Purpose of this presentation
- To introduce to potential collaborators the vision, key goals and research directions of IESS
- a new model of education
- a new model of science of science research and scholarly publications
- To collect your feedback and critiques
Vision of IESS
- Helping teachers to teach better and helping students to learn better
- Helping researchers and R&D administrators to carry out better research and research management
- Helping enterprises do better management and innovation
- Please ask me questions at any time
Core concepts
- The human knowledge highway
- Levels of knowledge and advanced knowledge generators
- Level 1 - Factual and procedural knowledge
- Level 2 - Discipline-specific concepts
- Level 3 - Research discipline “big picture”
- Level 4 - General ways of thinking, methods of teaching and learning
Core concepts
- Top-down connections: higher level knowledge generates and can be extracted/abstracted from lower levels
- Left-right connections: Pieces of knowledge at the same level are also locally interdependent
Core concepts
- Meaningful learning: making use of top-down and left-right connections in learning
- Rote learning: Learning knowledge by repeated practice and memorization, without making use of the above connections
- See through connections to find the whole, that makes sense to you
About “ability” and “knowledge”
- In teaching and learning, “ability” refers to being able to make use of knowledge to solve problems, in which one can even create new knowledge as a result
- If we ask “which ways of thinking are the basis of certain abilities
- We may identify the core ways of thinking and skills behind the “ability”
About “ability” and “knowledge”
- “Ability” is the connection between problems and learned knowledge and skills
- Ways of thinking - 3rd and 4th level knowledge
- Facts and processes - 1st and 2nd level knowledge
- As well as the willingness or propensity to address challenging questions
About “ability” and “knowledge”
- Thus, in our terms, a “ability” is linked directly to knowledge, especially the more advanced knowledge generators, plus the willingness and propensity
- This is also the spirit of concept mapping: explicitly identifying connections and applying linking phrases to them
Example
- Besides memorizing the facts, this question can be tackled via the concept of “the environment influences human behavior”
- Thus, the ability to answer this question ultimately becomes a way of thinking, a piece of knowledge
The disciplinary big picture
- Viewed through the concept of an advanced knowledge generator
- Typical research subjects
- Typical research questions
- Typical methods of analysis
- Typical ways of thinking
- How the discipline serves the world and other disciplines
The disciplinary big picture
- Not everything needs to be learned to establish this big picture of a research discipline
- Once established, the big picture can be used in learning, using and creating knowledge
- What are the possible paths to attain this big picture?
- Inertial knowledge: knowledge that is isolated, not connected to the big picture
A new model of education
- Meaningful learning targeting advanced knowledge generators over the human knowledge highway
- Developing students’ own knowledge highway via generative learning
- Courses and disciplines are structures that emerge from the human knowledge network
- Every student designs what to become
The final output
- The human knowledge highway
- Learning materials attached to concepts and links between them
- Sequences of learning designed/calculated from a combination of algorithms and experts, may personalized
- Diagnostic tests designed/calculated from a combination of algorithms and experts, personalized and adaptive
The final output
- At the level of each piece of knowledge, learning is meaningful and generative, via their connections
- Make use of top-down and left-right connections in learning
- Learning is aimed towards the understanding big picture, which can then be readily and widely transferred
- The Lynkage platform for teaching and learning
Why we need this new model
- Leaning in order to create and creatively use knowledge
- Learning in order to appreciate the creation and creative usage of knowledge
- Teaching students to improve the way they learn, the knowledge foundations they build and their drive to learning
Why we need this new model
- Repeated usage of knowledge is being replaced by algorithms
- The challenges of our era call for new creative ways to identify and solve problems
- Current education often produces next generations who simply recites formulae and conclusions, leaving them only with inertial knowledge
Vision and Mission of IESS
- Helping teachers to teach better and helping students to learn better
- Use this new model as the basis for both research and practice
- See through connections to find the whole
How to implement the new model
- Task and algorithms for building the highway
- Develop algorithms to determine sequences of learning and adaptive diagnostic tests
- Research on meaningful learning, from both behavioral and neuro science
How to implement the new model
- Promote the underlying concepts as well as the developed system, in and out of schools
- Extend the systemic approach from learning and teaching to institutional studies of education
Task and algorithms for building the highway
- Currently manual development, in terms of concept map and wiki
Task and algorithms for building the highway
- Seek help in developing algorithms to construct the highway from information in textbooks and research papers
- Annotate the four levels of knowledge
- Link exercise questions and projects to the highway
The highway as a mathematics model
- A model describing all the main elements and their relations
- knowledge network
- students, teachers
- questions derived from the practice of teaching and learning
The highway as a mathematics model
