Marcos AlmeidaSue Young ChungMatthew EasterdayAndrea KnightScott Robertson

Carnegie LearningAssistments Interface

1. Project overview2. Translating from Standards to Skills3. Understanding skills4. Remedy5. Data driven design6. Demo7. Evaluation and Next Steps

Agenda

Assistments ProjectWeb-based computer tutor “Assistment” system that will help students prepare for standardized mathematics tests.

Why important• No Child Left Behind Act (accountability, consequences)• Effective use of classroom time

Goals• predict a student’s score on a standardized test• provide feedback to teachers about how they can adapt lessons to address gaps in students' knowledge

Our Project

Design teacher interface so they see where their students need help.

A Standard8.N.10 Estimate and compute with fractions (including simplification of fractions), integers, decimals, and percents (including those greater than 100 and less than 1).

The Challenge

A Standard8.N.10 Estimate and compute with fractions (including simplification of fractions), integers, decimals, and percents (including those greater than 100 and less than 1).

A SkillTranslation (Symbolic to Visualization)

The Challenge

Skills are the steps taken to solve a problem. A Skill

The Problem Space

Reporting Category

StateStandard Questions Skills

Project Goals

• Communicate student and class progress

• Provide guidance for remedy

Our Solution

• Make the relationship between standards, skills, and questions explicit.

• Provide different views of the data to support teachers various uses.

1. How do teachers understand skills? What can we do to help them understand skills?

2. How to translate from the standards (that teachers understand) to skills (operational knowledge that the students have and that CL has)

3. How do teachers diagnose/evaluate and then what do they to remedy?

Three Focus Questions

We talked to 18 algebra/geometry teachers who use CL’s Cognitive Tutor and/or prepare their students for the PSSA

– Email questionnaires [5]

– Interviews in their classrooms/offices/schools [5]

– Think Alouds at CL-sponsored conference [10]

• Card-sorting task on CL algebra and geometry skills

• Prototype walkthrough on our 5 designs

User Studies

Understanding Skills

• Interviews and Card Sort• What we learned:

– Teachers can identify what skills mean by labels– Consensus on grouping of skills (what the correlation was) – Non-consensus in labeling of group– Teachers naturally break down questions into steps

• Important for us to make mapping from standards to skills very explicit

• Skill to question relationship is crucial

• Skills should be illustrated as a step within a question

• Definitions of skills should include examples

Understanding Skills

Translating from Standards to Skills

• Interviews and Prototype Think Alouds• What we learned:

– Standards are more concrete– Evaluated against standards– Practical needs to see progress – Teachers get a feel of how their students are doing– Data loses meaning without the personal context

Translating from Standards to Skills

• Need to explain skills in terms of standards

• Important for us to provide context

• Help teachers link Assistments to other sources of information / remedy

Remedy

• Interviews, Think Alouds, Background Questionnaires

• What we learned:– Teachers jump to remedy from performance reports– Inexperienced teachers (under 3-5 years experience)

were unable to generate remedy methods– Teachers value class interaction to gauge if remedy is

needed– Re-use questions for quizzes, exams, and practice– Most commonly assign more practice problems

Remedy

• Dependant upon first two focus’ being a success– Trust Assistments analysis

• Provide guidance for remedy

• Provide support for class or student interaction

• Allow questions to be accessed for quizzes, exams, and practice problems

Design Activity

Skills

Standards&

Relationship

AggregatePrototypes

Remedy

First & Second Iterations

Feedback on PrototypeAssistments data is not currently something teachers would know how to use."I would go back and teach the part again“ (U14, U22)"I would assign more worksheets" (U20)

Practical Needs“What should I address next” (U14, U15)

Teachers’ sense of standards is more concrete than skills“Have I covered all the standards”“Where in the standards are they stuck” (U15, U20)

Feedback on Prototype

Individual Questions give teachers concrete idea on where the students struggle

“Like most missed question displayed” (U14, U20)

Good visual presentation important for good testing results

“this has stuff all over the place” (U15)

“What does performance mean? Does higher number mean good or bad?” (U14, U15, U20)

Design Requirement Doc

1. Evaluation of designs

2. Formation of designs

3. Support future design for client

(support our designs)

Requirements   support

1. Class Element U6: Teacher does not concentrate on individual student needs but examines needs of class at a whole

Goals

1 Assign homework2 Determine what to teach next3 Answer will the kids pass the test (will I get fired?)

1.1 User should be able to see what their kids need to know and prioritize skills

Allow teachers to differentiate between skills that should be mastered versus skills that only require exposure (U2)

U9: allow teachers to highlight particular skills for more information to be gathered by system (give students more problems/practice) by weighting them heavier and having them show up more often in problem line up (diagnostic, not remedy) [2.1]

1.2 Users should be able to draw comparison between classes

U1: provide task analysis and measurements/metrics of improvement for comparing classes between curriculums to aid in lesson study [6.3]

U6: DI: Cares about seeing the class average

Explain skill in

context of a question

Immediately view problem

areas

A New Design

• Most importantly:How many of my students will pass?

• Different tabs show further details:– Performance on state standards– Prioritized list of skills needing improvement– Progress– Questions the class missed the most

• Could be extended with:– Comparison between classes– Skill-Standard relation– Remedies

Where we are

Where we are

Demo

• Student progress

• Communicating skills and standards

• Predict a student’s score on a standardized test

• Provide feedback to teachers about gaps in students' knowledge

Future Direction

Remedy