Fixing Courses with Cognitive Load Theory

Greetings from Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Dr Raina Mason, from Southern Cross University (SCU) is speaking on "Using Cognitive Load Theory to improve troublesome courses". They have a paper with Cooper and Wilks (2015) applying this to teaching mobile app development.

The idea with using Cognitive Load Theory is provide students with links between items, so as not to overload the student, so that what they are learning goes into their long term memory. The short term working memory can only hold nine items at once and only for a few seconds. If they are presented with too many apparently random items, the student will not be able to remember it.

Dr. Mason and her colleagues have produced the "Cognitive Assistance Factor Evaluation" (CAFE') toolkit, to help with course design. I was able to register and start using the tool during the workshop. I ran my "ICT Sustainability" course through the toolkit, which took only a few minutes. The tool asks a series of questions about the course and then presents some recommendations. Obviously this information could have simply be presented in booklet form, but the step by step process is useful. Here are the ones I got:

"Suggestions from your Course Evaluation

Based on your answers to this evaluation tool, the following comments and suggestions are offered for your consideration.

General Factors

Reduce Extraneous Cognitive Load

Using multiple memory modes

The best way to present an explanation of a diagram is via verbal commentary. This allows incoming content to be divided between visual and auditory channels. For this reason, the best way to present information explaining complex diagrams in your course is via screencasts of common activities with highlighting synchronised with audio explanations. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: modality effect. This audio commentary, however, should be provided without explanatory text on the diagram itself. The only text on the diagram should be labels if necessary. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: redundancy effect.

Remove unnecessary elements

Provide external memory support to reduce working memory load

It is preferable to provide students with as many external memory aids as possible. Some examples of these for a course would be * check-lists * exam support sheets ("cheat-sheets"), and * summaries These external memory supports reduce load on working memory and allow students to direct limited memory resources to learning. As learner expertise increases, these memory aids can be reduced or faded. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: external memory aids.

Use segmenting, sequencing and student pacing to present content gradually

When students are required to design and produce original works, the best approach is one where students are initially provided with example works and given opportunities to use and familiarise with these works, only then moving on to modify the work and create their own works. This approach allows management of working memory and schema acquisition and elaboration. Students first are able to familiarise themselves with the type of works they will eventually create. They build schema for using these works, without overloading memory by attempting to create works at the same time. Modification of the work then allows management of the cognitive load on working memory through chunking and segmentation. When schemas for modification and using the work are well established, students can then turn their attention to design tasks and creating their own work. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: segmentation.

Students should be given control over pacing as much as possible. In the case of a whole course, it is preferable if students are free to pace as they see fit provided that they have completed all materials by the end of the course. For practical reasons, this is usually not possible, and if so students should be free to pace as they see fit provided that they complete all assignments by the due dates. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: segmentationeffect and Learner Expertise Differences.

Transition from worked examples to independent performance

The best educational approach for your cohort of students is to start with direct instruction, with many worked examples. This should be followed by faded worked examples, and then move to problem-solving and guided discovery learning after your students have reached a reasonable level of expertise. For more information see Reduce Extraneous Load: worked examples effect.

Promote germane load

Accommodate differences in student expertise

High performing students should be given access to extension materials in order to elaborate and consolidate their schemas. For more information, see Learner Expertise Differences." From: "Cognitive Assistance Factor Evaluation" (CAFE') toolkit

Reference

Mason, R., Cooper, G., & Wilks, B. (2015). Using Cognitive Load Theory to select an Environment for Teaching Mobile Apps Development. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raina_Mason/publication/269337987_Using_Cognitive_Load_Theory_to_select_an_Environment_for_Teaching_Mobile_Apps_Development/links/5487b4ad0cf268d28f0727b0.pdf

Benchmarking Computing Degrees

Greetings from Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Professor Chris Johnson, Executive Officer of the Australian Council of Deans of Information and Communication Technology (ACDICT) is presenting on "Benchmarking and Curriculum Improvement for the Computing Disciplines".

Chris then handed over to Steve Drew, who discussed the Consultation Draft "Information and Communication Technology Academic Standards Statement" this attempts to translate the what to teach in curriculum standards into what graduates should be able to do.

Dr Sara Booth from University of Tasmania, then talked about "Peer Review of Assessment". Sara has been working with approaches developed for the school sector and applying them in higher education through an "Online Peer Review Tool" (OPRT). The tool is being tested. The OPRT User Manual is publicly available, but the tool itself is proprietary. This publicly funded project might have more impact, I suggest, if it was to release the results under an open access license, in accordance with Australian Government policy.

