Title, leader, and abstract for each roundtable.

1. Would playing the African board game Songo result in a collection of literacies?

Rebecca Bayeck

“Songo is an African board game found across Africa. Gameplay involves a long, rectangular board with 14 holes, 70 seeds, played in a clockwise direction by two players who take turn to distribute seeds in holes (Njock, 1985). The goal is to have the last counter land in a cup with only one, or two counters already in it to capture these counters (Ondo, 1990). The player with the most seeds (40) wins the game (Owona, 2004).

While board games are still understudied (Carter, Gibbs, & Harrop, 2014), African board games such as Songo are particularly underexplored in relation to learning and literacy. This study examines Songo gameplay among adult players in Yaoundé, Cameroon through the multiliteracies framework to make sense of players’ actions and interactions.”

2. UbiCoS: A Learning Environment for Supporting Help-Giving across Physical and Digital Contexts

Erin Walker

With the growing integration of technology in classrooms, students can now develop collaboration skills by applying them across diverse contexts. While this represents a great opportunity, it also brings challenges due to an increased need to manage teaching and learning activities. We have created an educational technology called UbiCoS that supports learner help-giving and teacher orchestration during face-to-face collaboration and across three different digital learning environments: a digital textbook, online Q&A, and a teachable agent. We have engaged in several activities towards the development of UbiCoS, including two years of iterative co-design sessions with a cohort of students in the lab, collaboration with expert consultants to create curriculum surrounding UbiCoS, and three cycles of design-based research in the classroom examining how UbiCoS is used. We will present the details of our system and high-level findings from these activities.

3. What Have We Learned About Complex System Simulations?

Andee Rubin

There is a growing body of work addressing how simulations (both participatory and computer-based) can be a way for students to understand some of the basic principles of complex systems. I am interested in organizing a discussion around two issues related to this work. First, I would like to consider what exactly we hope students will understand at various ages; there is often talk of “tipping points” or “telecoupling” or “emergent behavior” but not much deep analysis of the learning goals we think are reachable in different situations. Second, I would like people to share their experience supporting students in reflecting on the process and results of simulations, since understanding these complex systems concepts requires a perspective that is more abstract than the experience of participating in the simulation. Sometimes this process involves working with simulation logs, and I would particularly like to discuss design principles for logs that are to be used to support reflection.

4. Orchestrating Communities of Practice to Advance Research Training

Haoqi Zhang

Undergraduate research experiences enhance learning and professional development, but providing effective and scalable research training is often limited by practical implementation and orchestration challenges. We present Agile Research Studios (ARS), a socio-technical system that expands research training opportunities by supporting research communities of practice. ARS integrates and advances professional best practices and organizational designs, principles for forming effective learning communities, and design of social technologies to overcome the orchestration challenge of one faculty researcher mentoring 20 or more students learning to self-direct complex work. We share lessons learned from a five-year pilot of the Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) program, which used the ARS model to improve the quality of learning, produce research outcomes, and lower the barrier to participation while increasing the number of students who receive authentic research training.

5. Towards Personally-Relevant Learning: Bridging In-School and Out-of-School Learning through Wearable Technologies

Sharon Lynn Chu

It is difficult for children to understand the relevance of science only through in-classroom instruction. Everyday experiences conversely represent rich opportunities for children to understand how science can be applicable in their everyday life. This research project proposes that wearable technologies may enable approaches that can bridge formal in-school learning with children’s out-of- school experiences, especially within the domain of science. The project investigates various strands of inquiry to that effect across three studies. Results so far are promising, and appear to indicate that wearable technology, if designed properly and when combined with other types of technologies, may have potential to make science lessons more personally relevant for students.

6. What Makes for a Good Virtual Reality Learning Experience?

Stephen Moysey

Virtual reality (VR) is a promising technology for education, but how can we leverage it to create effective learning experiences? Should VR be a replacement for traditional laboratory or field learning experiences? What affordances does VR offer that can support learning beyond traditional approaches? Are there general guidelines instructors should use in creating, selecting, or implementing virtual experiences for their classrooms? In this discussion we will explore questions such as these to define what makes for an effective VR experience in different types of settings (e.g., interpersonal, laboratory, and field). Our goal will be to draw lines of connection between elements of design from a computer science perspective, e.g., presence and interaction, and those of concern within an application domain, e.g., cognitive and affective elements of learning. We will also discuss the role of gamification, storytelling, and assessment within the context of VR learning experiences. Throughout the context of this discussion, we will also address issues of implementation. For example, what technologies are viable today and how do they scale for use in a classroom environment? Should instructors focus on identifying existing VR content for their classrooms, creating their own, or involving students in the creation of VR content?

