| 1. |
- Cronhjort, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
-
Leadership and Pedagogical Skills in Computer Science Engineering by Combining a Degree in Engineering with a Degree in Education
- 2020
-
Ingår i: 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). - : IEEE. - 0190-5848. - 9781728189611 ; , s. 1-9
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this full paper on innovative practice, we describe and discuss findings from dual degree study programmes that combine a master's degree in engineering with a master's degree in education. This innovative study programme design has emerged in Sweden due to an alarming demand for more Upper Secondary School teachers in STEM subjects. Studies on alumni from these programmes indicate that the graduates are highly appreciated not only as teachers in schools, but also in business and industry, e.g. in roles as IT consultants and computer science engineers. Data indicate that the breadth of the combined education, and especially leadership and pedagogical skills, are important factors for these graduates' success as engineers.
|
|
| 2. |
- Riese, Emma, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
-
Experiences and lessons learned by offering introductory training for teaching assistants who teach computer science
- 2021
-
Ingår i: KTH SoTL. - Stockholm : KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teaching assistants (TAs), students that are employed to assist the faculty, play an important role in many courses, by for instance conducting tutorials, helping and guiding students, and assessing assignments [1]. Especially in the courses that are given to a large number of students, TAs are widely used as a way to enable one-to-one tutoring and individual feedback [2]. However, previous studies have shown that TAs are not always offered sufficient training [3]. In 2019, the EECS school decided to initiate a mandatory training course for all computer science TAs [4], and this is a brief report on the experiences of this initiative. The purpose of this initiative has been to make our TAs more comfortable and prepared in their TA role. This includes multiple aspects, for instance, to empower the TAs to ask for well-defined lab grading criteria, if that is missing.The first offering of the TA training course was given in January 2020. The course consists of five modules (expected time for each module in parentheses): 1. HR questions (30 min) 2. Classroom teaching (60 min) 3. Helping students and supervising lab sessions (60 min) 4. Workshop regarding assessment (120 min) 5. Discussion and reflection seminar about modules 1-3 (90 min)Modules 1-3 are online modules in Canvas [5], each containing several quizzes. Modules 4-5 are scheduled sessions that first took place on campus but since March 2020 have been conducted through Zoom. During the spring semester, the course was given in Swedish. In the summer of 2020, the course material was translated to English, and modules 4 and 5 are since then offered in both English and Swedish. The TAs are paid the same hourly salary for taking part in the TA training as they earn for teaching. TAs that are employed as amanuensis (sv. amanuens) are also required to enroll in the course and for them it counts as part of their competency development. All TAs that have participated in the TA training course have been given the opportunity to anonymously fill out a customized course evaluation, and informed consent to use the answers for research purposes has also been collected.Most of the TAs enrolled in the training course have given it positive reviews. A commonly mentioned strength of the course has been the interactive sessions, meeting and discussing with other TAs. Many TAs have also experienced the course as valuable for their TA development. For example, a TA wrote: “Great initiative, the course gives you tools that will make your role as a TA easier, and some grounds to develop within!”As instructors in the course, we have also learned from the processes and continued to improve and develop the course throughout the year, based on the feedback from the TAs. During the conference, we will be able to share more examples from the course content as well as results from the course evaluations.To offer an introductory TA training course has been a great experience for us involved in the course and, in general, resulted in positive evaluations from the TAs who participated in the training. A portion of what we teach is specific to computer science, while other elements of the training are more general and focus on pedagogical aspects and the TA role. We hope this initiative of TA training can spread across KTH and are more than happy to share our course material and experiences.
|
|
| 3. |
- Alimonti, P., et al.
(författare)
-
Some APX-completeness results for cubic graphs
- 2000
-
Ingår i: Theoretical Computer Science. - 0304-3975 .- 1879-2294. ; 237:2-Jan, s. 123-134
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Four fundamental graph problems, Minimum vertex cover, Maximum independent set, Minimum dominating set and Maximum cut, are shown to be APX-complete even for cubic graphs. Therefore, unless P = NP, these problems do not admit any polynomial time approximation scheme on input graphs of degree bounded by three.
|
|
| 4. |
- Bigert, Johnny, 1976-
(författare)
-
Automatic and unsupervised methods in natural language processing
- 2005
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Natural language processing (NLP) means the computer-aided processing of language produced by a human. But human language is inherently irregular and the most reliable results are obtained when a human is involved in at least some part of the processing. However, manual workis time-consuming and expensive. This thesis focuses on what can be accomplished in NLP when manual workis kept to a minimum. We describe the construction of two tools that greatly simplify the implementation of automatic evaluation. They are used to implement several supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised evaluations by introducing artificial spelling errors. We also describe the design of a rule-based shallow parser for Swedish called GTA and a detection algorithm for context-sensitive spelling errors based on semi-supervised learning, called ProbCheck. In the second part of the thesis, we first implement a supervised evaluation scheme that uses an error-free treebankto determine the robustness of a parser when faced with noisy input such as spelling errors. We evaluate the GTA parser and determine the robustness of the individual components of the parser as well as the robustness for different phrase types. Second, we create an unsupervised evaluation procedure for parser robustness. The procedure allows us to evaluate the robustness of parsers using different parser formalisms on the same text and compare their performance. Five parsers and one tagger are evaluated. For four of these, we have access to annotated material and can verify the estimations given by the unsupervised evaluation procedure. The results turned out to be very accurate with few exceptions and thus, we can reliably establish the robustness of an NLP system without any need of manual work. Third, we implement an unsupervised evaluation scheme for spell checkers. Using this, we perform a very detailed analysis of three spell checkers for Swedish. Last, we evaluate the ProbCheck algorithm. Two methods are included for comparison: a full parser and a method using tagger transition probabilities. The algorithm obtains results superior to the comparison methods. The algorithm is also evaluated on authentic data in combination with a grammar and spell checker.
|
|
| 5. |
- Bigert, Johnny, et al.