Overall the workshop was useful. However, it highlights the challenges for Australian universities in meeting employer's expectations, while maintaining academic norms. There is an  tension between maintaining diversity between Australian universities and meeting national and international standards. Developing an Australian standard and benchmarking IT degrees seems to me to be of limited value, as Australian universities need to meet international standards.

The benchmarking processes described seemed to be for an form of university education from a past era. Program and courses should be designed in a systematic way, by people with training and qualifications in educational design. The use of standards and benchmarking is then routine. It is the distance education universities and vocational sector, which excel at this, as without a systematic process they would not be able to operate at all. Traditional face-to-face institutions need to learn these processes. A simple way to implement this is to have staff trained using the techniques and courses already developed for distance education.

For the last three years I have been learning how to design and deliver education using the techniques developed for vocational and distance education, which I find are equally applicable to the face-to-face classroom. It seems wasteful for universities and bodies such as the OLT to commission research into how to solve educational problems which have already been solved decades ago.

Teaching Problem Solving Skills to Technologists

Greetings from Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Geraldine Torrisi-Steele from Griffith University is speaking on "Supporting students' development of metacognition and problem solving skills". She suggests that students to taught study skills to develop metacognition should be built into courses, rather than a separate and optional training program. She argues that the students who need the training will not be aware they need it. In my view there should be both: some students will be identified as having difficulty and need to be diverted into special programs, most will need just a little promoting.

Torrisi-Steele administered a Metacognitive Awareness Inventory to computer science students and found that even some of the better students had limited awareness of how they learn. They then framed coding as problem solving and had students doing use cases. This reverses the usual sequence where students learn basic coding first and higher level design skills later.

Torrisi-Steele mentioned that primary school science teachers have techniques for developing metacognition in students and suggests this can be applied to university students. It occurs to me that there is a carefully designed Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies for years k to 10. Perhaps this could be adapted for university computing students. An interesting question is what will universities teach when student who have been through the new school curriculum? Also much of what Torrisi-Steeleis advocating is the use of basic teaching techniques, which school teachers are routinely trained in, but university lecturers are not.

Torrisi-Steele has previously published on Online Learning and Metacognition (2015).

References

Torrisi-Steele, G. (2015). Online Learning and Metacognition: A Design Framework. Handbook of Research on Learning Outcomes and Opportunities in the Digital Age, 221.

Interactive 3D for Combating Public Health Emergency

Greetings from Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Dr. Dale Patterson from Griffith University is speaking on "Interactive 3D Web Applications for Visualization of World Health Organization Data". Formal experiments show that 3D depictions of data are more engaging than 2D and this more than tables of numbers. This is timely, given the declaration of a Public Health Emergency by WHO over Zika virus transmission.

Human Face of Internet of Things for Smart Cities

Greetings from Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Dr. Kerry Taylor is speaking on Semantic Sensor Networks: The Internet of Things needs the Web of Data. IoT is normally seen as being about devices, but Dr. Taylor reminded us it is for people, including to make cities more livable. She showed a demonstration of a join of two sets of data using the semantic web. In another example the ontology of the data can be fragmented and embedded in sensors in the field. This has been proposed to W3C as a standard "iot-lite Ontology".

Security Flaws in Staphones Revealed in Canberra

Dr Leonie Simpson, from QUT, today detailed flaws in the encryption technology in commercial satellite phones. Simpson said that only an ordinary laptop computer would be needed to break the encryption of satphones and "All users of commercial satellite phones are at risk" also that only an ordinary . These phones are used by Australian government officials and the Australian Defence Force on overseas deployments. Simpson was speaking at the Australasian Information Security Conference (AISC 2016).

At the conference exhibition Contact Singapore are providing details of the Singapore Government Cyber Security component of their national development road-map.

ASIC is part of Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra until Friday. ANU is also hosting the international "Securing our Future in Cyberspace Conference", 15-19 February 2016.

The paper is:

Vishesh Bhartiya and Leonie Simpson. Initialisation Flaws in the A5-GMR-1 Satphone Encryption Algorithm, Australasian Information Security Conference, February 2016

ACSW 2016 in the Tank at ANU

Delegates for Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) are in "The Tank" (aka Haydon-Allen Lecture Theatre (Building 23) at ANU. Demonstrations of ANU Techlauncher are in room GO52.

