2021_06_30 «Increasing Student Interaction with Formal Languages using Programmed Instruction»
0 likes75 views
The document details a project aimed at increasing student engagement in formal languages through programmed instruction via the Opendsa e-textbook system, incorporating auto-graded exercises and visualizations. It outlines the development process of the e-textbook, which evolved through three stages to improve content delivery and student understanding. Evaluation results indicate that students preferred the programmed instruction format, which significantly enhanced their performance in many topics compared to traditional materials.
2021_06_30 «Increasing Student Interaction with Formal Languages using Programmed Instruction»
- 1. Increasing Student Interaction with Formal Languages using Programmed Instruction Mostafa Mohammed and Cliff Shaffer Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech
- 2. OpenDSA 2 OpenDSA is an eTextbook system ▪ Content ▪ Prose and other features of a textbook (sections, TOC, index, etc) ▪ Visualizations: slideshows ▪ Auto-graded exercises: T/F, MCQ, proficiency ▪ Project started in Summer 2011 ▪ Content for Data Structures, Algorithms, Formal Languages, Translator/Compilers ▪ Infrastructure ▪ Generate books, store interaction clickstreams and course data ▪ Ruby/Rails, MySQL database, LTI support
- 3. Goal 3 ▪ Implement a new book for Formal Languages ▪ Address inadequate engagement and interaction ▪ Evaluate on-the-spot if the student understands or not the concepts taught. ▪ Provide feedback on student responses ▪ Provide many auto-graded exercises and proficiency exercises
- 4. Goal 4 ▪ The new book should satisfy higher levels of the Algorithm Visualization Engagement Taxonomy ▪ 1- No viewing (minimize) ▪ 2- Viewing (Visualizations) ▪ 3- Responding (answer questions about content) ▪ 4- Changing (proficiency exercises: demonstrate algorithm behavior) ▪ 5- Constructing (proficiency exercises: build machines) ▪ 6- Presenting
- 5. Why Formal Languages? 5 ▪ Formal Languages course is a mix ▪ Programming-like assignments ▪ Heavy mathematics
- 6. Why Formal Languages? 6 ▪ Formal Languages course is a mix ▪ Programming-like assignments ▪ Heavy mathematics ▪ This means that FLA has challenges found in previous studies ▪ Students should spend enough time to practice (similar to recursion) ▪ Students should read and understand mathematical prose (similar to Algorithm analysis)
- 7. Why Formal Languages? 7 ▪ Formal Languages course is a mix ▪ Programming-like assignments ▪ Heavy mathematics ▪ This means that FLA has challenges found in previous studies ▪ Students should spend enough time to practice (similar to recursion) ▪ Students should read and understand mathematical prose (similar to Algorithm analysis) ▪ Two key tools that we use: ▪ Programmed Instruction ▪ OpenFLAP
- 8. Programmed Instruction 8 ▪ Graded sequence of controlled steps ▪ Students read small sentences ▪ Students must answer a related question ▪ Students can not skip the questions
- 9. Programmed Instruction Support in OpenDSA 9 ▪ Modified OpenDSA slideshows to provide PI support ▪ Add a satisfaction criterion to advance to next slide ▪ Restrict the “forward” and “last slide” buttons ▪ Add questions space ▪ Store student's progress on server
- 10. Programmed Instruction Support in OpenDSA 10 ▪ Auto-generating frames questions
- 11. OpenFLAP 11 ● JFLAP drawbacks inspired us to develop OpenFLAP ○ JFLAP cannot be integrated into online eTextbooks ○ JFLAP lacks autograded exercises ● OpenFLAP allows ○ creating exercises, ○ auto-assessing, and ○ reporting the result to an LMS
- 12. OpenFLAP Exercises 12 ▪ Auto-Graded Exercises
- 13. OpenFLAP Exercises 13 ▪ Auto-Graded Exercises
- 14. OpenFLAP Exercises 14 ▪ Proficiency Exercises
- 15. Implementation and Evaluation 15 ▪ We developed the OpenDSA FLA textbook in three stages 1. Standard prose-based ebook developed from prior coursenotes 2. Replaced much prose with slideshows and replaced paper-based homeworks with auto-graded exercises 3. Replaced slideshows with Programmed Instruction versions ▪ We taught students from each book and collected exams results and satisfaction survey data
