Janice Gobert - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Janice Gobert
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2023
Crossroads, Mar 1, 2023
This article is an example of how theoretical frameworks about how people learn science were used... more This article is an example of how theoretical frameworks about how people learn science were used in combination with computational techniques to develop authentic assessments and intelligent tutoring for science.
ICLS, 2006
We report on the Modeling Across the Curriculum Project (mac.concord.org), a 5-year study funded ... more We report on the Modeling Across the Curriculum Project (mac.concord.org), a 5-year study funded by the IERI program (IERI # 0115699). In this project we are using qualitative model-based tools for inquiry in three science domains (Genetics, Gas Laws, & Newtonian Mechanics) to promote scientific literacy on a broad scale, namely, content knowledge, process skills, and epistemologies of science (Perkins, 1986). The process skills we focus on in this project are model-based inquiry skills; epistemological constructs of interest here are students' epistemologies of models as a subset of epistemology of science (Gobert & Discenna, 1997; Schwartz & White, 1999). Our technological infrastructure, Pedagogica ™ (Horwitz & Burke, 2002) logs all students' interactions with our hypermodels (Horwitz & Christie, 1999). We use students' log files as performance assessments of model-based inquiry on inquiry tasks called "hot spots" and track changes in inquiry skills over time both within and across domains. Project Overview The Modeling Across the Curriculum project is a scalability project for which we have developed a technology platform, a reporting system, and curricular materials. There are four levels of research being conducted. Level 1 is focused on improving the scaffolding design through individual interviews of students and teachers. Level 2 is focused on classroom-based studies to evaluate the impact of amount of scaffolding. Level 3 is a longitudinal study of our dependent variables (content, inquiry skills, attitudes towards science, and epistemology of models) with the same students across 3 years in all three domains in our Partner Schools. Level 4 addresses what supports are necessary to scale this to many more schools. Our curricular activities present students with content using a progressive model-building approach (White & Frederiksen, 1990; Raghavan & Glaser, 1995; Gobert & Clement, 1999) in which simpler models (e.g., static representations of structural information) provide conceptual leverage for more complex models (e.g., causal models) of scientific phenomena, these, in turn, support model-based reasoning. We support students' model-based reasoning using scaffolds designed by our group (Gobert & Buckley, 2003) and in accordance with model-based learning theory (Gobert & Buckley, 2000); in doing so, we also draw on literature on students' difficulties in learning with models (Lowe, 1993). The inquiry skills in national standards (NSES, 1996; U.S. Dept of Education, 1993) match pedagogically with model-based teaching and learning, the theoretical framework underlying our research, learning activities, and assessment (Gobert & Buckley, 2000). The tenets of model-based learning are based on the presupposition that understanding requires the construction of mental models, and that all subsequent problem-solving or reasoning are done by means of manipulating or 'running' these mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983). Model-based reasoning also involves the testing, and subsequent reinforcement, revision, or rejection of mental models (Buckley & Boulter, 2000). This represents authentic science thinking in that it is analogous to hypothesis development and testing among scientists (Clement, 1989). The reasoning processes of hypothesis generation from the model, testing that hypothesis, and interpreting the data are among the higher order inquiry skills that are difficult to teach and are the type of reasoning needed in inquiry (
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize inquiry practices that students should mas... more The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize inquiry practices that students should master including constructing explanations. Most automated methods for scoring scientific explanations, however, do not detect the specific components involved in constructing explanations in the claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) format, which is commonly used in science classes. In this study, we expanded and implemented a data-driven, regular expression-based method to automatically score students’ written CER explanations across the domains of Physical Science, Earth Science, and Life Science in the intelligent tutoring system, Inq-ITS. We then investigated the generalizability of our method using a new set of testing data. Results of comparisons between human scores and automated scores indicated high performance for the method when applied to the testing data. Analyses showed that the automated scoring for one domain (earth science) had lower performance relative to other domains. Overall, the fine-grained, data-driven, regular expression-based method yielded high accuracy and more reliable scores relative to human scores. Implications for scaffolding CER writing are discussed.
