Language Learning
CreeTutor: A System to Help People Learn nehiyawewin (Plains Cree)
The CreeTutor Project aims to teach learners nehiyawewin (Y-dialect Cree). This website will provide computer assisted learning material for adults to promote their aural fluency in the language.
Currently, most of the websites available to Cree learners are largely focused on providing resources rather than providing instruction, they are also generally underfunded and not user-friendly. The website we are developing hopes to provide instruction to users through mini-games as well as exposure through animations, recorded stories, and other activities.
Project Lead: Carrie Demmans Epp
Alumni: Caitlyn Deslauriers, Delaney Lothian, Mekha George, Jeremy Edombingo, Amrinder Grewal, Jennifer Mah, Sarah Hoven, Owen McLeod, Anaka Sparrow, Nicole (Zixin) Zhao, Gokce Akcayir, and Robin Howse
Collaborators: Dorothy Thunder
Publications & Presentations:
Lothian, D., Akcayir, G., Sparrow, A., McLeod, O., & Demmans Epp, C. (2020). SoundHunters: Increasing Learner Phonological Awareness in Plains Cree. In I. I. Bittencourt, M. Cukurova, K. Muldner, R. Luckin, & E. Millán (Eds.), International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) 2020 (pp. 346-359). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52237-7_28
Lothian, D., Akcayir, G., & Demmans Epp, C. (2019). Accommodating Indigenous People When Using Technology to Learn Their Ancestral Language. Presented at the Lifelong Learning Workshop at AIED 2019 (Vol. 2395 pp. 16-22), Chicago, Illinoisl, USA. CEUR-Workshop Proceedings. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2395/
Detecting Negative Language Transfer
This project identifies structural writing errors related to language transfer in the texts written by English language learners. It does this using machine learning and language models to represent the learners’ first languages and English grammars. It then provides learners with targeted feedback based on those errors.
This project has two parts. Identifying negative language transfer (NLT) and providing feedback to learners based on their negative language transfer.
To identify NLT in learner writing, models are used to identify which incorrect utterance structure is more prevalent for a particular population of learners and whether there is any indication that these incorrect utterances may be influenced by the English language learner’s first language. At present, we are trying to identify NLT in the writing of speakers of Chinese and Persian (Farsi) as a first language.
To build these models, we first had to create datasets that could be used to train them. These datasets can also be used to test models that detect grammatical errors that are due to negative language transfer.
We developed a Google Docs plug-in using these models. The plug-in gives learners targeted feedback to help them understand their grammatical errors when the error is a result of their borrowing grammatical structures from their first language. We are about to start a study of how Chinese learners of English respond to this support.
Project Lead: Carrie Demmans Epp, Mohammad Karimiabdolmaleki, and Jiahua Liu
Collaborators: Maria Cutumisu, Mohsen Rezazadeh, and Leticia Wanderley
Alumni: Nicole (Zixin) Zhao
Repositories/Data:
https://github.com/EdTeKLA/LanguageTransfer
Publications & Presentations:
Karimiabdolmaleki, M., Farias Wanderley, L., Cutumisu, M., & Demmans Epp, C. (2023). Identifying negative language transfer in the English writing of Chinese and Farsi native speakers. Presented at European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Conference 2023.
Wanderley, L. & Demmans Epp, C. (2020). Identifying negative language transfer in writing to increase English as a Second Language learners’ metalinguistic awareness. In Bringing Together Writing Tool Design, Writing Analytics and Writing Pedagogy Workshop at the International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK). Frankfurt, Germany [online]. https://writinganalytics.zhaw.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/LAK20_Writing_Analytics_Workshop-Identifying-negative-language-transfer-in-writing-to-increase-English-as-a-Second-Language-learners%E2%80%99-metalinguistic-awareness.pdf
Wanderley, L., & Demmans Epp, C. (2021). Identifying negative language transfer in learner errors using POS information. In the 16th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA) at the 6th Conference of the European Chapter
of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL) (pp. 64-74). [online] https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2021.bea-1.7
Wanderley, L., Zhao, Z., & Demmans Epp, C. (2021). Negative Language Transfer in Learner English: A New Dataset. In Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (NAACL-HLT). (pp. 3129-3142). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2021.naacl-main.251
Adaptive Literacy in Corrections
This project aims to support the development of incarcerated persons’ literacy skills. Learner modelling will capture literacy-contributing skills and be used to personalize each user’s learning experience.
