Physics
If you have ever imagined being a scientist, technologist, engineer or mathematician, you need to develop necessary competency in physical principals that govern our world. The physics is one of the fundamental subjects that you need master to create a successful and rewarding career in STEM areas. These topics will cover explanation and application of principles of physics applied in mechanics and kinematics of solids, fluids flows, thermal energy, electricity, magnetism, optics and modern physics related nuclear energy.
These topic will also prepare you for concepts related to advance placement (AP) physics B and C and concepts that are covered in the first course in college physics.
In Kinematics you will learn all about motion of particles in one, two and three dimensions with good understanding of equation of motion and Newton's three laws of motion.
You will learn about use of force to do work, equivalence of work and energy and the power associated with the work done.
In this topic, you will learn motion in a curved path and circle. And about force applied around an axis leading to torque (moment).
Here, you will learn all about motion and forces applied to liquids and gases. You will learn about Pascal's law, Archimedes Principle and Bernoulli's principle.
In electrostatics, you will learn about charges, electric filed lines and drift velocity of electrons, Gauss' law of electrostatic field, voltage difference and microscopic Ohm's law connecting voltage and current through the conductors. You will learn how some materials are conductors, some are semi-conductors and some are insulators of electrical charge.
The motion of electrical charge in an electrical filed gives rise to electrical potential which popularly measured in Volts. You will learn all about creation of potential difference in an electric field. And,how you can store electrical energy between two charged plates which is termed as capacitor. You will also learn charging and discharging of capacitors and how to connect capacitors in series and parallel to achieve necessary capacitance.
The motion of charges through a conductor gives rise to electrical current measured in Ampere. The current can flow through electrical circuits that are formed by connecting a battery with resistance using conducting wires. Electrical circuits follow the macroscopic Ohms laws which connects Current I Voltage V and resistance R to flow of current through the electrical circuits, V = IR. You will also understand and apply Kirchhoff's voltage laws of electrical loops, current law of nodes to analyze complicated electrical circuits. You will analyze circuits with series and parallel resisters and capacitors and combination of the two.
The force applied for on an object for a small duration causes change velocity of an object is studied under impact and impulse response. The change in velocity of an object is momentum. You will learn about impulse and momentum that leads to elastic and inelastic collisions.
Sir Isaac Newton's was 16the century British scientist who formalized laws of motion. The three laws postulated by Newton are the basis for the kinematics – motion of objects subjects to force. In this segment you will understand the laws of motion and how to apply these laws to determine position, velocity and acceleration of particles and rigid bodies.
In this topic, you will learn about periodic motion caused by a restoring force, such as periodic motion of mass connected to spring and motion of pendulum. You will be able to calculate period and frequency of simple harmonic motion.
The gravity affects everything on Earth and motion of planatary objects. Newton's Universal law of gravitation is basis for understanding gravitational acceleration of Earth and the motion of planetary objects and satellites. You will be able to calculate orbital motion of satellites, escape velocity of space craft to cross the gravitational field of Earth and understand Keplar's laws of planetary motion.
The thermal physics is all about heat and thermodynamics. You will learn about measuring temperature, transfer of heat, and conversion of heat energy into work. You will understand kinetic theory of gases, thermodynamic processes and heat engine cycles responsible for the generation of automotive power. You will understand the fours fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
In this topic you will learn about motion of mechanical waves caused by the longitudinal and transverse motion. You will know how the sound waves are created. Relationship between wavelength, frequency and wave numbers. You will also understand the standing waves in musical instruments and Doppler's effect for measuring speed of moving sound sources and Mach number to cross the sound barrier.
Molecular Dynamics
Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations are a collection of computational experiments conducted on a collection of atoms for understanding the atomistic behavior of matter. These methods are now widely used in every field of science and engineering to understand microscopic behavior of materials to predict the macroscopic properties of interest. The computational experiments conducted using MD simulations guide both experimental work and theoretical predictions for discovering causes of the well know transitions in the matter.
The power of MD simulations comes from the statistical mechanical ensembles that allow simulations and study of large collection of physical phenomena, such as, phase transition, deformation, elastic behavior, electrical properties, vibration properties and structural properties of matter under a variety of physical conditions. For new discoveries in science the MD simulations have become power tools at the hands of scientist and engineers paving the way for experimental investigations and development of theories.