(författare)
-
Grammar checking for Swedish second language learners
- 2004
-
Ingår i: CALL for the Nordic Languages. - Copenhagen Business School : Samfundslitteratur. - 8759311762 ; , s. 33-47
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Grammar errors and context-sensitive spelling errors in texts written by second language learners are hard to detect automatically. We have used three different approaches for grammar checking: manually constructed error detection rules, statistical differences between correct and incorrect texts, and machine learning of specific error types. The three approaches have been evaluated using a corpus of second language learner Swedish. We found that the three methods detect different errors and therefore complement each other.
|
|
| 6. |
- Björn, Camilla, et al.
(författare)
-
Engineering students reflect on work-life relevant learning
- 2023
-
Ingår i: SEFI 2023 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education: Engineering Education for Sustainability, Proceedings. - : European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). ; , s. 203-211
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- As engineering education is a professional education, it should prepare students for working life. However, there are obvious limitations to the amount of content that is possible to cover and the authenticity of the learning environments. In this study, we investigate the students' awareness and perception of these limitations by answering the following two research questions: What competencies do the students view as work-life relevant? How do students reflect on their opportunities to learn these competencies? The context of the study is the five-year Master of Science in Engineering and Computer Science at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Throughout the programme, the students attend a programme-integrated course with four reflection seminars including written assignments each year. In their fourth year they wrote reflections on their perceived work-life readiness and 38 of these reflections were analysed thematically in this study. We find that students expressed an elaborate view of what constitutes work-life relevant competencies. They readily identify learning experiences in the programme where they have developed such competencies, for instance through projects. They also show an understanding that there are limitations in the ability of the university environment to achieve fully authentic learning experiences. Many students see it as their own responsibility and necessity to complement their education with other opportunities for work-life relevant learning, such as hobby projects or internships. Others seem relaxed about any gap they may have in their work-life preparation and expect to learn on their first job.
|
|
| 7. |
- Björn, Camilla, et al.
(författare)
-
Variables Affecting Students' Success in CS2
- 2023
-
Ingår i: ITiCSE 2023. - : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ; , s. 257-263
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.
|
|
| 8. |
- Bälter, Olle, et al.
(författare)
-
English-medium instruction and impact on academic performance: a randomized control study
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Applied Linguistics Review. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 1868-6311 .- 1868-6303. ; In Press
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Stakeholders and researchers in higher education have long debated the consequences of English-medium instruction (EMI); a key assumption of EMI is that students' academic learning through English should be at least as good as learning through their first language (usually the national language). This study addressed the following question: “What is the impact from English-medium instruction on students’ academic performance in an online learning environment?” “Academic performance” was measured in two ways: number of correctly answered test questions and through-put/drop-out rate. The study adopted an experimental design involving a large group (n = 2,263) randomized control study in a programming course. Student participants were randomly allocated to an English-medium version of the course (the intervention group) or a Swedish-medium version of the course (the control group). The findings were that students enrolled on the English-medium version of the course answered statistically significantly fewer test questions correctly; the EMI students also dropped out from the course to a statistically significantly higher degree compared to students enrolled on the Swedish version of the course. The conclusion of this study is thus that EMI may, under certain circumstances, have negative consequences for students’ academic performance.
|
|
| 9. |
- Bälter, Olle, et al.
(författare)
-
Lärstrategier på längden och tvären
- 2015
-
Ingår i: 5:e Utvecklingskonferensen för Sveriges ingenjörsutbildningar, Uppsala universitet. - : Uppsala universitet.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Studiestrategier påverkar vad studenter får ut av sin utbildning. Vi har genomfört enkätstudier (ASSIST och RSPQ) för att mäta strategierna hos civilingenjörsstudenter på två olika program (Datateknik respektive Medicinsk teknik) på KTH. Resultaten visar att för denna tämligen homogena studentgrupp finns det inga större skillnader mellan årskurser eller program, men studenter med ytinriktad studiestrategi kommer efter eller hoppar av i större utsträckning än andra. Eftersom det åtminstone går att normalisera studiestrategier är det viktigt att arbeta för att normen är konstruktiv, det vill säga minska inslaget av ytinriktade strategier. De bägge instrumenten korrelerar runt 0,5 med varandra och enstaka frågor går att ifrågasätta, varför tolkningar av enstaka mätningar bör göras med försiktighet.
|
|
| 10. |
- Cap, Fabienne, et al.
(författare)
-
SWORD : Towards Cutting-Edge Swedish Word Processing
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of SLTC 2016.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite many years of research on Swedish language technology, there is still no well-documented standard for Swedish word processing covering the whole spectrum from low-level tokenization to morphological analysis and disambiguation. SWORD is a new initiative within the SWE-CLARIN consortium aiming to develop documented standards for Swedish word processing. In this paper, we report on a pilot study of Swedish tokenization, where we compare the output of six different tokenizers on four different text types. For one text type (Wikipedia articles), we also compare to the tokenization produced by six manual annotators.
|
|
