This paper describes an effort to model students' changing knowledge state during skill acquisition. Students in this research are learning to write short programs with the ACT Programming Tutor (APT). APT is constructed around a production rule cognitive model of programming knowledge, called theideal student model. This model allows the tutor to solve exercises along with the student and provide assistance as necessary. As the student works, the tutor also maintains an estimate of the probability that the student has learned each of the rules in the ideal model, in a process calledknowledge tracing. The tutor presents an individualized sequence of exercises to the student based on these probability estimates until the student has ‘mastered’ each rule. The programming tutor, cognitive model and learning and performance assumptions are described. A series of studies is reviewed that examine the empirical validity of knowledge tracing and has led to modifications in the process. Currently the model is quite successful in predicting test performance. Further modifications in the modeling process are discussed that may improve performance levels.

Knowledge Tracing: Modeling the Acquisition of Procedural Knowledge

Purpose – This paper seeks to outline a time-based strategy for blended learning that illustrates course design and delivery by framing students' learning opportunities in synchronous and asynchron ...

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A time‐based blended learning model

The problem of achievement gaps among different subgroups of students has been evident in education for many years. This manuscript revisits the work of renowned educator Benjamin S. Bloom, who saw reducing gaps in the achievement of various groups of students as a simple problem of reducing variation in student learning outcomes. Bloom observed that teaching all students in the same way and giving all the same time to learn—that is, providing little variation in the instruction—typically results in great variation in student learning. Students for whom the instructional methods and amount of time are appropriate learn well, and those for whom the methods and time are less appropriate learn less well. Bloom believed that all students could be helped to reach a high criterion of learning if both the instructional methods and time were varied to better match students' individual learning needs. In other words, to reduce variation in the achievement of diverse groups of students and have all students learn w...

Closing Achievement Gaps: Revisiting Benjamin S. Bloom's “Learning for Mastery”

This article describes a study which compares the effectiveness of the flipped classroom relative to the traditional lecture-based classroom. We investigated two implementations of the flipped classroom. The first implementation did not actively encourage cooperative learning, with students progressing through the course at their own pace. With this implementation, student examination scores did not differ between the lecture classes and the flipped classroom. The second implementation was organised with cooperative learning activities. In a randomised control-group pretest-posttest experiment, student scores on a post-test and on the final examination were significantly higher for the flipped classroom group than for the control group receiving traditional lectures. This demonstrates that the classroom flip, if properly implemented with cooperative learning, can lead to increased academic performance.

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The Flipped Classroom and Cooperative Learning: Evidence from a Randomised Experiment.

The authors explore a history of grading and review the literature regarding the purposes and impacts of grading. They then suggest strategies for making grading more supportive of learning, includ...

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Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently).

/pdf/learning-for-mastery-instruction-and-curriculum-regional-3q45rxulkf.pdf

Benjamin S. Bloom

Papers

Learning for Mastery. Instruction and Curriculum. Regional Education Laboratory for the Carolinas and Virginia, Topical Papers and Reprints, Number 1.