7. The Co-design of a Social Justice Makerspace: Reorienting Designing for Equity in Makerspaces

Kayla DesPortes

Makerspaces have potential to create engaging communities for new learners that have a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and interests. However, majority of makerspaces fail to engage a diverse demographic of makers despite the many forms of making that exist and the prevalence of making within a diversity of cultures. I will present a brief overview of a co-design case-study of a social justice makerspace that demonstrates ways that we might need to reorient how we approach designing for equity. The work highlights various values and tensions that arose during the co-design and participatory design work with the community leaders and members. The presentation will lead into a discussion of how the perspective derived from this work points to the potential of taking an asset-based perspective when engaging with the community, developing a space for critical pedagogy and creating intergenerational learning experiences. We will discuss these along with other directions for research to push how we strive for inclusion and equity within Makerspaces.

8. Learning Engineering: What it is, where it’s going, what it means for cyberlearning and the learning sciences, and how to get involved.

Janet Kolodner

During this roundtable, find out what learning engineering is, where it’s going, what it means for cyberlearning and the learning sciences, and how you can get involved

9. Accessible Cyberlearning Design

Sheryl Burgstahler and Lyla Crawford

This round table discussion will focus and concrete ways cyberlearning practitioners and researchers can make their activities and project products (e.g., digital tools, websites, publications, videos) accessible to, usable by, and inclusive of students and instructors with disabilities. Included in the discussion are barriers and accessibility solutions for disabilities related to sight, hearing, learning, mobility, health, and social interactions. We will also discuss what principles, guidelines, and practices are available to guide inclusive cyberlearning research and practice.

10. Machine Perception to Model Classroom Dynamics

Jacob Whitehill and Anand Ramakrishnan

Machine learning and its applications to computer vision, speech analysis, and natural language processing offers powerful ways to model and optimize human learning. These new opportunities will continue to grow as sensors (cameras, microphones, wearable device) proliferate. However, due to the complexity of human learners and school classrooms, there are still many important computational challenges to be solved. Moreover, it is important to consider how computational analyses can be conducted while respecting people’s privacy.

11. Number Factory: An Adaptive and Inclusive Elementary Math Interactive

Jodi Asbell-Clarke

As part of an research-practice partnership (RPP) to infuse Computational Thinking into STEM in grades 3-8, we are prototyping interactive learning experiences that can be adaptable using educational data mining. We will present NumberFactory, an interactive for place value learning (1s, 10s, 100s, and 1000s) with flexible scaffolds to support neurodiverse students. These scaffolds include graphical organizers and sensory customization. This type of differentiated tool is intended to leverage the overlap between CT practices and the unique cognitive strengths and needs of neurodiverse learners.

12. Integrating computer science in to science and math instruction

Brian Foley and Joseph Chipps

Seymore Papert (1980) described how students could use computers could help students learn by enabling them to create microworlds where they could test their ideas and explore possibilities. The idea that students can create simulations and mathematical objects has inspired generations of educators, but the vision of student-constructed worlds is still far from reality. Recently, the rapid growth in computer science and coding activities in schools as well as more powerful computing environments suggests we may be closer to this vision than ever. This roundtable will discuss the challenges and possibilities for more fully integrating computational thinking across the curriculum. We will share the results of efforts in school settings and informal education and discussion current efforts.

13. Incorporating Cyber Into Any Classroom

Chuck Gardner

NICERC (the National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center) is a DHS-funded non-profit that develops and distributes STEM, Cyber, and Computer Science curricula to teachers across the country at no charge. Through this project, we make available to teachers, content for all classrooms that help infuse cyber into all subjects. Computational thinking, robotics, programming, and humanities and liberal arts are topics that we bring into math, science, government, history, and English classrooms. At this round table presentation, we’ll discuss curricula projects that are available as well as provide you with access to the content and learn how we can bring Professional Development to your school for free!

14. Improving STEAM Learning with an Award-winning Mixed-reality System

Nesra Yannier

This presentation will introduce NoRILLA: an award-winning, patented mixed-reality system that bridges physical and virtual worlds to improve children’s inquiry-based STEAM learning, based on years of scientifically proven research at Carnegie Mellon University. Continuing research at Carnegie Mellon University with hundreds of children from different backgrounds has shown that NoRILLA improves children’s learning by 5 times compared to equivalent tablet or computer games while also increasing their interest and enjoyment. A 2nd grader interacting with NoRILLA for 20 minutes achieves the same science understanding as a 3rd grader. Also, research has shown that having NoRILLA’s intelligent AI-based guided inquiry layer on top of physical experimentation improves children’s learning and engagement dramatically compared to traditional exhibits and maker spaces. I will discuss the research behind NoRILLA, demonstrating how guided-discovery and exploration should be used to maximize learning and engagement outcomes. I will also talk about how NoRILLA and the STEAM curriculum around it, developed by a consortium of teachers, is being used in formal and informal learning settings. You can see a video of kids interacting with NoRILLA at local schools and museums and teachers/administrators talking about their experience with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LorLd_6lALE.”