- A platform to develop algorithms to answer the questions for teaching and learning
- To test out the answers and revise the models to answer the questions better
- Note: a model firstly represents the data (objects and relations) and then provides a platform to ask and answer questions
Example, Network of Chinese characters
Example, Network of Chinese characters
- Optimal learning sequence, even personalized
- Adaptive diagnostic testing system
- Helps determine what to learn
Learning sequence
- From the network, we know $a^{i}_{j}=1,0$ when $i$ is/is not a component of $j$
- Normalize each column to get $\tilde{A}$
- Solve the following to get $\tilde{W}$, the learning sequence while $W$ is the known frequency of usage
\begin{equation}
\tilde{W}= \left(1-\tilde{A}\right)^{-1}W= W + \tilde{A}W+\tilde{A}^{2}W+\tilde{A}^{3}W + \cdots
\end{equation}
- Effectively, this calculation considers usage frequency, hierarchical structure and network degree
Learning orders
- Total number of characters and total usage frequencies
Experiments on meaningful learning
- For specific advanced knowledge generators (analogy, if-then, Chinese characters), comparing meaningful and rote learning
- Learning cost (emotional and cognitive burden)
- Learning results (transfer learning, transfer creation, grades)
- Characteristic brain activity patterns in learning, using, and creating knowledge
Experiments on meaningful learning
- For a set of knowledge, such as a group of Chinese characters, experiments on meaningful learning and sequences of learning from algorithms
- For a subject in certain grade, such as elementary school mathematics
- Experimental validation of the diagnostic testing algorithm
- Modules of the Lynkage platform and experiments
Experiments on meaningful learning
- Misconception and its resolving or suppression
- From knowing to applying - beyond simple repetition
- Multi-brain synchronization, combining teaching and learning process in meaningful learning
Extended to institutional studies of education
- Manual annotation of the knowledge levels of teaching activities - also an AI-supported system
- How teacher allocate their time?
- What is ultimately learned from schools?
- Teacher’s education and school assessment that promote meaningful learning
The “New” and “Model”
- A mathematical model for all the major elements and their relations in teaching and learning
- Turns questions on teaching and learning into math problems
- Find ways to solve the math problems using the model
- Experimentally test the solutions and the methods of analysis
- Push teaching and learning to be more scientific and systematic, using modeling and testing
- Apply the same model to research and practice
- Please stay tuned for “Lynkage: meaningful learning on the human knowledge highway”
The Three-Layer Network for Scientometrics
The Framework: Layers
- The concept layer: concepts with their logical connections, such as theorems connected by ‘prove’
- The paper layer: papers connected by citations
- The author layer: researchers connected by mentor-mentee relationships
- Inter layer connections: author-writes-paper, paper-studies-concepts
The Framework: What can be done
- Clustering papers and concepts into topics/fields/disciplines
- Evaluate creativity of papers/authors
- Get an overview of the whole field, for researchers and administrators
- Ultimately help the development of science
- Can also help teachers and students
The Framework: why a model
- A mathematical model for the major elements of the Science of Science
- Scientometric questions become math problems in terms of this mathematical model
- Solve, test and generalize them
- A math language that describes the data, questions, method of analysis and ways of thinking
Examples: several systems
- Math theorems, connected by ‘prove’, with papers and authors
- Connections between chemical reactions and reactants, with papers and authors
- Networks of connections between diseases and treatments/medicines, with papers and authors
Examples: method of analysis
- Collect data to build up the underlying network
- Ask questions and represent them in terms of the network
- Seek ways to solve the questions
- Test, and systemize if necessary
- Network analysis: A combination of direct and indirect connections
The “New” and “Model”
- A mathematical model for all the major elements and their relations in scientometrics
- Turns scientometric questions into math problems
- Find ways to solve the math problems using the model
- Experimentally test the solutions and the methods of analysis
- Push scientometrics to be more scientific and systematic, using modeling and testing
- Apply the same model to research and practice
- Please stay tuned for “Lynkage for Sci$^{2}$”
A new model of publications
- Papers published together with concept maps as abstracts
- Show which concepts are being studied
- Show conclusions and how they are supported
- Easily integrated into research discipline concept network
- Can be used for books and other sources
Research paper database
- ReseaCmap, similar to chemical reaction database, Reaxys, SciFinder
- Each paper takes several concepts in as input and generates some concepts as output
- Far more accurate and informative than keywords
- Domain researchers can use it to help their research
- Also useful to scientometric researchers and R&D administrators
- Even a robot researcher?
Summary of the new models
- Mathematically modeling the main elements and their relations in education and sci$^2$
- Turning the relevant questions into math problems
- Solving, testing and systemizing them, thus, making them more scientific
- The same framework can potentially be used to serve enterprises
Questions
- Thank you for your time and feedback
- Take-home msg: together, we can make a difference to education and sci$^{2}$
- Helping teachers/students/researchers to teach/learn/research better
- Making the world a better place
- For more information,
Big Physics and IESS
