The project is a collaborative effort involving Texas Tech University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and University of Texas - Pan American. It is developing a suite of multimedia educational materials and supporting mechanisms to create a knowledge-centered learning environment for the undergraduate instruction of stochastic processes and applied probability that seamlessly integrates into the curriculum. This project is creating high-quality video clips that challenge students to solve real problems from industry in collaborative settings. These videos are being posted on a project website along with other supporting material consisting of wiki-style tutorials and problem-solving software. A Facebook page for the project is being created to support a "wall" where students may collaboratively work on active problems and tangentially develop professional skills, such as teaming and communication. The investigators are anticipating that students at other location, even without their instructors directing them, will visit the site and will learn through the knowledge-centered aspects of the wiki-style resources, "wall" discussions, and review of active and archived problems. The team is making sure that students from underrepresented groups are featured in the videos in an effort to increase the interest among these groups of students. The project is using a few external faculty members as a design review team to provide guidance, and an experienced outside evaluator is using surveys and tests to monitor progress toward the learning outcomes and data on website and Facebook visits to monitor participation. Broader impacts include the dissemination of the project's products through the website postings and the use of social networking and the focus on broadening the participation of underrepresented groups.
Missouri S&T Project Outcomes The outcomes of these project was to develop computational tools to support the effective learning of stochastic processes. To this end, the reasearch group at The Missouri University of Science and Technology sought to develop various calculators to support the learning of stochastic processes. Specifically, the project used R-Apache, which allows the developement of interactive website capable to excute complex R code. R is a statistical computational software package commonly used in textbooks, intstitutions of higher learning and is open source so that any one can download install and use. Thus, tools were broken into two key areas: 1) Discrete Time Markov Chains, 2) Continuous Time Markov Chains. Please refer to figures for list and example of calculators. These calculators under went various phases, which included the testing, development, on website testing and evaluation of their performance. These computational tools are included into the learning website www.stochasticchallenge.org. The larger project consists of breating a learning environment to support the teaching of stochastic processes with an emphasis on conceptual learning versus the mathematical rigor. Hence, these tools support such a learning environment as students can view videos on how to model these real-world situations, are provided technical details in a wiki page, and are provided solutions in video formats. The calculators support the students by being capable to solve complex examples. Furthermore, the instructional videos and solutions are also available in the Spanish language. Significant results: The list of calculators produced are given in the attached figures to this outcomes report. Furthermore, the fully operational website went online on 11/2/13. Since its posting we have had worldwide usage of the website. Specifically, 4,653 page views mainly from the USA, India and Mexico. In addition, the project also developed a social media site on Facebook and has had 138 likes so far. Last Modified: 11/15/2013 Submitted by: Ivan G Guardiola In an effort to clarify the outcomes of this project a list of common questions with answers are provided. Specifically, these questions describe how the website has been more effective in teaching students in the use probability models in their efforts to perform system optimization. The following questions are answered: What benefit did the resources and online calculators provide? The benefit of the calculators is that the students are able to formulate the problems as well as solve them. Due to the complexity of these problems, solving them by a calculator (by hand) is highly impractical. This is impracticality comes from having to derive probabilities from data, result in a large system of equations, or require numerous calculations to derive a simple result. The calculators allow the student to focus on modeling and skip the tedious calculations. This allowed the student to focus on modeling and solution analysis, and reduces the tediousness to attain a result. How did the work change your academic environment - courses, curricula, student outcomes, etc.? The calculators and the stochasticchallenge.org website have provided a set of real world examples that can be used in teaching. Specifically, the calculators have changed the courses in that student performance is now determined by their modeling skills more than on their capability to attain the correct numeric solution. The calculators allow students to perform high-level calculations, which have removed the checking of basic skills such as algebra, numerical operations, and data manipulation. The grading is now determined by the modeling of the problem. Thus, is the model an effective abstraction of the problem provided in the examples? The student outcomes are now more focused on their logical formulation of the problem and identifying the correct modeling tool, technique, or methodology for each given situation rather than on their capability to derive the correct numerical result. How did the students use the website and computational tools? The website provides holistic view of stochastic modeling. The website provides definitions, examples, video descriptions, video solutions, calculation tools as resources. The students have used the site as a reference, as students can access this information with any device. For example, students have used the wiki to remind them of the equations and process to calculate the expectation, or limiting probabilities. In addition, the students can view the video example to relate these methods to real-world problems. Lastly, they view the video solution to see calculations being performed step by step. Finally, the student can use the calculator to check their result or to verify their results. How can the general public use this information, website, and computational tools? From the general public point of view, the general public can see how stochastic modeling can be used to model industrial problems. A person with an interest and connectivity to the website can learn about applications of probabilistic modeling and can view how various real situations can be modeled, solved, and analyzed. The website provides enough reference and learning material to inspire interest in the topic. A person can see the application of stochastic modeling in various industrial contexts and is provided with examples, descriptions, and reference materials to introduce an individual to this topic. How has the website created a community of practice around the topic(s) and how might the work be sustained? The website’s unique visitations count continues to increase. Various academic from institutions worldwide have inquired information from the PI regarding how to contribute to the wiki page as well as inquiries regarding the R-Apache module. In addition, this website has been highlighted by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMs), ORMS Tomorrow the INFORMs Student Magazine in the Spring/ Summer 2013 issue in a article titled: "Interview: About stochastic challenge- Anew way to learn about Stochastic Processes." The INFORMs society is the premier professional and student society that encompasses stochastic processes as a main emphasize of interest. Thus, the community is embracing the website. Furthermore, the publicity of the website have increased the number of visitors to the site. The website is a one stop shop for all things related to stochastic modeling and thus the society seems to be embracing it as a reference location. The sustainability will be a result of individuals contributing and allowing inclusion of outside contributions to the page. However, this is at its beginning and is difficult to quantify these impacts. What evaluation/assessment data was generated and how did the results either substantiate or conflict with your predictions/interests/intent? Still in the process of collecting and assesment. It is too early to draw any conlcutions.