In this topic you will learn about the Ergodic behavior of atoms where the long time trajectories sample the entire phase-space necessary for thermodynamic ensemble behavior.
In this topic you will learn about the force field models that describe the inter-atomic forces of attraction and repulsion and intra-atomic forces between collections of atoms forming molecules. These idealized potential functions, such as, Lenard Jones function provide simple pair-potentials used for solving Newton's second law of motion for the computational evolution of atomic trajectories.
In this topic, you will learn four laws of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics define the relationship between the temperature, pressure and volume. The zeroth law defines the equilibrium of temperature, first law defines the relation between hear and work, second law describes the quality of heat and entropy and third law describes that the entropy behavior as we reach absolute zero temperature.
In this topic you will learn about the Ergodic behavior of atoms where the long time trajectories sample the entire phase-space necessary for thermodynamic ensemble behavior.
The study in the computational science is done based on physical systems that describe the thermodynamic systems. The open and close systems, reversible and irreversible systems, and thermodynamic processes describe the properties of the physical systems. Once these physical systems are described in terms of thermodynamic intensive and extensive properties, then you can perform computational molecular dynamics on collection of atoms for discoveries in science.
In this topic you will learn about statistical mechanics, a branch of Physics that deals with the ensemble of microstates. These ensembles of microstates are connected with the thermodynamics variable, such as, micro canonical ensembles, canonical ensemble, and constant pressure ensemble and grand-canonical ensembles. Using the machinery of statistical mechanical under these ensembles molecular dynamics method can perform computational experiments.
The statistical thermodynamics connects collection of microstates for statistical calculation of bulk properties. With collection of small number atoms in a given force field described by a potential function, molecular dynamics method can successfully calculate bulk properties of a matter. You will learn how to use statistical thermodynamics of partition functions for your MD experiments.
In this topic you will learn how thermodynamic variables that drive the thermodynamic processes. For example you will learn about temperature as thermodynamic driver for phase change from solid to liquid.
In this topic you will learn about thermodynamics processes, such as, isothermal, isochoric, isobaric and adiabatic to define the work done in a thermodynamic cycle. The degree of freedom defines as number of possible dimensions for the motion of particles in a thermodynamic ensemble. The degrees of freedom also define the how we can apply equipartition theorem for the calculation of partition function and calculate bulk thermodynamic properties for the ensemble of atoms.
There are four fundamental processes that describe the thermodynamic state of a system. In this topic you will learn change in internal energy U of the systems under isothermal (constant temperature T), isochoric (constant V), isobaric (constant pressure P), and adiabatic (constant heat Q) processes. The processes then define the thermodynamics ensemble to study thermodynamic processes using Molecular Dynamic simulations.
Adaptive Learning
This video presents the concept of changing the interface of higher education. With the development of new technological interfaces there is need for the development of a new pedagogical framework.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N. "Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, NY, Chapter 1
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) provides a framework for online education that combines multimedia, learning models, interactivity including social media interaction. The model represents the "Learning Cube" framework that provides dimensions of media, models and interactivity as a cubical learning space where one can create individualized learning experience with adaptive learning.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N. "Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, NY, Chapter 2
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) describes the d... In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) describes the development of adaptive pathways for learning by creating five different instructional strategies to accommodate individual preferences.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N. "Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, 2004, Chapter 3
In this video Dr. Nish Sonwalkar explains differentiated instructions that can be used to encourage five pedagogical models to enhance learning performance. The learning cube framework allows creation of course structures that confirm to propose learning models allows creation of courses with multiple learning styles.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N."Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, NY, Chapter 4.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (SC.D., MIT) presents the implementation of adaptive learning using five different learning models and collecting statistics on learning performance based on the diagnostic assessments. The system that adapts to individual learning pathway and provides feedback to improve the learning performance.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N."Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, NY, Chapter 5.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) presents the methods of evaluation and assessments for online courses and programs. The evaluation of online course requires a multi-dimensional approach. Dr. Sonwalkar presents a framework of pedagogical effectiveness index, which incorporates the dimensions of multi-media, learning models and interactivity to assess and rate effectiveness of online courses.
Ref. Sonwalkar, N. "Changing the Interface of Higher Education," iUniverse, NY Chapter 6
In this Video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) presents relationship between personality type and learning strategies to optimize individual learning performance.
