active learning Archives

Adaptive experiments: Machine learning can help scientific discovery

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Cheng Soon Ong develops statistical machine learning methods and applies machine learning-guided design to biology.

Machine learning can help scientists design experiments. Scientific discovery relies on experiments that build our understanding of natural phenomena, and traditionally has been based on trial and error. Depending on the goal, different machine learning strategies can be used for adaptive experiments: active learning, maximising information gain, Bayesian optimisation, bandit approaches, and reinforcement learning. Cheng Soon Ong, machine learning scientist […]

Peer observation and review improves university science teaching

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STEM subjects in higher education are often taught by staff who have little or no formal training in how to teach. The Peer Observation and Review of Teaching (PORT) program provides a means for university academics to improve their teaching through feedback from their peers. Helen Georgiou and co-workers from the University of Sydney have investigated the effectiveness of the […]

Concept mapping as a learning strategy: Impact on undergraduate biology students’ achievement, self-efficacy, and metacognition

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Concept mapping is an active learning technique that involves representing connections between ideas in a diagrammatic way. Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Morgan State University, Dr Catherine Martin-Dunlop has been carrying out research into the learning strategy to confirm whether it could be the key to improving the academic performance, self-efficacy and metacognitive skills of, […]