Heather Wehner, Author at EduTec Science

Oct72024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Learning At and From a Virtual Conference

In light of the COVID pandemic and the climate crisis, many academic conferences have switched from face-to-face to virtual or hybrid conferences. The advantages of completely virtual conferences are clear. The organizers don’t need to look for physical rooms to book or need to organize food or drinks for participants. For the participants, this form of conferences can also be advantageous because there are no travel expenses and no travel time. Those participating from other countries can even take part in the conference despite being in different time zones or continents. The advantages go hand in hand with the disadvantages of limited personal interaction: no scientific (or leisurely) discussions during a coffee break or a chance to get to know fellow researchers seated nearby before a session begins. With all…

Sep192024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

From Office Talks to Lecture Halls: Congratulations and Farewell to Joshua Weidlich

Team

It doesn’t happen often that one can witness a colleague taking an inspiring leap into a new and exciting chapter of their careers. But today, we celebrate just that, as we send our warmest congratulations to our esteemed colleague Dr. Joshua Weidlich as he takes up a tenure track professorship at the University of Zurich and the Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich starting in October. To embark on this new journey, Joshua will be swapping the Frankfurt Skyline for the Swiss mountains. We are excited for him for this change of scenery, but will miss him dearly. Joshua has been part of the EduTec family for 3.5 years – which accounts to roughly 1,278 cups of coffee and probably even more team and project meetings. His incredibly helpful and consistently friendly nature…

Sep92024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

A Warm Welcome: Our Guest Researcher Víctor Alonso-Prieto Begins His Visit

Team

We are very excited to welcome Víctor Alonso-Prieto, who has just joined the EduTec team as a visiting researcher from the University of Valladolid, Spain. His three-month research visit from 10.09 till 15.12.2024 promises to inspire new collaborations and bring fresh insights into the field of educational technologies. His research stay at DIPF will be supervised by Dr. Daniele Di Mitri and he will work together with members of the HyTea project as well as other researchers from the EduTec and EduCS team. We look forward to this time of research and exchange! Here is a short introduction of our visitor Víctor: Current PhD project Víctor is currently pursuing a PhD in Transdisciplinary Research in Education. Víctor’s PhD project, which is co-supervised by Dr. Sara Lorena Villagrá-Sobrino and Dr. Yannis…

Jul182024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Revolutionizing Essay Scoring with Hierarchical Rater Models

Artificial Intelligence, Assessment, Higher Education, Journal, New Pub

For a special issue on Natural Language Processing in Psychology we proposed a hierarchical rater model-based approach to address the challenges in automatic essay scoring. Essay writing tests are an integral part of educational systems, essential for assessing students' critical thinking, articulation and understanding. Since the manual scoring process requires significant resources and time, teachers are beginning to use Automated Essay Scoring (AES), which is potentially capable of alleviating the manual effort involved. #AutomatedEssayScoring #NaturalLanguageProcessing #FormativeAssessment #EducationalTechnology #MachineLearning #AIinEducation #HierarchicalRaterModel #EdTech #ScoringAutomation #AI #AssessmentTools #MeasurementInvariance #TransformerModels #EducationResearch #UniversityTesting #AIModels #TechInEducation There are an abundance of available models and each one has its own unique features and scoring methods. Thus, selecting the optimal model is complex and challenging, especially when different aspects of content have to be assessed over a number…

Jul92024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

Successful PhD Defense: Understanding Self-Regulated Learning in Blended Learning Environments

Learning Analytics, PhD defense, School, Self-Regulation

On the 28th of June Hendrik Drachsler had the honor of being a jury member for the PhD defense of Esteban Villalobos at the University of Toulouse. Esteban successfully defended his thesis titled “Developing a Learning Analytics framework to understand the temporal behavior of students in Blended Learning Environments“. Especially in Blended Learning (BL) settings, Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is crucial for student success. These environments require students to manage their learning not only in online, but also in traditional in-person activities. Esteban’s thesis advances our understanding of SRL in BL contexts through a comprehensive approach, using Learning Analytics (LA) techniques as well as the latest Sequence Analysis (SA) advancements to examine students’ behaviors via trace data and self-reported measures. One of the main goals of his thesis is the manifestation…