Dr. Nish Sonwalkar in this video presents his view on why the current online learning systems lead to low completion rates. The use of personalized adaptive learning systems can lead to higher completion by facilitating different learning strategies for motivation, real-time feedback to keep students engaged and opportunity to improve with each learning cycle. The adaptive learning systems have been observed to provide very high retention and degree completion rates.
In this video Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) is presenting recent developments in Mobile Learning. This presentation was made for an event hosted at face-book for the large number of friends and fans of Dr. Sonwalkar. He is pioneer in the field of Adaptive Learning and has now created technology called Adaptive Mobile Learning (AMOL).
Dr. Sonwalkar describes four components of educational adaptive learning systems. The four components are - pedagogical framework with distinct learning strategies, learning trajectory, evolution of effectiveness of learning trajectory and intelligent revision for reaching desired learning outcome. These are four essential components that are necessary to create any adaptive and/or personalized learning systems for the online education.
The brain-based adaptive learning depends on creation of cognitive learning strategies to present content. In this video Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) takes you through five distinct learning strategies that are used in the adaptive learning systems. The five strategies are -- apprentice (step-by-step learning), incidental (case-based), inductive (example based), deductive (interactive learning by doing), discovery (learning by inquiry in a virtual environment). The content presented in cognitive learning strategies is then used to personalize the learning experience in an adaptive learning environment.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar points out the surge in the smart phones and the apps that are flooding the market spaces -- such as, App Store, iTunes, App Market. The iPad sales alone reached 40 Million in North America during the year 2011.
The adaptive mobile learning will be different in its nature on these mobile devices like iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, Tablets as there is a paradigm shift caused by the integration of educational resources.
The thousands of apps that are created will now be integrated together to create your own personal learning profile and this integration will lead to creation of an adaptive mobile learning that will be highly personalized experience.
IDEAS Boston 2013: Nish Sonwalkar - Academic, Scientist, and Musician: Dr. Sonwalkar presented "Changing the Interface of Education with Brain-wave Adaptive Learning," at the Ideas Boston invited presentations. He was introduced and interviewed by Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR program "On point.". The Ideas Boston is event organized by University of Massachusetts, Boston. Republished with permission from UMB at sonwalkar7 channel.
In this keynote presentation, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar, makes an urgent call for action to offer Brain-based Adaptive Learning to provide individualized learning for students with disabilities. The keynote address was delivered at the one day symposium organized by Liberated Learning Consortium and Ross Center of Disability at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
The digital revolution with the development of World Wide Web and Mobile systems has given rise to ubiquitous access of information to both the digital immigrant and digital native population. However, the information overload has caused confusion on how best to utilize digital revolution for the benefit of learning in general and distance learning in particular. On the other side of the equation, noninvasive techniques for the study of neurophysiology of brain, such as, PET, fMRI, and CT-scans have provided a wealth of information on the activities of neurons that lead to the formation of learning networks in the human brain. The combination of digital technology with the new frameworks of brain-based adaptive learning and brain-machine interface are the new frontiers for enabling high performance, efficient, effective and engaging distance education.
Dr. Sonwalkar, an authority in the field of brain-based learning will provide an overview of the theory of adaptive learning and propose a pedagogical framework to assimilate the new meaningful liberated distance learning paradigm.
This is the video recording of keynote speech delivered by Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) at the Research :Leaders Conference organized by NSU on July 20, 2011.
The creative thinking is often considered a realm of poets, singers, artists, designers and mathematician, such as, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky and Gandhi. Recent neurological research shows that creativity is an acquired skill that can be developed by a systematic divergent learning approach. The creative thinking is an essential and often necessary aspect of successful graduate research.
The investigations conducted by brain and cognitive science using the advanced neurological mapping methods, such as, Electroencephalogram (EEG), functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) provide a wealth of new information to shed light on the process that helps us learn about creative thinking. Recent studies indicate that the creativity is not confined to right brain regions and is dispersed on both left and right side of the brain and is strongly connected with the emotional centers of the human brain.
In this video segment Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) explains the difference between intelligent tutors and the adaptive learning systems.
The intelligent tutors were created in early 1980, at the time when artificial intelligence was in fashion. The AI was based on rule based systems where certain rules were created based on the expert knowledge to provide feedback in real time. So the tutors normally were very domain specific.
