Research Projects

Dr. Veronica Cateté

Computing Education Research Engaging All Learners (CEREAL) Lab: http://go.ncsu.edu/cereal

Equity, Accessibility, and K-12 CS Education Content. REU participants will be able to choose either existing or self-developed activities, comparing their theoretical performance evaluation to their practical implementation in informal settings. Focusing on one of the three lenses, potential student projects may look to 1) identify how young women and diverse cultures are represented in specific CS learning activities and support materials, 2) investigate how lessons are scaffolded or embrace universal design to better support learners of varying skill levels, or 3) research student learning and engagement with activity content through user testing with multiple learner groups. REUs will use stakeholder and learner feedback from lesson implementations to iteratively refine the computing activities for both STEM and non-STEM contexts. After prototyping their improvements, REUs will pilot their creations in a low-stakes informal learning environment such as a summer camp that will provide quick feedback for later design iterations. REUs will analyze results on learners' attitudes, behaviors, and cognitive changes from surveys and interviews and present them at the end of summer events. This research contributes both to rapid software engineering design cycle practices as well as to findings on how intentional awareness of culture and accessibility in content can enhance student attitudes and learning in computer science.

Dr. Jessica Vandenberg

Intellimedia Lab: https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/

Upper elementary and middle school CS and AI education. With a PhD in Educational Psychology, Dr. Vandenberg’s work is theory-driven and sensitive to the pragmatic needs and dynamics of a classroom environment.

Potential projects include:

(1) supporting the development of AI-focused game design activities for use in rural middle school contexts, including curriculum development, assessment design, supporting and analyzing data from summer camp implementations, or professional development activities for middle school teachers;

(2) working on an upper elementary project focused on supporting students’ computational thinking, science content, and narrative writing skills through an interactive digital learning environment;

(3) supporting the scaling of an upper elementary AI-focused project that utilizes an immersive problem-based learning environment, including an emphasis on rural students’ learning and leveraging local needs and interests.

REUs will take appropriate lead on a topic of their choosing and work with mentors to ensure all components of the research cycle are completed with fidelity. This includes ideation, planning, implementation, analysis, and evaluation. The emphasis of students working with Dr. Vandenberg should be on the educational experience and outcomes of students or supporting teachers as they learn about and teach CS, CT, or AI.

Dr. Bradford Mott

Intellimedia Lab: https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/

Game-based learning and interactive narrative technologies to support computer science and artificial intelligence education at the upper elementary and middle grades levels. Dr. Mott's research is in the areas of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction with a focus on AI-driven technologies for game-based learning and interactive narrative. He serves as Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator on projects supported by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences. His work has been recognized with several best paper awards and he has contributed to award winning video games, including one that received a game of the year award. He currently serves as Principal Investigator on two NSF-funded projects focused on computer science education at the K-12 level: (1) Building a Computational Thinking Foundation in Upper Elementary Science with Narrative-Centered Maker Environments, and (2) Engaging Rural Students in Artificial Intelligence to Develop Pathways for Innovative Computing Careers. REUs will work closely with Dr. Mott to select a topic of their interest, such as (1) using AI techniques to provide guidance to upper elementary students creating digital stories using a custom block-based programming language, (2) using narrative planning techniques to assist learners in planning out their own stories, and (3) using generative AI techniques to automatically generate custom game levels. Dr. Mott will hold weekly meetings with REUs working with him to guide their research activities.

Dr. Tiffany Barnes

Game2 Learn Research Lab: go.ncsu.edu/g2l

Applying AI to improve CS and AI education applications for K12 and early college students. Dr. Barnes' research program focuses on transforming education with AI-driven learning technologies and research on computing and AI education. REUs will work closely with Dr. Barnes and her graduate students to select a topic of their interest, such as (1) extending the BOTS or Resource Rush coding games to include more AI and/or CS learning content, (2) adding AI techniques to block-based coding environments to automatically detect user progress or struggle and provide encouraging messages, (3) extending her SnapClass project with AI-driven supports for CS and AI block-based programming and formal learning activities, or (4) integrating and investigating generative AI techniques into CS teaching and learning activities, e.g. story generation.

Dr. Wookhee MIn

Intellimedia Lab: https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/

Artificial intelligence and natural language processing to build advanced learning technologies. Dr. Min's research focuses on the fields of artificial intelligence, educational data mining, and advanced learning technologies, which have shaped academic research such as student knowledge assessment and dynamic recognition of learning goals as well as created practical educational applications such as game-based learning environments for computational thinking and computer science education for middle school students. He has served as Co-PIs on two NSF-funded projects, including (1) improving undergraduate STEM education through student self-explanation-based classroom response systems and (2) promoting rural middle-grades students’ artificial intelligence education and developing pathways for computing careers through interactive digital game design activities. REUs will take appropriate lead on a topic of their interest centering around these two projects, such as (1) investigating natural language processing techniques to robustly assess student knowledge based on written self-explanation responses to a range of STEM questions and (2) designing and developing engaging game-based AI learning activities utilizing generative AI techniques. Dr. Min will mentor REUs by having regular meetings to guarantee the execution of every phase of the research process, encompassing idea generation, design, development, analysis, evaluation, and refinement. Students under Dr. Min's guidance will primarily focus on acquiring knowledge of the latest AI technologies and gaining hands-on experience in developing AI applications.

Dr. Bita Akram

AI-Assisted Learning (AIAL) Lab: Website

Integrating AI in K-12 STEM education. Dr. Akram's project's objective is to seamlessly integrate AI-centered, practical STEM problem-solving abilities into the standard K-12 curriculum. This research encompasses the development of creative curricula that instruct and support essential AI-centric problem-solving competencies using cutting-edge, captivating, and efficient educational technologies. Subsequently, classroom studies are conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the developed curriculum and technology, identifying areas for enhancement and optimal pedagogical approaches.

Dr. Seung Lee

Intellimedia Lab: https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/

Artificial intelligence, multimodal learning analytics, and development of intelligent learning technology platforms. Dr. Lee's research interests lie in applying AI and machine learning to creating adaptive learning environments for applications in education and training. Specifically, he is interested in developing intelligent educational systems and multimodal natural language processing for intelligent narrative-centered learning environments. Dr. Lee’s dissertation work investigated a supervised machine learning framework for narrative planning in game-based learning environments for K-12 science education. He brings many years of applied research and development in natural language processing, including extensive experience in the enterprise software industry. REUs will take appropriate lead on a topic of their interest. Potential projects are: (1) supporting the development of the cloud-based web applications that assess student knowledge-based self-explanation responses in the classroom and (2) investigating student behavior detection using multimodal data collected in studies of students interacting with the collaborative game-based learning environment. Dr. Lee will mentor REUs by endowing their research and development skills, including ideation, design and development, analysis, and evaluation.

Dr. Andy Smith

Intellimedia Lab: https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/

Artificial intelligence and narrative planning. Dr. Smith's research interested currently emphasize (1) Building a Computational Thinking Foundation in Upper Elementary Science with Narrative-Centered Maker Environments, and an IES-funded project focuses on upper elementary science learning (2) Improving Conceptual Knowledge in Upper Elementary Science with Scaffolded Sketch- based Modeling. REUs will take appropriate lead on a topic of their interest centering around the two projects, such as (1) using AI techniques to provide guidance to upper elementary students creating digital stories using a custom block-based programming language, (2) using narrative planning techniques to assist learners in planning out their own stories, and (3) using AI techniques to automatically evaluate and provide feedback to student-generated drawings. Smith will hold weekly meetings with REUs working with him to guide their research activities.

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