In this paper, we introduce a facilitation agent with a disappearing function that allows the agent to temporarily leave group discussions to mitigate users’ habituation to the agent's constant presence and to enhance participants’ responsiveness to its prompts. The system integrates three functions: a pseud-holographic agent, voice aggregation, and timekeeping. To evaluate the system, we conducted two experiments: one assessed the participants’ impressions of various disappearing animations, and the other examined the impact on actual discussions. The results indicate that the style of disappearance shapes user perception, although its influence on discussion dynamics was limited in groups composed of participants familiar with each other.

In this study, we explore the CSCL of a mathematical proof using HTML- based dynamic geometry content. In addition to the learners’ transcribed communication, multimodal log data of their manipulations of the content and utterances are analyzed. First, we use multimodal data to segment the whole learning process into stages and identify the characteristics of those stages. This segmentation is then aligned with the transcribed communication. Our finding is that the participants’ choice of words varies according to each stage and is compatible with the characteristics derived from multimodal data. Resultingly, when and how the convergent conceptual change occurred is inferred from the commognitive perspective.

In this study, we analyzed the effects of taking active breaks during mental arithmetic and e-Learning tasks. Active breaks are defined as breaks that involve light exercise. An experiment was conducted to analyze the effects of active breaks on recovery from fatigue and the effects on the task results. Here, each subject’s fatigue was analyzed using the leg movement measurement method. As a result, in the e- Learning task experiment, recovery from fatigue was observed after active breaks. However, improvement in learning effectiveness was not observed. In the mental arithmetic task experiment, recovery from fatigue was also observed after active breaks. In addition, it is possible that the recovery from fatigue enabled the subjects to maintain a high rate of correct responses to the mental arithmetic task. It was suggested that active breaks may be more effective in improving work efficiency when the cognitive load of the task is greater.

Reducing the imbalance of speech length in discussions is expected to improve decision making and collaborative learning. In this paper, we propose a facilitation system based on the cumulative percentage of utterances in discussions. We surveyed the effectiveness of this system on the collaborative learning from the perspective of standard deviation of utterance length and percentage of utterances throughout discussions. we collected 20-minutes discussion data under the topic “What is a thoughtful consideration?” and “What is happiness?” from seven groups of three participants. Each group had two discussions, one with the system and one without the system. The results revealed that the facilitation system decreased subjective and objective imbalance of speech length. Additionally, turn-taking was active in the group which facilitation by the system was effective.

We propose a method to induce the presence of other learners using writing sounds without interfering with self-guided study. For learners who are more likely to progress when they feel the presence of others, it can be difficult to continue independent self-guided study alone at home. In addition, in certain environments, e.g., libraries and learning commons, where other learners are present, the presence of others may positively influence the continuation of learning. Thus, the proposed system attempts to induce the presence of others according to the learner's level of concentration, which is evaluated by the learner’s leg movements. The proposed system was introduced experimentally to determine whether it can induce the presence of others in an environment with no other learners engaged in self-study activities.

This paper describes a conversational holographic agent to help learners assess and manage their participation in order to encourage co-regulation in a face-to-face discussion. The agent works with a voice aggregation system which calculates each participant's utterances, silence ratio, ratio of participation, and turn-taking during the discussion in real-time, and produces prompting utterances and non-verbal actions to encourage learners' participation, summarization, and clarification of what they say. During discussions with each other, learner follow the prompts, and might model how the agent regulates the participation.

In this research, we devised learning support strategies to change how teaching assistants (TAs) for basic university courses in information technology (IT) behave toward students during programming classes. Based on learning support strategies, we developed and evaluated a TA support system that presents student learning situations on mobile devices. In basic IT courses, a TA support system is often used to help and guide individual students. To help TAs using such support, a previous study visualizes the learning situation and offers advice. However, support in addition to presenting learning situations to the TA should include guidelines for interaction with the students. In order to provide adequate support to students, we propose learning support strategies for TAs. In practical computer science exercises, TAs mainly advise and answer questions from students. However, it is not clear how TAs could best support students. Therefore, we propose the following learning support three types of strategies: "Hope", "Priority", "Motivation". Futhermore, we researched what learning support from the TA was desired by the students and developed a TA support system that presents learning support strategies. According to each learning support strategy, the classroom's map governs seat colors for each student who is the recipient of advice. The TA prioritizes helping the students presented by the learning support strategy as mapped by the seat charts. The system we developed was practiced in class, and as a result we found that even students who wanted to work on sophisticated content did not consider the teacher and TA unnecessary.

This paper focuses on peer-reviewing classrooms, which is a helpful activity for teachers to improve teaching skills, involving students in their course, and using chalks and slides better. This kind of activities mainly consists of a lecture that is open to other teachers and a reflective discussion with the teachers after the lecture. In order to encourage such activities and make them more fruitful, we introduced an eye-tracking technique to understand visual attention of the experts on the actual classroom observations. Beginners on classroom observations are also measured and compared with the experts. From the results of the experiments, a trend of comparative gaze on the elements in classroom like the teacher, the slides, and the students is typically found among the experts. Peer-reviewing with recorded video files from four angles is also being evaluated. These trends may be applied to training programs in faculty development.

Editing Wikipedia can increase participants ’ understandings of subjects, while making valuable contributions to the information society. In this study, we designed an online course for undergraduate students that included a Wikipedia editing activity. The result of a content analysis of the term papers revealed that the suggestions made by the e-mentor and the teacher were highly supportive for the students in our case study, and it is important for Japanese students to check Wikipedia in English before making their edits in Japanese.

This system development enables ubiquitous peer review and reuse of reviewer comments to assess teaching/learning in higher education. The purpose of this project is two-fold: (1) to develop applications for recording and storing reviewer annotations on streaming class lectures as time sequence data of pen-tip coordinates, and (2) to identify key principles and criteria from annotated video data to assess and evaluate the quality of teaching and learning (e-teaching portfolio). The evaluation studies were conducted to gain a broad understanding of how reviewers identify and record educational events effectively and appropriately during ldquolesson study (Jyugyo kenkyu)rdquo when using this system. The collection and analysis of reviewers' annotations indicated that this system is capable of reusing collected comments in order to suggest weak and strong points in class lectures from different reviewers' perspectives.

In this paper, we focus on the relationship between learners' activity/attitude in face-to-face communication (FTF) and that in computer-mediated communication (CMC) using distributed computer supported collaborative learning (dCSCL). In general, even if dCSCL is applied in class, university students learn together by FTF while on campus. This study aims to reveal correlative factors in FTF which promote learners' participation in dCSCL. We approach a university class where students are instructed to use mailing-lists for distributed group activities. We analyze their behavior by studying mailing-lists content and through questionnaires. Results show that personal attitudes in both FTF and dCSCL discussions are related. Furthermore, we reveal that learners' understanding of the content and process of FTF encourages their participation in dCSCL. In conclusion, when dCSCL is introduced in a traditional classroom, learners' active participation in dCSCL is prompted by creating a connection between FTF and dCSCL by supporting FTF discussions.