Education in corrections presents unique challenges for learners, facilitators of programming, and correctional staff. Adaptive learning technology has the potential to support the learning of incarcerated persons. This application will use machine learning to make appropriate adaptations for learners based on assessments of their knowledge and behaviors.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp and Gisele Arevalo
VocabNomad
VocabNomad is a mobile assisted language learning and communication support application, designed to be location aware and adapt to the user’s changing vocabulary support needs through the use of learner models.
Adaptivity is provided through the use of learner models that track learner’s language use and preferences. Standardized assessments of vocabulary knowledge were used to determine if the adaptive communication support that is provided by VocabNomad can help English language learners improve their vocabulary knowledge.
Project Lead: Carrie Demmans Epp (PhD Work)
Collaborators: Stephen Tsourounis, Justin Djordjevic, Christopher Arnold, and Semaphore (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto)
Publications & Presentations:
Carrie Demmans Epp. & Krystle Phirangee. (2019). Exploring mobile tool integration: Design activities carefully or students may not learn. Contemporary Educational Psychology, Special Issue on Mobile Technology, Learning, and Achievement: A Critical Perspective on the Role of Mobile Technology in Education, online first. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101791
Carrie Demmans Epp. (2018). Developing an adaptive mobile tool to scaffold the communication and vocabulary acquisition of language learners. In Zhang, Y. & Cristol, D. (Eds.), The Handbook of Mobile Teaching and Learning, 2nd ed. Springer. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41981-2_92-1
Carrie Demmans Epp. (2017). Migrants and Mobile Technology Use: Gaps in the Support Provided by Current Tools. Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME), special issue on Migrants, Education, and Technology. 2017(1), 1-13. http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.432
Reading Tutor
This project aims to help low-literacy adults improve their reading comprehension through situated learning activities that ask learners to complete everyday tasks that involve reading.
This system dynamically changes the difficulty of tasks based on learner performance and it adjusts the thematic content of these activities based on learner interests. By enabling rapid acquisition of language we will also improve learners’ career potential and their childrens’ potential learning outcomes.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp
Alumni: Sarah Amaneddine, Tyler Heise, Shounan Pei, Ryan Perez, William Wong, and Jill Zheng
CS Education
Continuous Integration
Continuous integration (CI) is a professional CS practice that automatically provides timely feedback. This study integrated CI into an undergraduate course to increase the amount of feedback students receive and better prepare them for their career.
Computer science (CS) students rarely receive early feedback that can help them improve their learning and grades. This first iteration of an action-research project evaluated this integration from students and teaching assistants’ perspectives. Results revealed the biggest benefit for students was ensuring they would not receive a zero on assignments only because their output or code were in the wrong format. Concerns over initial problems with the CI system and students’ unfamiliarity also surfaced. Improvements to CI use are suggested based on participant feedback.
Collaborators: Carrie Demmans Epp, Gokce Akcayir, and Denilson Barbosa
Publications:
Akcayir, G., Demmans Epp, C., & Barbosa, D. (2020). Continuous Integration in Computer Science Education: An Action Research Study. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. http://tinyurl.com/yx2yx2vh
Think Twice: Reflective Writing and Peer Feedback
This explored student’s reflective thinking and writing abilities using peer feedback in Computer Science courses.
This project which started in the Winter term of 2018 involves action and design-based research traditions. For three projects in the Human Computer Interaction course, students used institutional Google Docs services to prepare, submit, and review the assigned reflections. The built-in comments feature of this service was used by students to provide peer feedback.
People: Gokce Akcayir and Carrie Demmans Epp
Alumni: Krystle Phirangee
Publications:
Akcayir, G., Phirangee, K., & Demmans Epp, C. (2019). Think twice: Exploring the effect of reflective practices with peer review on reflective writing and writing quality in Computer-Science education. Reflective Practice, 20(4), 533-547. [Q1 – Philosophy] https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2019.1642189
Strategies for Integrating Online Discussion
The focus of the project is on instructors’ strategies for handling online discussion platform (Piazza), students’ reactions to these strategies, and how the integration of online discussions into CS courses can be improved.