International Conference of Learning Sciences, Dec 1, 2012
Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mi... more Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) over the last few years, the work has been still distant from the core Learning Sciences methods, theoretical constructs, and literature. At the same time, over the last 15 years, Learning Sciences as a field has been quite innovative, eclectic, and effective in incorporating new methodological stances, such as micro-genetic methods, microethnographies, and design-based research. It seems that the time has come to build sound connections between these traditions. The goal of this symposium is to bring together researchers coming from different academic perspectives, to explore and examine common LA/EDM methodological and theoretical threads with wide applicability within the Learning Sciences. The papers presented explore text mining in clinical interviews, moment-bymoment learning curves and traces, data mining of programming logs, and cognitive tutors, representing the main perspectives and methodological approaches in the field. Overall focus of the symposium Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) (Baker & Yacef, 2009) over the next few years, the work has been still distant from the core Learning Sciences methods, theoretical constructs, and literature. At the same time, over the last 20 years, the Learning Sciences as a field has been quite innovative, eclectic, and effective in incorporating new methodological stances, such as micro-genetic methods (
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, Nov 26, 2016
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
The original version of this chapter contained an error in the third author's name. The spelling ... more The original version of this chapter contained an error in the third author's name. The spelling of Rachel Dickler's name was incorrect in the header of the paper. The author name has been corrected.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
Researchers are trying to develop assessments for inquiry practices to elicit students’ deep scie... more Researchers are trying to develop assessments for inquiry practices to elicit students’ deep science learning, but few studies have examined the relationship between students’ doing, i.e. performance assessment, and writing, i.e. open responses, during inquiry. Inquiry practices include generating hypotheses, collecting data, interpreting data, warranting claims, and communicating findings [1]. The first four practices involve “doing” science, whereas the last involves writing scientific explanations, i.e. arguing using evidence. In this study, we explored whether what students wrote in their constructed responses reflected what they did during science inquiry in the Inq-ITS system. Results showed that more than half of the students’ writing did not match what they did in the environment. Findings revealed multiple types of students in the messy middle, which has implications for both teacher instruction and intelligent tutoring systems, such as Inq-ITS, in terms of providing real-time feedback for students to address the full complement of inquiry practices [1].
Educational Research Review, May 1, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Jan 25, 2023
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting, 2019
Journal of Science Education and Technology, Mar 1, 2004
For this special issue of JSET, we have assembled five important papers based on research at the ... more For this special issue of JSET, we have assembled five important papers based on research at the Concord Consortium. These papers report new developments in strands of ongoing research and development that are among the most promising ways to realize the educational potential of information and communication technologies (ICT). The goal of this Introduction is to place these papers in their larger context and to indicate some of our expectations for future developments in these areas.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2022
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2019
Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) with simulated and virtual labs have been designed to enhance ... more Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) with simulated and virtual labs have been designed to enhance students’ science knowledge, including content and inquiry practices; some systems do this via real-time scaffolding. Prior studies have demonstrated that scaffolding can benefit students’ learning and performance. The present study aims to examine the robustness of scaffolding, delivered by a pedagogical agent by providing scaffolding on one activity, removing it, and then evaluating students’ inquiry performance both over multiple time periods (in 40 days, 80 days, and 170 days) and across different topics, thereby addressing far transfer. 107 middle school students in grade 6 received adaptive scaffolding on the first inquiry topic (i.e. Animal Cell) in the intelligent tutoring system, Inq-ITS. Then they received no scaffolding for three topics, namely, Plant Cell, Genetics, and Natural Selection. Results showed that after removing scaffolding, students demonstrated continued growth of inquiry performance from time 1 to time 2, to time 3, and to time 4 for the practices of hypothesizing and collecting data, as well as from time 1 to time 2 and to time 4 for the practice of warranting claims. This pattern was not found in students’ performance on the practice of interpreting data. These findings have implications for designers and researchers regarding the design of scaffolds for the NGSS’ inquiry practices so that they can be effectively transferred. These data also point to the need for additional work to address content practice interactions.