For example math tutors where fed with a knowledge representation for the domain of math with expert rules that were fired when a learner was doing a mathematical task. Based on the answers of a given task subsequent scenario were presented. Each scenario steps led to certain rules that provided led to inference by the intelligent tutor to provide certain feedback or practice test.
By repeated task and feedback intelligent tutors were able to provide reasonable response to each mistake made by the used in their understanding of the mathematical concept. While tutors worked well for a specific domain that was deterministic in nature they failed in areas where there were no correct deterministic answers. Because, there were no if-then-else rules that you could fire in an area like interpretation of poetry.
The Adaptive Learning Systems on the other had represent knowledge in distinct cognitive pathways such as apprentice, incidental, inductive deductive and discovery -- providing same content in a different contextual framework thereby providing significant cognitive opportunity to learn. Also in the education adaptive learning systems the feedback is given in a different learning pathway to provide another perspective on the same problem.
Therefore, the an authentic adaptive learning systems is not domain specific and can provide better learning for both scientific disciplines with deterministic answers to domains where the answers are more based interpretation style and there no correct answer.
In this video segment Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) provides difference between Adaptive Testing and Adaptive Learning.
Most often the adaptive learning is confused with the adaptive testing. The adaptive testing is a method in which the difficulty level of questions is adjusted continuously to ascertain the competency level of a learner.
The questions are posed to the learner, on a given subject matter, with known level of difficulty, say medium level of difficulty and if the student answers questions correctly then the difficulty level is increased. The level of difficulty is increased in each questions posed until the learner starts not answering questions. Then the difficulty level is reduced. By going over several related subject matter areas after sufficient number of questions/answer sessions a score is calculated for the student and then he is put on a percentile basis on the scale by the adaptive testing agency who already have a corpus of normalized data with percentile distribution.
Most of the testing agencies for aptitude testing use adaptive testing, such as, GRE, GMAT, SAT etc. In adaptive testing based adaptive learning systems the content level of difficulty and explanation is varied based on the question/answer set. However in such systems there is no distinct pedagogy that is used for the variation of content presentation to the user for cognitive opportunity enhancement.
In true, adaptive learning system, first requirement is to have a pedagogical framework for the presentation of content in three or more learning paths and then there is assessment engine that will provide continuous feedback and rotation of learners through the learning path to reach a desired competency level with desired learning outcome.
Hence most of the claims made by the adaptive learning systems that are purely based on adaptive testing do not provide sufficient distinction of content in terms of cognitive learning strategies to be termed as adaptive learning systems. We need to dispel the myth that adaptive testing based content presentation systems are adaptive systems and do not match with the learning preference of the individual learners.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and Adaptive MOOCs
In this video blog, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar, describes the phenomena of Massive Open Online Course. The MOOCs name came from the game world where a similar term was coined -- Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG). In MMOG players could play with each other across the world and thousands of players joined into playing with each other. Similarly Stanford offered a course in Artificial Intelligence, where over 160,000 students joined across the world and were offered a certificate of completion if they successfully completed the course. With this many other Universities joined creation of MOOCs. Most of the top universities -- MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, and Princeton are now involved in the creation of MOOCs. Of course there some issues associated with the MOOCs, for example, very high attrition -- less than 10% students complete the course and the courses are highly specialized with leading faculty demanding significant work on assignments.
A Model for Sustainability of MOOCs:
Most of the MOOC offered by leading universities lead to significant expense for creation, deployment and management of students. The financial models are important for the sustainability of MOOCs. There are few models at present in practice for MOOCs. These models are -- the course offered by a leading University as public service with funding from grants from organizations, such as, Gates foundation funding for EdX project run by MIT, Harvard and UC Berkeley. The Corsera and Udacity models are for-profit and are different. Corsera wants to make money for the exchange of credits from accredited Universities, while Udacity wants to use the talent management of the top students in the class. Dr. Sonwalkar present a model for the sustainability of MOOC by converting participating students in the free MOOC into possibly paying students in the undergraduate, graduate and continuing education programs.
In this video blog, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) presents the case that a MOOC course that adapts to the learning preferences of individual learner using brain-based based adaptive learning with learning strategies - apprentice, incidental, inductive, deductive and discovery can lead to much higher completion. This can lead to large number of MOOC students to learn from the best course offered by the leading faculty members from the top Universities. The Adaptive MOOC has the potential to become the next revolution in online education.