Employing a mixed-methods research design, qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to understand how instructors use online discussion as a source of feedback in their teaching. The data comes from two case studies that represents deep and shallow integrations. To examine these integration processes, students’ discussion posts alongside the instructors’ reflective diaries and interviews were analyzed using topic modeling and content analysis.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp, Gokce Akcayir, Velian Pandeliev and Cosmin Munteanu
Alumni: Zhaorui Chen
Publications:
Akcayir, G., Chen, Z., Pandeliev, V., Demmans Epp, C., & Munteanu, C. (2020). Two Case Studies of Online Discussion Use in Computer Science Education: Deep vs Shallow Integration and Recommendations. In C. Brett & L. Wilton (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Online Discussion-Based Teaching Methods. IGI Global. 409-434.
Mobile Learning
PsychOut Mobile Learning
PsychOut is a case-based mobile learning app that aims to expose nursing students to clinical situations before they begin their formal clinical training in psychiatric units.
This app uses multimedia materials to enable nursing students to explore psychiatric cases through choose-your-own-adventure style activities. This app was evaluated for its effectiveness at supporting nurse training.
Collaborators: Joe Horne (University Center for Teaching and Learning – University of Pittsburgh), Britney Kepler, Irene Cane, and Amy Bowser (University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing)
Publications:
Demmans Epp, C., Horne, J., & Mitchell, A.M. (2020). Students’ Perspective of Simulation for Psychiatric Nurse Training. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. http://tinyurl.com/w5u5szx
Demmans Epp, C., Horne, J., Scolieri, B.B., Kane, I., Bowser, A.S. (2018) PsychOut! – A Mobile App to Support Mental Status Assessment Training. In European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) (pp. 497-509). http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-98572-5_17
Demmans Epp, C., Phirangee, K., Despres-Bedward, A., & Wang, L. (2017). Resourceful Instructors and Students: Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Mobile Tools. In Power, R., Ally, M., Cristol, D., & Palalas, A. (Eds.), IAmLearning: Mobilizing and Supporting Educator Practice. E-book. https://iamlearning.pressbooks.com/part/ch-3-resourceful-instructors-and-students-overcoming-barriers-to-integrating-mobile-tools/
Online Learning
ICTs for Indigenous Women in Latin America and Canada
The goal of this Partnership Development Grant project is to create an international partnership of individuals and institutions with expertise in ICTs, gender, communication, and Indigenous ways of knowing in order to support of Indigenous women’s efforts to develop gender-responsive ICTs for their specific priorities.
We aim to accomplish the development of a sustained partnership of individuals, CSOs and institutions committed to supporting Indigenous women’s efforts, as well as provide mentoring and training opportunities for Indigenous women. Furthermore, we will conduct research with Indigenous women’s CSOs in Canada and Latin America to co-develop and recommend ICT strategies and solutions to the priority areas. The project will produce a number of tangible deliverables, such as training modules for Indigenous CSOs in the 3 areas, strategies, and solutions.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp and Gisele Arevalo
Collaborators: Pascal Lupien
Publications & Presentations:
Lupien, P., Figueroa, D., Demmans Epp, C., & Rincón, A. (2021). Indigenous Women and Information and Communication Technologies: Supporting an Empowered and Resilient North-South Community. In the HCI Across Borders (HCIxB) Symposium at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Yokohomo, Japan [online].
PeppeR Analytics
PeppeR Analytics seeks to improve and support the online learning experience of PeppeR forum by mining the social relationships, visualizing the analytics of student usage and linguistics data, updating visualization libraries, recommending posts of interest for students and developing new analytics such as online class involvement, connectedness and learning support.
Through applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Human Machine Interaction (HCI) techniques, forum posts, build topic models, and conduct sentiment analysis, is analyzed and visualized. On the other hand, a think-aloud approach is used to identify areas for improvement in the student’s learning experience. Collaborative filtering and content-based filtering is also used to build recommender systems.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp, Yonael Bekele, Dake Zhang, Michelle Wong, Gokce Akcayir, and Krystle Phirangee,
Alumni: Zhaorui Chen and Leticia Wanderly
Publications & Presentations:
Chen, Z., & Demmans Epp, C. (2020). CSCLRec: Personalized Recommendation of Forum Posts to Support Socio-collaborative Learning. In A. N. Rafferty, J. Whitehill, V. Cavalli-Sforza, & C. Romero (Eds.), Thirteenth International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) (pp. 364–373). International Educational Data Mining Society. https://educationaldatamining.org/files/conferences/EDM2020/papers/paper_64.pdf
Demmans Epp, C., Phirangee, K., & Hewitt, J. (2017). Talk with Me: Student Behaviours and Pronoun Use as Indicators of Discourse Health across Facilitation Methods. Journal of Learning Analytics, 4(3), 47–75. [Q1 – CS; Q1 – Ed] https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2017.43.4
Demmans Epp, C., Akcayir, G., Wanderley, L., Hewitt, J., & Mahmoudi Nejad, A. (Accepted). Learning Analytics Dashboard Use in Online Courses: Why and How Instructors Interpret Data. In Visualizations and Dashboards for Learning Analytics.