IT for Lifelong Well Being

In the opening plenary of ACSW 2016, Professor Judy Kay from University of Sydney described how IT could help with health and well being. She described health as a "Sisyphean" task, which you have to do every day. A wearable device can help with this as it can monitor your health constantly and prompt you to exercise and eat well.One unusual device is an instrumented cushion to track how long people sit down. I suggest this could be enhanced with a feedback device to encourage people to get up occasionally: an electronic whoopee cushion. ;-)

Australian and NZ Computer Science Educators Meet to Make Degrees More Relivant

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where conference chair Professor Tom Gedeon opened the Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) of the Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia (CORE), was just officially opened. Deans of computing from universities across Australia and New Zealand met yesterday, before the official start. Hot topics for discussion were how to make degrees more relevant to industry and preparing graduates to work on start-ups. Dr Shayne
Flint presented the ANU TechLauncher Program for student start-ups.

ACSW 2016 runs until Friday, with ten conferences. The program includes plenary presentations by Professor Judy Kay, University of Sydney on "A Human-Centred View of Big Personal Data: Scrutable User Models for Privacyand Control", Dr Kerry Taylor, Chair W3C/OGC Spatial Data on the Web Working Group & ANU, on "Semantic Sensor Networks: The Internet of Things needs the Web of Data" and Geraldine Torrisi-Steele, Griffith University, on "Supporting students' development of metacognition and problem solving skills".

Twitter: #ACSW2016

Conferences at ACSW 2016:

1. Asia-Pacific Conference on Conceptual Modelling (APCCM)
2. Australasian Computer Science Conference (ACSC)
3. Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE)
4. Australasian Information Security Conference (AISC)
5. Australasian Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (AusPDC)
6. Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC)
7. Australasian Web Conference (AWC)
8. Australasian Workshop on Health Informatics and Knowledge Management (HIKM)
9. Interactive Entertainment (IE)
10. Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence (ACALCI) 

Australasian Computer Science Week in Canberra

Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW 2016) of the Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia (CORE), is being hosted at the Australian National University in Canberra, 2-5 February 2016. ACSW 2016 has ten conferences, plus meetings of IT deans and PhD students from across the region. The program includes plenary presentations by Professor Judy Kay, University of Sydney on "A Human-Centred View of Big Personal Data: Scrutable User Models for Privacyand Control", Dr Kerry Taylor, Chair W3C/OGC Spatial Data on the Web Working Group & ANU, on "Semantic Sensor Networks: The Internet of Things needs the Web of Data" and Geraldine Torrisi-Steele, Griffith University, on "Supporting students' development of metacognition and problem solving skills". Also a display of ANU TechLauncher for student start-ups.

Some other papers which caught my attention were:

1. Daniel Grunwell and Tony Sahama. Delegation of access in an Information Accountability Framework for eHealth
2. Simon and Judy Sheard. Academic integrity and computing assessments
3. Matthew Butler, Jane Sinclair, Michael Morgan and Sara Kalvara. Comparing International Indicators of Student Engagement for Computer Science  
4. Julia Prior, Samuel Ferguson and John Leaney. Reflection is Hard: Teaching And Learning Reflective Practice in a Software Studio  
5. Karen Blackmore, William Coppins and Keith Nesbitt. Using Startle Reflex to Compare Playing and Watching in a Horror Game  
6. Nikki Robins, Trish Williams and Krishnun Sansurooah. I know what you did last summer... An Investigation into Remnant Data on USB Storage Devices Sold in Australia in 2015.  
7. Carbone Angela and Margaret Hamilton. Pizza with university ICT students: What do students expect employers want? 
8. Matt Stevens and Richard Norman. Industry Expectations of Soft Skills in IT Graduates  
9. Nazish Khan and Andrew Luxton-Reilly. Is Computing for Social Good the Solution to Closing the Gender Gap in Computer Science? 
10. Carolyn Seton and Raina Mason. Decreasing the Digital Divide - Analysing the UI requirements of older Australians 
11. Ar Kar Kyaw, Pulin Agrawal and Brian Cusack. Wi-Pi: A Study of WLAN Security in Auckland CBD

Also:

• Benchmarking Workshop: Benchmarking and Curriculum Improvement for the Computing Disciplines, Chris Johnson, Executive Officer, ACDICT 
• Research/Tutorial Workshop: Using Cognitive Load Theory to improve troublesome courses, Dr Raina Mason  & Carolyn Seton, Southern Cross University

Twitter: #ACSW2016

Conferences at ACSW 2016:

1. Asia-Pacific Conference on Conceptual Modelling (APCCM)
2. Australasian Computer Science Conference (ACSC)
3. Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE)
4. Australasian Information Security Conference (AISC)
5. Australasian Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (AusPDC)
6. Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC)
7. Australasian Web Conference (AWC)
8. Australasian Workshop on Health Informatics and Knowledge Management (HIKM)
9. Interactive Entertainment (IE)
10. Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence (ACALCI)