HCIL Distinguished Lecturer Series: "Making On-Line Education Work" by Mark Guzdial - GA Tech

Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:00 PM

Location: 2119 Hornbake Building, South Wing

Abstract:
Mark Guzdial and his research group have been exploring how to make on-line education effective for over 15 years. They have learned how contextualizing collaboration can lead to longer on-topic discussions, but how student perceptions can dramatically inhibit discussion. They have shown that well-designed on-line activities can lead to better learning at reduced cost (including time costs for the student and instructor). The student audience matters, as Mark Guzdial and his team learned when studying how graphics designers teach themselves to program using on-line resources. They are currently developing an ebook for high school teachers, who need to learn under tight time constraints. They have also shown that explicit subgoal labels in videos leads to improved retention and transfer.

About the speaker:
Mark Guzdial is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on learning sciences and technology, specifically, computing education research. He has published several books on the use of media as a context for learning computing. He was the original developer of the "Swiki" which was the first wiki designed for educational use. He was awarded a joint Ph.D. degree in Education and Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1993. He serves on the ACM's Education Council and the Special Interest Group in CS Education (SIGCSE) Board, and is on the editorial boards of the "Journal of the Learning Sciences," "ACM Transactions on Computing Education," and "Communications of the ACM." With his wife and colleague, Barbara Ericson, he received the 2010 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator award. He was also the recipient of the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award.