Chapman and Hall/CRC eBooks, Feb 26, 2020
Seven articles-out of the nine presented here to the Reader-undertake our leading theme: Tracing ... more Seven articles-out of the nine presented here to the Reader-undertake our leading theme: Tracing Liminal and Boundary Experience in Philosophical and Religious Discourse. Three articles from that group (written by Małgorzata Bogaczyk-Vormayr, Piotr Augustyniak and Anna Szyrwińska) explore various aspects of the boundary experience in a historical perspective. The next four pick up the same theme in a contemporary perspective: the articles of Joachim Piecuch, Tadeusz Gadacz and Antoni Szwed discuss the philosophy of Józef Tischner, the article by Urszula Idziak presents the debate between Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur concerning the boundary experience of death. The remaining two articles published here are not connected with the leading theme-Magdalena Nowak presents a history of the concept of Einfühlung and Jacquette Dale tries to improve the diagram method used in logical argument analysis. The article of Małgorzata Bogaczyk-Vormayr Veränderung zur Praktike. Kleine Bemerkungen zur Lebensphilosophie des Evagrios Pontikos analyses the boundary experience of crisis (depression, dissipation, fatigue) which is not necessarily a sign of final defeat, but-according to ancient philosophers and the early Christian Desert Fathers-can be a turning point for finding oneself and discovering new possibilities of action. The Greek philosophers and Christian thinkers are here in agreement-the art of life should consist in the capability of accepting the variability of human condition and keeping the balance both in front of luck and lack of luck. This is precisely the aim of a philosophy designed as a practical exercise in the art of dying-it taught not only that life does not last and has its own limits, but also that the experience of these limits can be the source of power and the opportunity of finding inner peace. The article by Piotr Augustyniak Meister Eckhart's God confronted with the Nietzschean critique of christianity also picks up the problem of the boundary experience of life and death but in the medieval context and in a different perspective. Meister Eckhart tried to eliminate certain drawwww.argument-journal.eu brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2021
Remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges for educators... more Remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges for educators. It is important to consider how AI technologies can be leveraged to support educators and, in turn, help students learn in remote settings. In this paper, we present the results of a mixed-methods study that examined how teachers used a dashboard with real-time alerts during remote learning. Specifically, three high school teachers held remote synchronous classes and received alerts in the dashboard about students' difficulties on scientific inquiry practices while students conducted virtual lab investigations in an intelligent tutoring system. Quantitative analyses revealed that students significantly improved across a majority of inquiry practices during remote use of the technologies. Additionally, through qualitative analyses of the transcribed audio data, we identified five trends related to dashboard use in a remote setting, including three reflecting effective implementations of dashboard features and two reflecting the limitations of dashboard use. Implications regarding the design of dashboards for use across varying contexts are discussed.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2023
Crossroads, Mar 1, 2023
This article is an example of how theoretical frameworks about how people learn science were used... more This article is an example of how theoretical frameworks about how people learn science were used in combination with computational techniques to develop authentic assessments and intelligent tutoring for science.
ICLS, 2006
We report on the Modeling Across the Curriculum Project (mac.concord.org), a 5-year study funded ... more We report on the Modeling Across the Curriculum Project (mac.concord.org), a 5-year study funded by the IERI program (IERI # 0115699). In this project we are using qualitative model-based tools for inquiry in three science domains (Genetics, Gas Laws, & Newtonian Mechanics) to promote scientific literacy on a broad scale, namely, content knowledge, process skills, and epistemologies of science (Perkins, 1986). The process skills we focus on in this project are model-based inquiry skills; epistemological constructs of interest here are students' epistemologies of models as a subset of epistemology of science (Gobert & Discenna, 1997; Schwartz & White, 1999). Our technological infrastructure, Pedagogica ™ (Horwitz & Burke, 2002) logs all students' interactions with our hypermodels (Horwitz & Christie, 1999). We use students' log files as performance assessments of model-based inquiry on inquiry tasks called "hot spots" and track changes in inquiry skills over time both within and across domains. Project Overview The Modeling Across the Curriculum project is a scalability project for which we have developed a technology platform, a reporting system, and curricular materials. There are four levels of research being conducted. Level 1 is focused on improving the scaffolding design through individual interviews of students and teachers. Level 2 is focused on classroom-based studies to evaluate the impact of amount of scaffolding. Level 3 is a longitudinal study of our dependent variables (content, inquiry skills, attitudes towards science, and epistemology of models) with the same students across 3 years in all three domains in our Partner Schools. Level 4 addresses what supports are necessary to scale this to many more schools. Our curricular activities present students with content using a progressive model-building approach (White & Frederiksen, 1990; Raghavan & Glaser, 1995; Gobert & Clement, 1999) in which simpler models (e.g., static representations of structural