An Education Technology Event -- Sponsored by Software Circle & EdTech Group Future of MOOCs: Prospects and Pitfalls -- MIT Perspective
About the Event: The Educational Technology field is exploding with innovation, and in response the MIT Enterprise Forum is hosting a four-part series throughout the academic year. The "Circuits and Electronics" MOOC by Anant Agarwal of MITx, deployed in 2010, was a milestone in the MOOC movement. The MOOC movement, and its mission to provide and expand open education opportunities in the world, has captured the imagination of the education and technology community worldwide. How and where this innovation will lead the next generation of learners is a subject ripe for debate and this event is your chance to join in and ask questions of the MIT and edX leaders. All three of our featured experts sit at the epicenter of the development of MOOCs: Professor Sanjay Sarma heads MIT's new Office of Digital Learning and is committed to infusing digital education within MIT; Kathy Pugh has joined forces with edX to accelerate the innovation and research around MOOCs; and Nish Sonwalkar has a long standing record of innovation in the adaptive learning interfaces and now serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the research journal dedicated to MOOCs.
Are MOOCS just another business model for companies who create them to make money? Can they truly be designed to meet the needs of students and adult learners who work and need to learn during nontraditional hours? What about credits toward degrees and certificates? Are resistant universities going to have to follow kicking and screaming or will MOOCS simply fade away?
Panelists:
- Dr. Daphne Koller- Stanford Professor, founder of Coursera
- Dr. Nishikant Sonwalkar, Sc. D., MIT Editor-in Chief, MOOCs FORUM
- Dr. Rob Robinson
- Moderator: Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent, NPR
- NPR Organizer: Danyell Irby
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar is presenting the evolution of education technology leading to the development of MOOCs. He also then suggests that the future of MOOCs is in the creation of Adaptive MOOCs for higher completion and learning outcome.
Prof. Anant Agarwal presents the edX project and some early results. He suggests MOOCs as an opportunity for educational experiments.
Dr. Sonwalkar will provide an overview of the theory of synaptic learning and its' application in providing creative learning environment. Synaptic learning, by providing multiple perspectives for learning new concepts, encourages creative thinking. It has been observed that the creative learning environments can lead to much better learning gains than conventional one-size-fits-all learning.
Dr. Sonwalkar will point at the recent neuron-feedback research on brain-waves patterns that encourages creative thinking and future directions in the emerging innovations in the field of Brain-Machine Interface (BMI). He will also discuss the impact of Massively Open Online Courses on the education in context of MITx and Edx projects.
Online Education and Pedagogy
Dr. Sonwalkar describes the term "Pedagogy." The term does not refer to presentation of content with evaluation and few information bits. He explains that the pedagogy is the process of presenting content in the context of learning strategies that connect with a cognitive process. It now generally refers to creation of effective lesson plan for classroom instruction and online education.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D, MIT) explains the term "Andragogy" in reference to the term "Pedagogy."
The andragogy refers to process of engaging adults in a structured learning environment. The adults have preexisting learning process and preferences as compared to children who are trying to find a learning strategy.
The term "Adragogy" was coined by Alexander Kapp in 1833 by a German philosopher but more recently used and popularized by Malcolm Knowles to describe the theory of adult learning. Andragogy comes from Greek term Andre = man and Egogy = art of learning. Art of learning for adult man is Andragogy. The Malcolm Knowles insisted that the higher education be termed as Andragogy not Pedagogy. Andragogy states that the adult learners are autonomous self directed learners with teachers and professors as the facilitators.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar explains the difference between learning styles and learning strategy, and present argument that for success of adaptive learning we need learning strategies not learning styles.
The adaptive learning systems need learning strategies where the content is presented with a cognitive learning process. The research suggests learning styles do not have strong correlation for higher success of online learning, buy the learning strategies do show strong correlation to the success of Adaptive Learning Systems.
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar explains Bloom's taxonomy, its use and need for new taxonomy for adaptive learning systems.
Benjamin Bloom chaired a committee in 1956 to come up with taxonomy that will categorize the learning objectives for the courses. The important contribution was to include three factors in the learning objective -- cognitive, affective and psychomotor activities to reach a given learning objective. The taxonomy included a set of verbs or an action items that required teachers to design their lessons and instruction to include all three learning modalities -- knowing, feeling and doing.
