Faculty Empowerment in Technology Enabled Learning using UML Modeling to foster Self Regulated Learning

N.Vivekananthamoorthy R. Sampath
KCG College of Technology

E.R. Naganathan, Hindustan University

Chennai,India

Plan of Presentation
Overview Introduction Changing paradigms

Opportunities and challenges in Technical Education

Virtual Learning Environments Major E-Learning Systems in Vogue Research Gap in E-Learning UML Modeling and Self Regulation Pilot Study and Experimental Findings Web Analytics Conclusion Future Directions
2

Overview
Technology Enabled Learning UML Modeling Self Regulation Faculty Empowerment
The responsibility of learning - shifted from teacher to the learner. The role of teacher - changed from instructor to facilitator. Faculty empowerment - key indicator in fostering Self Regulated Learning. A UML based e-Learning Model - Controlled environment in which self-directed learners can become autonomous. UML Model - helps in conceptualizing an e-Learning framework. Self Regulation - can be implemented with UML Design Patterns. Pilot Study - Web based experimental set up . Free Tools - used for creating web content. Faculty - empowered to create e-learning content and provided with 3 tools monitoring student learning processes.

Introduction
Advancements in Information and Communication Technologies have opened up new challenges and opportunities in higher Educational Institutions.
There is steep rise in internet usage around the world during the last decade. Connectivity and instant access have opened up new vistas in many spheres of lives of people.

The traditional class room based educational system needs transformation to catch up with technology.
The learners today have opportunities and flexibility of learning at any time, any where , and at any pace.

Changing Paradigms

Now the responsibility of Learning has been shifted from teacher to the learner. The role of teacher has been changed from instructor to facilitator or mentor of Learning. The faculties need empowerment to acquire new skills to facilitate this transformation.

Virtual Learning Environemnt Problems & Issues

VLE is a learning Platform which provides web based access to content ,grades, assessments, and other online learning facilities.

VLE faces problems like Information overload, poor usability , Lost in Hyperspace syndrome. Majority of professors primarily use Blackboard a) To post course content , b) to calculate grades , and c) to communicate with students via the Announcements tool. Advanced features like Rubric, Wikis, and blogs are not widely used. (Janiess Sallee et al.,2012)

Research Gap in E-Learning

SWEEPING EXPECTATIONS ON E-LEARNING Putting the learners in the center of study process and
exaggerating their self-directed abilities.

The new technologies would transform teaching and learning process from being highly teacher dominated to student centered and the students would develop problem-solving abilities, creativity and higher order thinking skills.
However study by Guri-Rosenblit (2009,2011) ,there exists noticeable gap in e-Learning research.

There is limited research to support these claims.

Self Regulation
Self Regulation Key Indicator
Since E-Learning heavily depend on shifting the responsibility from
the Instructor to Learner, Self regulated learning is a key-indicator for enhancing the learning outcome of the learners. Zimmerman(1990) , David J. Nicol (2006) emphasize learners to assume responsibility and control for their own acquisition of knowledge and skill.

Some self Regulated Learning Strategies are a) Self-evaluation b) Goal setting and Planning, c) Self-monitoring etc.
All researchers agree Self Regulation depends on continuous feed back of learning effectiveness.

Why UML Modeling ?

The Three Amigos
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) was developed by Grady Booch, Jim Rumbaugh and Ivar Jacobson (the Three Amigos) as a way to define large complicated systems.

Why UML Modeling ?

In a Software Production Process, the Conceptual Models are Key Inputs in the process of Code Generation. The Conceptul Models must provide a holistic view of all components of the final application and the interaction among components of the systems. The Model should support the structure , behavior and the interaction between the users and the system. UML is a defacto standard for modeling Software Intensive systems.

Why UML Modeling ?

Modeling creating simplified representations of various aspects of a software system (prior to building it) that convey information about the system from a variety of perspectives. UML serves as a blueprint that bridges the gap between the world that customers, users, and analysts understand and that of the developers, engineers, and architects implementing the system. UML provides an industry-standard way to model systems before building them and to talk about system features and capabilities by using an easy-to-understand, ageless graphical paradigm to effectively capture requirements and document system design. Guus Ramackers

Oracle principal product manager for UML and cochair of the OMG's

Why UML Modeling ?

software development is fundamentally hard, and the

way we counter that complexity is by abstraction.

The UML permits a team to visualize and construct abstractions that transcend the underlying implementation language. smooth mapping from the highest level enterprise architecture abstraction to the software system abstraction to the implementation in code. UML is a single communication tool from inception to implementation.

Grady Booch about future of UML

One other thingin terms of where the UML is headedis that I was blown away recently when I discovered an article called The Systems Biology Graphical Notation. Apparently it was inspired by the UML as an attempt to build a standard for biologists for modeling things within their worldthings like mechanisms within cells and the like. So thats an example of where the UML has extended its reach far beyond whatever I imagined. Thats pretty cool, and it also tells me that the language does have staying power; its going to be around here for a long, long time. We do need to simplify and refactor it Cross talk(Nov-Dec-2010)

Exerpts from Ivar Jacobsons Blog- UML is Evolving

Distinctive features of the new use cases are:

As agile and light as you want it to be

Scaling up, scaling out and scaling in - to meet your needs Its not just about requirements - it's for the whole lifecycle

It's also for non-functional requirements

Its not just for software development - it's for business as well Ivar Jacobson (October-2011)

UML Modeling and Self Regulation

Self Regulation can be easily accommodated in UML.
An e-learner could be in different states in a course life cycle like enrolled, certified , accessing content, taking test, and received score card etc. The student can be notified at appropriate time his progress in learning so that he can adopt different learning strategies which helps towards enhancements in his learning outcome. UML Design Patterns are helpful in conceptualizing various Self Regulated Learning Strategies like goal-setting, Self-evaluation, selfmonitoring and help-seeking etc.