information) provide conceptual leverage for more complex models (e.g., causal models) of scientific phenomena, these, in turn, support model-based reasoning. We support students' model-based reasoning using scaffolds designed by our group (Gobert & Buckley, 2003) and in accordance with model-based learning theory (Gobert & Buckley, 2000); in doing so, we also draw on literature on students' difficulties in learning with models (Lowe, 1993). The inquiry skills in national standards (NSES, 1996; U.S. Dept of Education, 1993) match pedagogically with model-based teaching and learning, the theoretical framework underlying our research, learning activities, and assessment (Gobert & Buckley, 2000). The tenets of model-based learning are based on the presupposition that understanding requires the construction of mental models, and that all subsequent problem-solving or reasoning are done by means of manipulating or 'running' these mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983). Model-based reasoning also involves the testing, and subsequent reinforcement, revision, or rejection of mental models (Buckley & Boulter, 2000). This represents authentic science thinking in that it is analogous to hypothesis development and testing among scientists (Clement, 1989). The reasoning processes of hypothesis generation from the model, testing that hypothesis, and interpreting the data are among the higher order inquiry skills that are difficult to teach and are the type of reasoning needed in inquiry (
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize inquiry practices that students should mas... more The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize inquiry practices that students should master including constructing explanations. Most automated methods for scoring scientific explanations, however, do not detect the specific components involved in constructing explanations in the claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) format, which is commonly used in science classes. In this study, we expanded and implemented a data-driven, regular expression-based method to automatically score students’ written CER explanations across the domains of Physical Science, Earth Science, and Life Science in the intelligent tutoring system, Inq-ITS. We then investigated the generalizability of our method using a new set of testing data. Results of comparisons between human scores and automated scores indicated high performance for the method when applied to the testing data. Analyses showed that the automated scoring for one domain (earth science) had lower performance relative to other domains. Overall, the fine-grained, data-driven, regular expression-based method yielded high accuracy and more reliable scores relative to human scores. Implications for scaffolding CER writing are discussed.
International Conference of Learning Sciences, Dec 1, 2012
Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mi... more Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) over the last few years, the work has been still distant from the core Learning Sciences methods, theoretical constructs, and literature. At the same time, over the last 15 years, Learning Sciences as a field has been quite innovative, eclectic, and effective in incorporating new methodological stances, such as micro-genetic methods, microethnographies, and design-based research. It seems that the time has come to build sound connections between these traditions. The goal of this symposium is to bring together researchers coming from different academic perspectives, to explore and examine common LA/EDM methodological and theoretical threads with wide applicability within the Learning Sciences. The papers presented explore text mining in clinical interviews, moment-bymoment learning curves and traces, data mining of programming logs, and cognitive tutors, representing the main perspectives and methodological approaches in the field. Overall focus of the symposium Despite the exponential growth of the research on Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) (Baker & Yacef, 2009) over the next few years, the work has been still distant from the core Learning Sciences methods, theoretical constructs, and literature. At the same time, over the last 20 years, the Learning Sciences as a field has been quite innovative, eclectic, and effective in incorporating new methodological stances, such as micro-genetic methods (
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, Nov 26, 2016
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
The original version of this chapter contained an error in the third author's name. The spelling ... more The original version of this chapter contained an error in the third author's name. The spelling of Rachel Dickler's name was incorrect in the header of the paper. The author name has been corrected.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
Researchers are trying to develop assessments for inquiry practices to elicit students’ deep scie... more Researchers are trying to develop assessments for inquiry practices to elicit students’ deep science learning, but few studies have examined the relationship between students’ doing, i.e. performance assessment, and writing, i.e. open responses, during inquiry. Inquiry practices include generating hypotheses, collecting data, interpreting data, warranting claims, and communicating findings [1]. The first four practices involve “doing” science, whereas the last involves writing scientific explanations, i.e. arguing using evidence. In this study, we explored whether what students wrote in their constructed responses reflected what they did during science inquiry in the Inq-ITS system. Results showed that more than half of the students’ writing did not match what they did in the environment. Findings revealed multiple types of students in the messy middle, which has implications for both teacher instruction and intelligent tutoring systems, such as Inq-ITS, in terms of providing real-time feedback for students to address the full complement of inquiry practices [1].