Demmans Epp, C., Perez, R. Phirangee, K., Hewitt, J., & Toope, K. (2019). User-Centered Dashboard Design: Iterative Design to Support Teacher Informational Needs in Online Learning Contexts. Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada.
Demmans Epp, C., Phirangee, K., Hewitt, J., & Perfetti, C. A. (2020). Learning Management System and Course Influences on Student Actions and Learning Experiences. Educational Technology, Research and Development (ETRD), 68(6), 3263-3297. [Q1 – Information Sciences; Q1 – Ed] https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09821-1
Learning Analytics to Support Online Academic Information Searching
The purpose of this project is to discover the information selection strategies of high-school students working on online reading tasks.
We want to capture these strategies using classification models. The detected sequential behaviour patterns will then be used to determine students’ reading comprehension.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp and Minghao Cai
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
A set of studies covering various aspects of how learners interact with MOOC learning materials, learner background, and learner knowledge.
This project includes aspects of students’ language use and their use of learning materials. It also includes aspects of instructional design.
Collaborators: Diane Litman, Chris D. Schunn, Alok Baikadi, Yanjin Long, Rae Mancilla, and Valerie Swigart
Publications & Presentations:
Mahdi Rahmani Hanzaki, & Carrie Demmans Epp. (2018) The effect of personality and course attributes on academic performance in MOOCs. In European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) (pp. 216-230). http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-98572-5_38
Alok Baikadi, Carrie Demmans Epp, & Christian D. Schunn. (2018). Participating by activity or by week in MOOCs. Information and Learning Science. 119(9/10), 572-585. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2018-0033
Muthu K. Chandrasekaran, Carrie Demmans Epp, Min-Yen Kan, , & Diane J. Litman. (2017). Using Discourse Signals for Robust Instructor Intervention Prediction. In AAAI 2017 (pp. 3415-3421). San Francisco, CA, USA. https://aaai.org/ocs/index.php/AAAI/AAAI17/paper/view/14904
Demmans Epp, C., Tsourounis, S., Djordjevic, J., & Baecker, R.M. (2013). Interactive Event: Enabling Vocabulary Acquisition while Providing Mobile Communication Support. In Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) (pp. 932–933). Memphis, TN, USA: Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39112-5_150
AR Based
Augmented Reality Use in Education
This project conducts a quantitative analysis to measure the extent of the augmented reality techniques’ impact on education.
In this project, we conducted a meta-analysis of quantitative research papers (journals and proceedings in the past ten years) that were included in major databases. The main purpose of this meta-analysis study was to analyze the impact of AR on users’ learning outcomes in both informal and formal learning contexts.
People: Carrie Demmans Epp, Minghao Cai, and Gokce Akcayir
Publications & Presentations:
Cai, M. , Akcayir, G., & Demmans Epp, C. (2021). Exploring Augmented Reality Games in Accessible Learning: A systematic review. To appear In the Adaptive Accessible AR/VR Systems Workshop at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Yokohomo, Japan [online].
Behaviour Analysis
Gaze-Based Analysis of Student Attentional Behaviours during Healthcare Training Simulations
This project conducts a quantitative analysis to measure the extent of the augmented reality techniques’ impact on education.
In this project, we conducted a meta-analysis of quantitative research papers (journals and proceedings in the past ten years) that were included in major databases. The main purpose of this meta-analysis study was to analyze the impact of AR on users’ learning outcomes in both informal and formal learning contexts.
People: Minghao Cai and Carrie Demmans Epp
Collaborators: Surgical Simulation Research Laboratory
Publications & Presentations:
Cai, M., Zhang, B., & Demmans Epp, C. (2022). Towards Supporting Adaptive Training of Injection Procedures: Detecting Differences in the Visual Attention of Skilled and Novice Nurses. In 30th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP). (pp. 286-294). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503252.3531302