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We analyzed the effects of a game-based, supplemental fraction curriculum on fourth and fifth grade students' fraction knowledge, engagement, and STEM interest. Students with and without disabilities with intersecting identities (e.g., race, disability status, gender) comprised the sample. Results indicate significant differences in fraction concept knowledge as a result of the curriculum for all students, but not STEM interest. Furthermore, engagement was a significant predictor of STEM post test scores, but not fraction concept post test scores. Implications of the results in the context of previous research on game-based mathematics curriculums are shared. [For the complete proceedings, see ED658295.]

In the learning sciences, heterogeneity among students usually leads to different learning strategies or patterns and may require different types of instructional interventions. Therefore, it is important to investigate student subtyping, which is to group students into subtypes based on their learning patterns. Subtyping from complex student learning processes is often challenging because of the information heterogeneity and temporal dynamics. Various inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) algorithms have been successfully employed in many domains for inducing policies from the trajectories and recently has been applied for analyzing students' temporal logs to identify their domain knowledge patterns. IRL was originally designed to model the data by assuming that all trajectories have a "single" pattern or strategy. Due to the heterogeneity among students, their strategies can vary greatly and the design of traditional IRL may lead to suboptimal performance. In this paper, we applied a novel expectation-maximization IRL (EM-IRL) to extract heterogeneous learning strategies from sequential data collected from three simulation environments and real-world longitudinal students' logs. Experiments on simulation environments showed that EM-IRL can successfully identify different policies from the heterogeneous sequences with different strategies. Furthermore, experimental results from our educational dataset showed that EM-IRL can be used to obtain different student subtypes: a "learning-oriented" subtype who learned the material as much as possible regardless of the time in that they spent significantly more time than the other two subtypes and learned significantly; an "efficient-oriented" subtype who learned efficiently in that they not only learned significantly but also spent less time than the first subtype; a "no learning" subtype who spent less amount of time than first subtype and failed to learn. [For the full proceedings, see ED607784.]

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between students' learning gains and their compliance with prompts fostering self-regulated learning (SRL) during interaction with MetaTutor, a hypermedia-based intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). When possible, we evaluate compliance from student explicit answers on whether they want to follow the prompts, When such answers are not available, "we mine" several student behaviors related to prompt compliance. These behaviors are derived from students' eye-tracking and interaction data (e.g., time spent on a learning page, number of gaze fixations on that page). Our results reveal that compliance with some, but not all SRL prompts provided by MetaTutor do influence learning. These results contribute to gain a better understanding of how students benefit from SRL prompts, and provides insights on how to further improve their effectiveness. For instance, prompts that do improve learning when followed could be the focus of adaptation designed to foster compliance for those students who would disregard them otherwise. Conversely, prompts that do not improve learning when followed could be improved based on further investigations to understand the reason for their lack of effectiveness. [For the full proceedings, see ED596512.]

We analyzed the effects of a game-based, supplemental fraction curriculum on fourth and fifth grade students' fraction knowledge, engagement, and STEM interest. Students with and without disabilities with intersecting identities (e.g., race, disability status, gender) comprised the sample. Results indicate significant differences in fraction concept knowledge as a result of the curriculum for all students, but not STEM interest. Furthermore, engagement was a significant predictor of STEM post test scores, but not fraction concept post test scores. Implications of the results in the context of previous research on game-based mathematics curriculums are shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of a project (now in its formative stages) to develop Head Start measures of program effects on children 3 to 7 years of age. The program approach is distinctive in emphasizing evaluation of all aspects of children's development that may affect their overall competence in reflecting the concerns, views, and values of a broad range of persons, and in recommending that the proposed measures be processed differently with children from different backgrounds in order to generate a plurality of scales of development. Specific descriptions of desired characteristics of children were collected from parents, public school teachers, Head Start staff members and child development scholars. Also, research literature was viewed, and special studies were commissioned. More than 1700 characteristics were identified and aggregated to form six domains: (1) health and physical development, (2) cognitive development, (3) social-emotional development, (4) aesthetic development, (5) moral and ethical development and (6) life skills. These domains include 26 dimensions of development. All domains except (4) and (5) are recommended for inclusion as evaluation measures. It is proposed that these measures be used to assess children's developmental status and that program effects be evaluated in terms of the relative change in children's development resulting from the program. Standards of significant change would be set in terms of the maximum change affected by the consistently most effective programs in a particular dimension for particular groups of children. (SS)

What directs neighborhood change in neighborhoods over time? We evaluate the race-based expectations model put forth by Taub, Taylor, & Duncan in their comprehensive, multi-method study (1984), using data that engages their explanations the predictors of racial change and stability in urban areas. Their theory proposes that white residents use race as a proxy for where the neighborhood is headed, therefore making investment decisions about their neighborhood based on their race-based expectations. We examine the pathways of eight Chicago neighborhoods which they predicted to integrate racially only transitionally until their white population exists, resist integration, or achieve stable racial integration. We combine two data sources for our analysis: 1) 1970-2000 Census data from the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB) and 2) tract-level homicide data for the city of Chicago from the years 1991-2002, collected by one of our authors. The results show strong support for their model but underscore the significant limitations of black-white analyses of our increasingly diverse communities. We incorporate Latinos and Asians into the model and explain their effect as well as the effects of institutional actors, space, and crime on racial integration. We compare the eight neighborhoods to the surrounding county and discuss how this local study can inform our understanding of neighborhood change in other communities and on other scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the ecological model of the Chicago School to contemporary theories, sociologists have argued that the city wields a powerful force which constrains agency, both at the individual level and further at the level of community, whereby their adaptation to the urban environment might produce a "culture" unique to their ecological niche in the city. This paper critiques urban sociology's primary explanations for concentrated disadvantage in American cities, focusing particularly on articulations of a "culture of poverty" as an explanatory theory. Bridging divides within the discipline of sociology, we find that the work of human ecologists, globalization theorists, political economists, demographers, and ethnographers reveal the relevance and intangibility of a cultural explanation for concentrated disadvantage in American cities, one that warrants a reevaluation of policy, community-building, and agency in our most disadvantaged communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study about the function of spelling interface to aid a thought-translation communication device for extremely paralyzed people. This device is prone to errors because of the varying result it gives, however, a speller creates a fast and correct writing to each trained patient. On the study conducted, the researchers determined that different spellers are needed in order for the patient to change from one interface to another without being enforced to learn a new one.