- 16. Stage 2: Visualizations book 16 ▪ The book includes ▪ Proficiency Exercises ▪ Auto-Graded Exercises ▪ Visualizations (slideshows) ▪ Static figures
- 17. Stage 3: Programmed Instruction book 17 ▪ Implemented the library files to create the Frames structure inside OpenDSA ▪ Refactored the Visualizations Formal Languages book to be a series of framesets. ▪ adding questions that students must answer ▪ adding comments for students in correct/incorrect answers ▪ Store student progress in framesets
- 19. Evaluation Protocol 19 ● Spring 2018 (Control Group) ○ 44 students ○ Class notes ○ Some visualizations for computability theory ○ Supplemented with Linz FLA book ○ Use JFLAP simulator ○ Thirteen weekly paper-based homework sets ○ Three exams
- 20. Evaluation Protocol 20 ▪ Spring 2019, Fall 2019, and Spring 2020 (Visualization Groups) ▪ 271 students ▪ Use the visualizations ebook ▪ Use OpenFLAP ▪ Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 (PI Groups) ▪ 135 students ▪ Use the PI ebook ▪ This book inherited all exercise from the visualization book
- 21. Research Questions 21 ▪ What feedback do students give regarding their experience with the Programmed Instruction book? ▪ How does performance on exams compare for the three treatments (control, visualizations, and Programmed Instruction)? ▪ How is performance on exams affected by attempting to solve Programmed Instruction questions, or spending more time studying from the books?
- 22. Student Satisfaction 22 ▪ Book type preference ▪ 70% of students preferred to have a Programmed Instruction eTextbook, ▪ 23% preferred to have slideshows only, and ▪ 7% preferred the traditional text.
- 23. Discussion 23 ▪ Students found the exercises beneficial ▪ some of them asked for more exercises ▪ Students found the PI ebook more engaging and solving the questions helped them test their understanding ▪ Students with negative comments indicate that some changes would make the book more valuable: ▪ provide the correct answer after a few wrong attempts. ▪ have the information presented in summary, then add Frames with questions for a detailed presentation ▪ display new questions in place of answered questions
- 24. Student Performance 24 ▪ Comparing the overall exam grades
- 25. Student Performance 25 ▪ Compare grades per concept (Regular Languages)
- 26. Student Performance 26 ▪ Compare grades per concept (Context-Free Languages)
- 27. Student Performance 27 ▪ Comparing grades per concept (Pumping Lemma)
- 28. Discussion 28 ▪ The Visualization group students has better performance than the control group in topics with exercises and visualizations ▪ In the remaining topics, students did not score better than the control group ▪ PI frames and questions enhanced the understanding of the contents and helped students to score better in most of the Formal Languages topics. ▪ We need to pay more attention to topics that Programmed Instruction ebook could not help the students to score better ▪ Language Hierarchy, Computability and Countability topics ▪ Programmed Instruction ebook has border effect on students grades as it covers all course topics
- 29. Students Interactions with the eTextbooks 29 ▪ Spent time in book (in hours)
- 30. COVID19 EFFECT 30 ▪ Students during our study took the course exams in different modalities Semester Modality Book Midterm 1 Midterm 2 Final Spring 2018 Face to Face Traditional Spring 2019, Fall 2019 Face to Face Visualizations Spring 2020 Face to Face Online Fall 2020, Spring 2021 Online Programmed Instruction
- 31. COVID19 EFFECT 31 ▪ Compare all groups in the theory part of the course across 4 groups ▪ Control group (Spring 2018). ▪ Face to Face group.(Spring 19 and Fall 19). ▪ Partly Virtual group(Spring 2020) ▪ Programmed Instruction group
- 33. Conclusions 33 ▪ Visualization eTextbook significantly improved students scores in all topics covered by the visualizations and the exercises ▪ Programmed Instruction ebook further significantly improved student scores in most topics covered ▪ eTextbook and tools were found to be more engaging than the control group materials (traditional online textbook) ▪ Majority of surveyed students report that OpenFLAP exercises are helpful for them to learn the material ▪ Majority gave positive feedback on PI concept ▪ Some students requested adding more exercises