Educational Research Review, May 1, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Jan 25, 2023
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting, 2019
Journal of Science Education and Technology, Mar 1, 2004
For this special issue of JSET, we have assembled five important papers based on research at the ... more For this special issue of JSET, we have assembled five important papers based on research at the Concord Consortium. These papers report new developments in strands of ongoing research and development that are among the most promising ways to realize the educational potential of information and communication technologies (ICT). The goal of this Introduction is to place these papers in their larger context and to indicate some of our expectations for future developments in these areas.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2022
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2019
Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) with simulated and virtual labs have been designed to enhance ... more Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) with simulated and virtual labs have been designed to enhance students’ science knowledge, including content and inquiry practices; some systems do this via real-time scaffolding. Prior studies have demonstrated that scaffolding can benefit students’ learning and performance. The present study aims to examine the robustness of scaffolding, delivered by a pedagogical agent by providing scaffolding on one activity, removing it, and then evaluating students’ inquiry performance both over multiple time periods (in 40 days, 80 days, and 170 days) and across different topics, thereby addressing far transfer. 107 middle school students in grade 6 received adaptive scaffolding on the first inquiry topic (i.e. Animal Cell) in the intelligent tutoring system, Inq-ITS. Then they received no scaffolding for three topics, namely, Plant Cell, Genetics, and Natural Selection. Results showed that after removing scaffolding, students demonstrated continued growth of inquiry performance from time 1 to time 2, to time 3, and to time 4 for the practices of hypothesizing and collecting data, as well as from time 1 to time 2 and to time 4 for the practice of warranting claims. This pattern was not found in students’ performance on the practice of interpreting data. These findings have implications for designers and researchers regarding the design of scaffolds for the NGSS’ inquiry practices so that they can be effectively transferred. These data also point to the need for additional work to address content practice interactions.
Chapman and Hall/CRC eBooks, Feb 26, 2020
Seven articles-out of the nine presented here to the Reader-undertake our leading theme: Tracing ... more Seven articles-out of the nine presented here to the Reader-undertake our leading theme: Tracing Liminal and Boundary Experience in Philosophical and Religious Discourse. Three articles from that group (written by Małgorzata Bogaczyk-Vormayr, Piotr Augustyniak and Anna Szyrwińska) explore various aspects of the boundary experience in a historical perspective. The next four pick up the same theme in a contemporary perspective: the articles of Joachim Piecuch, Tadeusz Gadacz and Antoni Szwed discuss the philosophy of Józef Tischner, the article by Urszula Idziak presents the debate between Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur concerning the boundary experience of death. The remaining two articles published here are not connected with the leading theme-Magdalena Nowak presents a history of the concept of Einfühlung and Jacquette Dale tries to improve the diagram method used in logical argument analysis. The article of Małgorzata Bogaczyk-Vormayr Veränderung zur Praktike. Kleine Bemerkungen zur Lebensphilosophie des Evagrios Pontikos analyses the boundary experience of crisis (depression, dissipation, fatigue) which is not necessarily a sign of final defeat, but-according to ancient philosophers and the early Christian Desert Fathers-can be a turning point for finding oneself and discovering new possibilities of action. The Greek philosophers and Christian thinkers are here in agreement-the art of life should consist in the capability of accepting the variability of human condition and keeping the balance both in front of luck and lack of luck. This is precisely the aim of a philosophy designed as a practical exercise in the art of dying-it taught not only that life does not last and has its own limits, but also that the experience of these limits can be the source of power and the opportunity of finding inner peace. The article by Piotr Augustyniak Meister Eckhart's God confronted with the Nietzschean critique of christianity also picks up the problem of the boundary experience of life and death but in the medieval context and in a different perspective. Meister Eckhart tried to eliminate certain drawwww.argument-journal.eu brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2021
Remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges for educators... more Remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges for educators. It is important to consider how AI technologies can be leveraged to support educators and, in turn, help students learn in remote settings. In this paper, we present the results of a mixed-methods study that examined how teachers used a dashboard with real-time alerts during remote learning. Specifically, three high school teachers held remote synchronous classes and received alerts in the dashboard about students' difficulties on scientific inquiry practices while students conducted virtual lab investigations in an intelligent tutoring system. Quantitative analyses revealed that students significantly improved across a majority of inquiry practices during remote use of the technologies. Additionally, through qualitative analyses of the transcribed audio data, we identified five trends related to dashboard use in a remote setting, including three reflecting effective implementations of dashboard features and two reflecting the limitations of dashboard use. Implications regarding the design of dashboards for use across varying contexts are discussed.