UML Domain Model

UML facilitates to represent the holistic view of the e-Learning System in a Domain Model

* gives * sets 0..1 0..1 designs 0..1 * Teacher 0..1 *

Feedback

receives 0..1 having Goals

Assignment * * Test 0..1 * takes 0..1 Assessment 0..1 0..1 adopts * Learning Strategies

Student

conducts 0..1 * Course 0..1 * takes Class 0..1 receives *

conducts * supervise

Progress Statement

* Content 0..1 * deploys

runs

Course Administrator 0..1

contains *

Topic

* browses

Facultys role in E-Learning

The changing role of faculty and his interactions in an e-learning environment can be better explained using an UML Sequence Diagram A faculty selects an e-learning course. creates content , uploads content in the course web site. schedules activities.

Receives feedback and improves content to reflect students needs.

Assessment and feedback play an important role in improving learning outcome.

UML State Machine Diagram The diagram shows a UML state machine diagram representing students role in ELearning. In the course life cycle, a student can be in any one of different possible states. For example, when a student browses through the E-Learning content, he moves to the self-learning state.

Students Role in ELearning

Pilot Study and Experimental Findings

Experimental Set-up
An experimental setup was made which illustrates a typical elearning system.
A pilot study was done to understand the self regulatory behavior of under graduate students of Information Technology course. A departmental web site is hosted and the faculties upload contents on many subjects and topics. The tools used are Google Sites, Google Docs etc. Google Sites is an easy way to create and share web pages.

Snap shot of activities of an e-learning site

Web Site Usage for Three Years

The chart shows a plot of the web usage statistics for the month of April for the years, 2010, 2011, and 2012. It can be seen from the graph that there is a steady increase in visitors and pages referred for the last three years.

Pilot Study and Experimental Reports

WEB SITE USAGE PATTERNS

The charts show web usage statistics for course OOAD for two periods namely April-2011 and May-2012. It can be seen from the graph that there is increase in page views during certain dates. The site usage was maximum during the exam period.

Web Site usage Pattern

It can be seen from the graph that Pattern exists in web usage. The peak indicating the maximum page access for course OOAD repeats every year during the same period during University Examinations.

Web Site usage pattern

The chart shows a plot of the web usage statistics for a period of two years.

There is pattern in web site usage.

The chart shows the combined plot Visits and Pages viewed by the learners. There are peaks and valleys in web access.

Visits vs Page Views Scatter Plot

The chart shows scatter plot of the web usage There is strong correlation exists between Visits made and the number of Pages viewed.

Questionnaire on Learner Preferences

Web Refer Download notes Get Overview I refer to web material as additional resource in learning I have referred to educational web sites like edunotes.in to download subject notes I strongly prefer to get an overview of the subject before start learning I like to read the subject in text form and comfortable in understanding I would like to understand the subject by hearing what the lecturer teaches I understand the subject better with diagrams, graphs, charts etc than text matter and I like maps to know directions I like to refer to multimedia content like to video to understand the subject. I consider textual content is important like use cases are text stories in UML notation I prefer downloaded notes of all topics are very important in understanding the subject, exam point of view. I consider audio, visual, text, video content and lab exercises are equally important for gaining knowledge

Comfortable in Text : Hearing Lectures

Visual Multimedia Text Important Down load important All media important

Learning Preferences Survey

The main idea of Survey was to collect the voice of the students based on 10 criteria on learning preferences.

It can be seen from the chart that majority of students belonging to two groups have responded positively for the criteria on learning preferences. It can be inferred that E-learning framework has a positive impact on the focused group and it helps the students to enhance their learning outcome better than class room lectures.

Conclusion
This research work highlighted faculty empowerment as the key indicator in fostering self regulated learning.
A UML based e-learning model was suggested in this work which provides a controlled environment in which self director learners can become autonomous. This study hypothesizes that an UML based model helps in conceptualizing an e-Learning framework with holistic and serialbased view and also Self Regulation can be implemented with UML Design Patterns. A pilot study was done using a web based experimental set up where a faculty was empowered for creating content, provided with tools for monitoring states of student learning processes. The student feedback and reports on web analytics confirm that there are interesting pattern exists in student learning behavior.

Future Directions
The present work is preliminary. Concrete experimentation needed to support the proposed UML Model. UML Modeling, Self-Regulated Learning, and Faculty Empowerment are separate concepts. More experiments and evidence needed to prove that the suggested model helps to improve student learning outcome. The pilot study has to be scaled up covering a larger audience. More studies o to establish correlation between site visits, page views and Learning outcomes. Educational Data Mining Techniques can be adopted . o Automatic analysis of web log data. o Generation of visual reports o Pattern analysis and knowledge discovery

THANK YOU Q&A