15. Hip Hop Making as Culturally Sustaining Learning in Computational Contexts

Eli Tucker-Raymond

We describe the results of our first implementation of a three year effort with middle school aged youth in a hip hop-based computational making program. The project aims to engage youth from groups underrepresented in STEM and computing by producing a model learning environment that emphasizes the ubiquity of computing and computational making practices that already exist in young people’s lives and expands youth’s practices and skills in those areas. It simultaneously recognizes youth’s multiple socio-ecological resources for learning and identity building in ways that do not silo disciplinary and everyday learning. We will present the results from a four week camp for 20 middle school aged youth held in Gary Indiana at a creative arts studio. More than just making music, the program uses the history and culture of hip hop writ large as a context for engaging in computational making. Data sources include observations, fieldnotes, video, interviews, and surveys.

16. Fair Play: Creating Accessible Educational Media for All Learners

Joan Freese

Contemporary educational media producers aim to create equitable products that are accessible to audiences with disabilities. Using academic frameworks, such as Universal Design for Learning (Center for Applied Special Technology, 2012) and other research based best practices as well as practical examples from industry, producers are broadening product and program design, production, and outreach/distribution. Twin Cities PBS will share its teams’ processes and perspectives for making media projects more accessible to children and adults with disabilities, work examples, as well as successes and challenges for enhancing experiences for all audiences. Learn effective, practical, and innovative approaches for expanding audiences with equitable tech-centered engagement.

17. Evidence for Why a Backchannel Should be Required in Almost All First-Year Courses

Perry Samson

The chances for student success and retention are increased when students have a sense of belongingness. Unfortunately, large first-year courses offer few opportunities for gaining a sense of belongingness. Many students are reluctant to interact in these environments and those less likely to interact in science courses often include cohorts of students underrepresented in the sciences including female students. So how can we increase opportunities for student inclusivity in introductory courses?

Recent studies have shown that the inclusion of an anonymous backchannel dramatically increased student inquiry in class and eliminated gender biases in frequency of inquiry. Moreover, a longitudinal study has shown that students who had access to an anonymous backchannel were more likely to engage in verbal inquiry in subsequent courses. Given these studies and our wish to create a more inclusive learning environment for our students, it is argued that all introductory or first-year courses should be encouraged to include a backchannel for student inquiry.”

18. Co-creating Value to Address Contradictions in Implementation of Digitally Enhanced Pedagogy

Steve Hickman

Teaching is a highly personal endeavor that is as much art as it is science. Student learning is also personal and is complicated by several factors both inside and outside the classroom. These include socioeconomic status, family structure, teacher and student beliefs, teacher-student relationships, and access to appropriate pedagogies and tools. Few would disagree that the learning sciences and digital tools offer great promise for improving learning outcomes for all students, but the affordances of these practices and tools are yet to be fully exploited in most public schools. This reality, however, is not merely the fault of reluctant teachers who may be satisfied with their practice; legacy systems supported by powerful stakeholders including expensive curricula producers, standardized testing supporters, and fearful unions also present many contradictions to the object of maximizing educational outcomes for all students. This presentation examines value co-creation as a powerful and personal means to achieve the boundary-crossing necessary for all educational stakeholders to fully support the personalized and digitally-enhanced pedagogies necessary to foster a better future for students through education.

19. The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions and Attritions in MOOCs: Machine Learning Perspectives

Hengtao Tang

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have garnered increasing attention with their potentials of opening up higher education, but a large number of attritions is now a major concern for the success and sustainability of MOOCs. To prevent attritions in MOOCs, supporting struggling students from the emotional angle may be the first low hanging fruit to improve the success rate of a MOOC. Prior research on emotions in MOOCs mainly focuses on the single dimension of emotions (e.g., negative and positive), so a more integrative framework is needed. This research refers to the control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006) as the theoretical framework. Using the machine learning models, the research explores achievement emotions and the mechanism of how they influence attritions in MOOCs. The research identifies positive deactivating and negative activating emotions as contributors to the attritions in MOOCs. More design and pedagogical implications are discussed in the Discussion section

20. Participatory cyberlearning design

Christopher Hoadley

What are the barriers to engaging learners and teachers in creating innovative cyberlearning environments? To what extent do computer science education, the maker movement, or democratic institutions support involvement in the creation of technology learning environments, and how do these trends leave cyberlearning design behind? What forms of social justice activism are necessary to support equitable inclusion of marginalized learners in creating new technology mediated learning environments?