019 interview, he said higher education needs to adjust to the on-demand economy, the way Uber or Amazon have.

Throughout the pandemic, schools have spent millions on remote proctoring, a controversial practice in which colleges pay private companies like Honorlock and Examity to surveil students while they take tests.

Chegg Study was enjoying steady growth and little competition. Its only serious rival, privately held Course Hero, is a much smaller operation, valued at $1.1 billion, that generates most of its answers from students.

My note:

such proliferation would not have been possible, if the middle and upper administration has been more supportive of faculty when misconduct is detected. If the administration turns blind eye due to “enrollment” and “retention” priorities and curbs faculty reports regarding academic dishonesty, the industry naturally fills out the gap between a mere syllabus statement and inability to act upon it.

There is plenty of lipservice regarding “personalized learning,” but the reality is overworked faculty, who do not have the opportunity to spend sufficient time with students, less to educate them about plagiarism, cheating and similar “auxiliary” trends besides the content of the course.

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more on cheating in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cheating

Gaming and Gamification in K12

Achievement Unlocked_ Understanding the Future of Gamification in Education.docx

https://www.academia.edu/38551388/Achievement_Unlocked_Understanding_the_Future_of_Gamification_in_Education_docx

how gamification elements may be applied to a typical Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) class to support engagement, discuss the limitations of gamification in the classroom and finally provide a perspective on the future of gamification in education

digital agility

Digital Agility: Embracing a Holistic Approach to Digital Literacy in the Liberal Arts

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/1/digital-agility-embracing-a-holistic-approach-to-digital-literacy-in-the-liberal-arts

A 2016 Pew Research Center study indicates that the digital divide in the United States is not solely about access to technology; it also is about the ability to use technology to get what we need.1 What does digital readiness mean; applying cumulative knowledge to real-world situations. Having a tech or STEM-related degree does not ensure digital readiness.

How Can We Encourage Digital Agility in the Liberal Arts?

Digital pedagogy often creates opportunities for instructors to create non-disposable assignments—assignments that are not designed to be thrown away but rather have a purpose past being required.3

“We need to marry the best of our academic work with the best of edtech. In other words, what would it look like if education technology were embedded in the everyday practice of academic disciplines?”4

Project-based learning fits well within the curricular flexibility of the liberal arts. In project-based work, students apply what they are learning in the context of an engaging experience.

Building off frameworks that are already in place, like the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy,

External-facing work offers students real situations where, if we imagine what digital agility looks like, they have to adjust to possible new digital environments and approaches.

Reflection provides a way for meaning-making to happen across individual assignments, projects, and classes. Without the chance to assemble assignments into a larger narrative, each experience lives in its own void.

How Can Institutions Build Systems-Level Support?

Liberal arts colleges in particular are interested in the ways they prepare graduates to be agile and critical in a digital world—as seen in the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) Rubrics.

he Bryn Mawr Digital Competencies Framework5 was followed by more formal conversations and the formation of a working group (including Carleton College,

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more on digital fluency in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+fluency

Rap hip-hop and physics

A Hip-Hop Experiment

JOHN LELAND NOV. 16, 2012 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/nyregion/columbia-professor-and-gza-aim-to-help-teach-science-through-hip-hop.html

Only 4 percent of African-American seniors nationally were proficient in sciences, compared with 27 percent of whites, according to the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

GZA by bringing science into hip-hop; Dr. Emdin by bringing hip-hop into the science classroom.

the popular hip-hop lyrics Web siteRap Genius, will announce a pilot project to use hip-hop to teach science in 10 New York City public schools. The pilot is small, but its architects’ goals are not modest. Dr. Emdin, who has written a book called “Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation,”

hip-hop “cypher,” participants stand in a circle and take turns rapping, often supporting or playing off one another’s rhymes.

“All of those things that are happening in the hip-hop cypher are what should happen in an ideal classroom.”

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Students analyze rap lyrics with code in digital humanities class

Some teachers are finding a place for coding in English, music, science, math and social studies, too

by TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON October 18, 2018

Fifteen states now require all high schools to offer computer science courses. Twenty-three states have created K-12 computer science standards. And 40 states plus the District of Columbia allow students to count computer science courses toward high school math or science graduation requirements. That’s up from 12 states in 2013, when Code.org launched, aiming to expand access to computer science in U.S. schools and increase participation among girls and underrepresented minorities in particular.

Nevada is the only state so far to embed math, science, English language arts and social studies into its computer science standards.

https://youtu.be/lWbLGyRtx18

VR in education must experiment

Riddell, R. (2018, February 2). Ed shouldn’t invest heavily in VR yet, but experimentation is key. Retrieved February 2, 2018, from https://www.educationdive.com/news/ed-shouldnt-invest-heavily-in-vr-yet-but-experimentation-is-key/516160/
Google, for instance, has made virtual field trips to inaccessible locations easier for history and social studies classes with its Cardboard viewers used in conjunction with the Expeditions app. And technologies like zSpace have expanded opportunities in STEM subjects with virtual interactive dissections, diagrams and experiments.

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more on VR in education in this IMS blog

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