🦆 Interaction Nerds by UXA
This week from Investigation and Connection: Personalized Online Learning, HCI PhD research with Samantha Reig, and sustaining creative passions with Caroline Hermans!
👋 Announcements — UXA Kickoff and VP of Hackathon!
Last Friday, UXA just had the first kick-off event, where we introduced UXA, got to know each other, and shared some exciting events that UXA is planning. We enjoy seeing everyone at the event and appreciate all the brilliant designs and ideas from the small design challenge we held! We look forward to seeing everyone in more future UXA events and meetups! 🥰
Additionally, we would like to introduce and welcome the latest addition to the UXA board. Sean Shen, one of our editors of Interaction Nerds, will work as UXA’s VP of Hackathon! Let’s look forward to the innovative and creative ideas that he will bring to XHacks and the community!
🐒 Campus Compass — Personalized Online Learning (POL)
How can technology improve education? How can online education be tailored to an individual? Interested in learning the answers to these questions? Check out Personalized Online Learning below!
💻 05432/05832 Personalized Online Learning (POL)
🤔 What is POL?
Online learning has become widespread (e.g., MOOCs, online and blended courses, and Khan Academy) and many claim it will revolutionize higher education and K-12. How can we make sure online learning is maximally effective? Learners differ along many dimensions and they change over time. Therefore, advanced learning technologies must adapt to learners to provide individualized learning experiences. This course covers a number of proven personalization techniques used in advanced learning technologies. One of the techniques is the use of cognitive modeling to personalize practice of complex cognitive skills in intelligent tutoring systems. This approach, developed at CMU, may well be the most significant application of cognitive science in education and is commercially successful. We will also survey newer techniques, such as personalizing based on student meta-cognition, affect, and motivation. Finally, we will look at personalization approaches that are widely believed to be effective but have not proven to be so.
🧐 What do you do in POL?
The course involves readings and discussion of different ways of personalizing instruction, with an emphasis on cognitive modeling approaches. Students will learn to use the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT) to implement tutor prototypes that rely on computer-executable models of human problem solving to personalize instruction.
😯 Who should take POL?
The course is meant for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Computer Science, Design, or related fields, who are interested in educational applications. Students should either have some programming skills or experience in the cognitive psychology of human problem solving, or experience with instructional design.
🤩 Student Spotlight — HCII PhD Research with Samantha Reig
Travel through space and time with us as we talk to Samantha Reig, HCII PhD student and NASA Space Technology Research Fellow, about her most recent projects and how she got to where she is now!
I also have more general advice if you’re set on getting a PhD: ask a lot of questions and explore your interests. Don't be afraid of stating or asking about the obvious.
— Samantha Reig
🌟 Field Trip — Sustaining Creative Passions with Caroline Hermans
What is sustaining creativity like after college? What are ways to pursue creative communities on campus? How do you balance professional jobs with personal projects? How do rats play a role in all of this? Join us as we talk to Caroline Hermans, a UX Engineer at Google and ‘Ratgineer’ at Algorat, about careers, creating, and communities.
If you’re a creative person, that doesn’t just go away. You have time in your career to explore what feels right for you. You’ll feel if something isn’t working for you, and you’ll be able to find a way of being that mesh all of these parts of your identity together.
— Caroline Hermans
🤔 Who’s behind the scenes?
Thanks for reading this week’s Interaction Nerds by CMU UXA! The editors behind this work are Sophie McGrady, Caleb Sun, and Rebecca Jiang.
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