There have been several revisions and additions to the Bloom's taxonomy, but it is perhaps one of the most influential taxonomy used widely by the instructional designer and cur m designer in k-12.
References: Bloom, B.S. (1956) "The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The classification of educational goals, Hand Book 1: Cognitive Domain" Longman, New York Sonwalkar, N. (2004) "Changing the Interface of Education," Amazon Direct Publishing, Amazone.com.
The current course assessment depends on few mid-terms and a final paper or exam. This system does not encourage learning but cramming. Dr. Sonwalkar present an alternative model of continuous assessment based on concept mastery where learning is at the center of course delivery.
In this video segment Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) explains fundamental principles that guide excellence in personalized adaptive education:
- One-size-fits-all does not work for online education.
- Information is not education -- the current web based learning is creating information overload.
- Learning requires a cognitive process along with multi-media content.
- Individuals not only learn differently but they also learn different content in different learning strategy.
- Every individual has a learning strategy based on cognitive development and a learning pace to digest new leaning content.
- Individualized learning is the only way to reach higher completion rates and faster learning.
- Learning is four dimensional which includes -- multimedia, cognitive strategies, interactivity and social learning.
- The only meaningful assessment is one that helps learner improve and reach desired competency.
- Anyone can reach learning competency with right learning strategy and pace of learning.
- The best role of instructors is to guide students on how to learn not just what to learn.
In this video segment Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) explains the difference between intelligent tutors and the adaptive learning systems.
The intelligent tutors were created in early 1980, at the time when artificial intelligence was in fashion. The AI was based on rule based systems where certain rules were created based on the expert knowledge to provide feedback in real time. So the tutors normally were very domain specific.
For example math tutors where fed with a knowledge representation for the domain of math with expert rules that were fired when a learner was doing a mathematical task. Based on the answers of a given task subsequent scenario were presented. Each scenario steps led to certain rules that provided led to inference by the intelligent tutor to provide certain feedback or practice test.
By repeated task and feedback intelligent tutors were able to provide reasonable response to each mistake made by the used in their understanding of the mathematical concept. While tutors worked well for a specific domain that was deterministic in nature they failed in areas where there were no correct deterministic answers. Because, there were no if-then-else rules that you could fire in an area like interpretation of poetry.
The Adaptive Learning Systems on the other had represent knowledge in distinct cognitive pathways such as apprentice, incidental, inductive deductive and discovery -- providing same content in a different contextual framework thereby providing significant cognitive opportunity to learn. Also in the education adaptive learning systems the feedback is given in a different learning pathway to provide another perspective on the same problem.
Therefore, the an authentic adaptive learning systems is not domain specific and can provide better learning for both scientific disciplines with deterministic answers to domains where the answers are more based interpretation style and there no correct answer.
In this video segment Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) provides difference between Adaptive Testing and Adaptive Learning.
Most often the adaptive learning is confused with the adaptive testing. The adaptive testing is a method in which the difficulty level of questions is adjusted continuously to ascertain the competency level of a learner.
The questions are posed to the learner, on a given subject matter, with known level of difficulty, say medium level of difficulty and if the student answers questions correctly then the difficulty level is increased. The level of difficulty is increased in each questions posed until the learner starts not answering questions. Then the difficulty level is reduced. By going over several related subject matter areas after sufficient number of questions/answer sessions a score is calculated for the student and then he is put on a percentile basis on the scale by the adaptive testing agency who already have a corpus of normalized data with percentile distribution.
Most of the testing agencies for aptitude testing use adaptive testing, such as, GRE, GMAT, SAT etc. In adaptive testing based adaptive learning systems the content level of difficulty and explanation is varied based on the question/answer set. However in such systems there is no distinct pedagogy that is used for the variation of content presentation to the user for cognitive opportunity enhancement.
In true, adaptive learning system, first requirement is to have a pedagogical framework for the presentation of content in three or more learning paths and then there is assessment engine that will provide continuous feedback and rotation of learners through the learning path to reach a desired competency level with desired learning outcome.