Jul22024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New pub: Potentials and Challenges of Generative AI in Instruction and Research on Instruction

Artificial Intelligence, Feedback, General education, Journal, New Pub, School

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming such a part of our daily lives that soon it will be almost impossible to imagine life without it. Especially since the emergence of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, endless new possibilities have arisen for the usage of AI in many areas, especially in educational settings. Currently, the effective use of AI in education, both in teaching and learning, remains largely undefined, as do its limitations. We are also missing clarity regarding the potential benefits of AI for instructional research and the ethical boundaries of its use in this field. The opportunities and challenges associated with integrating AI into educational practices and research are explored in a newly published article from Hendrik Drachsler, Knut Neumann and Jochen Kuhn. In their paper they identify specific…

Jun142024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

Planetary Hopes: C3S der GU Seeks Solutions to Planetary Polycrisis

Citizens science, Digitalisation, Event, Research Methods

[caption id="attachment_6561" align="alignright" width="300"] Wissenschaftsminister Gremmels taucht per VR-Brille in die Geologie des Naturparks Kellerwald-Edersee ein; Foto: Uwe Dettmar[/caption] Global warming is causing sea levels to rise, making coastal cities uninhabitable. The earth’s biodiversity is being lost and the changing climatic conditions are causing species to migrate to new areas, both of which are transforming the agriculture landscape. Humans and their economic activities are contributing to these changes, which are referred to as planetary polycrises. There is still much to be learned about how these phenomena are connected to each other and how we humans and our economic practices contribute to them. Of essential significance is the unanswered question of what we can do to address these crises. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Global Challenges The Center for Critical Computational Studies…

May242024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

FoLA supports Simulation-based Training for High-risk Clinical Situations

Assessment, Empirical Study, Feedback, Further Education, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, medical education, Multimodal Learning Analytics, Workshop

From May 16th to 17th, 2024, Hendrik Drachsler and Marcel Schmitz (TETRA AI, ZUYD University of Applied Science) had the pleasure of providing a FoLA workshop at the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland (CAI) in Dublin, Ireland, under the support of the Insight research centre. Together with members from CAI and from the ASSERT Centre, College of Medicine and Health, University College Cork (UCC), they used the FoLA tool to plan a simulation-based training for high-risk clinical situations using highly informative feedback. Data from these trainings will be collected and analyzed to determine how effective this training is in improving the performance of the attendees. The study is being planned to take place with around 100 doctors in training at two simulation training centers: at ASSERT Centre UCC and at…

May102024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

Recap of the MODUS conference in Karlsruhe

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Higher Education

As the echoes of insightful discussions and the energy of networking gradually settle, it's time to revisit the highlights of the German Rectors’ MODUS Conference which took place an April 10th and 11th 2024 in Karlsruhe. The conference titled “Recognition Culture in Higher Education. International Perspectives on Lifelong Learning and Student Mobility” brought together around 200 experts and interested parties from universities and research institutions, including Hendrik Drachsler and other representatives from the Goethe University. The conference produced a wealth of insights into the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) at universities. Discussions highlighted both opportunities and challenges, especially in the context of the digitalization of administration and teaching organizations. Instruments for various areas of application were presented, including information and communication tools such as chatbots and recommendation systems, as well…

Apr162024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Feedback sources in essay writing: peer-generated or AI-generated feedback?

Artificial Intelligence, Empirical Study, Feedback, Further Education, Journal, Publication

A newly published article discusses the use of peer feedback as a learning strategy, particularly in large classes where teachers face heavy workloads. For complex tasks like writing argumentative essays, peers may struggle to provide high-quality feedback due to the cognitive demands involved. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, like ChatGPT, raises the question of whether AI can serve as a new feedback source for such tasks. To investigate this, a study compared ChatGPT-generated feedback with peer feedback on argumentative essays written by 74 graduate students from a Dutch university. The study collected essay data, peer feedback and ChatGPT-generated feedback, and then analyzed them using coding schemes. Results showed significant differences between ChatGPT and peer feedback, with ChatGPT offering more descriptive feedback while peers focused on identifying essay problems.…