Hence most of the claims made by the adaptive learning systems that are purely based on adaptive testing do not provide sufficient distinction of content in terms of cognitive learning strategies to be termed as adaptive learning systems. We need to dispel the myth that adaptive testing based content presentation systems are adaptive systems and do not match with the learning preference of the individual learners.
Keynote Presentations: Dr. Nish Sonwalkar
IDEAS Boston 2013: Nish Sonwalkar - Academic, Scientist, and Musician: Dr. Sonwalkar presented "Changing the Interface of Education with Brain-wave Adaptive Learning," at the Ideas Boston invited presentations. He was introduced and interviewed by Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR program "On point." The Ideas Boston is event organized by University of Massachusetts, Boston. Republished with permission from UMB at sonwalkar7 channel.
An Education Technology Event -- Sponsored by Software Circle & EdTech Group Future of MOOCs: Prospects and Pitfalls -- MIT Perspective
About the Event: The Educational Technology field is exploding with innovation, and in response the MIT Enterprise Forum is hosting a four-part series throughout the academic year. The "Circuits and Electronics" MOOC by Anant Agarwal of MITx, deployed in 2010, was a milestone in the MOOC movement. The MOOC movement, and its mission to provide and expand open education opportunities in the world, has captured the imagination of the education and technology community worldwide. How and where this innovation will lead the next generation of learners is a subject ripe for debate and this event is your chance to join in and ask questions of the MIT and edX leaders. All three of our featured experts sit at the epicenter of the development of MOOCs: Professor Sanjay Sarma heads MIT's new Office of Digital Learning and is committed to infusing digital education within MIT; Kathy Pugh has joined forces with edX to accelerate the innovation and research around MOOCs; and Nish Sonwalkar has a long standing record of innovation in the adaptive learning interfaces and now serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the research journal dedicated to MOOCs.
Are MOOCS just another business model for companies who create them to make money? Can they truly be designed to meet the needs of students and adult learners who work and need to learn during nontraditional hours? What about credits toward degrees and certificates? Are resistant universities going to have to follow kicking and screaming or will MOOCS simply fade away?
Panelists:
- Dr. Daphne Koller- Stanford Professor, founder of Coursera
- Dr. Nishikant Sonwalkar, Sc. D., MIT Editor-in Chief, MOOCs FORUM
- Dr. Rob Robinson
- Moderator: Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent, NPR
- NPR Organizer: Danyell Irby
In this video, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar is presenting the evolution of education technology leading to the development of MOOCs. He also then suggests that the future of MOOCs is in the creation of Adaptive MOOCs for higher completion and learning outcome.
Prof. Anant Agarwal presents the edX project and some early results. He suggests MOOCs as an opportunity for educational experiments.
Dr. Sonwalkar will provide an overview of the theory of synaptic learning and its' application in providing creative learning environment. Synaptic learning, by providing multiple perspectives for learning new concepts, encourages creative thinking. It has been observed that the creative learning environments can lead to much better learning gains than conventional one-size-fits-all learning.
Dr. Sonwalkar will point at the recent neuron-feedback research on brain-waves patterns that encourages creative thinking and future directions in the emerging innovations in the field of Brain-Machine Interface (BMI). He will also discuss the impact of Massively Open Online Courses on the education in context of MITx and Edx projects.
In this keynote presentation, Dr. Nish Sonwalkar, makes an urgent call for action to offer Brain-based Adaptive Learning to provide individualized learning for students with disabilities. The keynote address was delivered at the one day symposium organized by Liberated Learning Consortium and Ross Center of Disability at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
The digital revolution with the development of World Wide Web and Mobile systems has given rise to ubiquitous access of information to both the digital immigrant and digital native population. However, the information overload has caused confusion on how best to utilize digital revolution for the benefit of learning in general and distance learning in particular. On the other side of the equation, noninvasive techniques for the study of neurophysiology of brain, such as, PET, fMRI, and CT-scans have provided a wealth of information on the activities of neurons that lead to the formation of learning networks in the human brain. The combination of digital technology with the new frameworks of brain-based adaptive learning and brain-machine interface are the new frontiers for enabling high performance, efficient, effective and engaging distance education.
Dr. Sonwalkar, an authority in the field of brain-based learning will provide an overview of the theory of adaptive learning and propose a pedagogical framework to assimilate the new meaningful liberated distance learning paradigm.
This is the video recording of keynote speech delivered by Dr. Nish Sonwalkar (Sc.D., MIT) at the Research :Leaders Conference organized by NSU on July 20, 2011.
The creative thinking is often considered a realm of poets, singers, artists, designers and mathematician, such as, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky and Gandhi. Recent neurological research shows that creativity is an acquired skill that can be developed by a systematic divergent learning approach. The creative thinking is an essential and often necessary aspect of successful graduate research.
The investigations conducted by brain and cognitive science using the advanced neurological mapping methods, such as, Electroencephalogram (EEG), functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) provide a wealth of new information to shed light on the process that helps us learn about creative thinking. Recent studies indicate that the creativity is not confined to right brain regions and is dispersed on both left and right side of the brain and is strongly connected with the emotional centers of the human brain.
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Dr. Nishikant (Nish) Sonwalkar: Academician, Scientist, Musician
Dr. Sonwalkar is regarded as a leading expert in the application of computers in education. He has extensive research and development experience in hypermedia authoring, mobile learning, adaptive learning, and brain-based synaptic learning, advanced scientific visualization, database management systems, and computer simulation.
After receiving doctoral degree from MIT in the area of Molecular Dynamics of Nano-interfaces, he joined MIT as faculty in Mechanical Engineering, but his passion for technology enabled education led him become the founding director of Hypermedia Teaching Facility (Hypermedia Lab) at MIT and later he was appointed as the Principal Educational Architect of MIT.
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Changing the Interface of Higher Education
The pedagogy for technology enabled education over last few decades have been influenced by behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist theories. These theories are debated vigorously by the educational scientists. While the debate is extremely important for the paradigm shift, the need for a framework for instructional designers seeking meaningful incorporation of technology is necessary. With the infusion of new technological methods to deliver education on-line there is an acute need for reinvention of the pedagogical framework.
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Fluid Mechanics Hypercourse
This CD-ROM is designed to accompany James Fay’s “Introduction to Fluid Mechanics”. An enhanced hypermedia version of the textbook, it offers a number of ways to explore the fluid mechanics domain. These include a complete hypertext version of the original book, physical-experiment video clips, excerpts from external references, audio annotations, coloured graphics, review questions, and progressive hints for solving problems. Throughout, the authors provide guidance in navigating the typed links so that students do not get lost in the learning process.
Dr. Sonwalkar has received numerous National awards for his significant contributions to technology enabled education from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) and other Institutions:
- 2007 Innovative Excellence Award in Teaching and Learning
- 2007 USDLA Award for Outstanding Leadership by an Individual in the Field of Distance Learning
- 2007 USDLA Platinum Award for Best Practices for On-line Distance Learning Programming for the development of Master of Management “AdaptNet” Program
- In 2008 he is inducted into the “advisory board” of USDLA.
Contributions to Educational Technology
Dr. Sonwalkar developed the pedagogical framework of “The Leaning Cube” combining media, models and interactivity to develop adaptive learning technology and interfaces. He developed the “MetaModaic Interface” and the “Hypermedia Instruction and Teaching Environment, (HITE)” for technology enhanced education at MIT. He is considered as the pioneer of “Adaptive Learning Technology” and “Adaptive Blended Learning Methodology” which is now adapted by numerous Universities and Colleges in US. He is also researcher and developer for the “Theory of Synaptic Learning” for the enhancement of technology enabled education.
Gift of Knowledge Campaign for ALL
Sonwalkar Institute is created to build global competency using adaptive video lectures with assessment so you can measure and improve your own progress in any field of education. The Learning with Adaptive Video and Assessment (LAVA™) is an open access learning platform created by Dr. Nish Sonwalkar pioneer in the area of adaptive learning, pedagogy and online learning.
Dr. Nish Sonwalkar demonstrates use of LAVA™ as the open content delivery platform in the areas of Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics. The current LAVA courses are primarily created by Dr. Nish Sonwalkar in the area of Physics and Molecular Dynamics for use in learning and teaching.
We are inviting other selected experts to become part of Sonwalkar Institute and use LAVA open access platform to create their own open learning resources. Contact us on how you can begin.
Sonwalkar Institute is the latest in revolutionizing the free open educational resources. These educational resources at Sonwalkar Institute can be used to learn and teach. If you wish to participate in the growing movement of Gift of Knowledge please contact us here.
