Ubiquitous computing has led to inevitable interactions with computing technologies in individuals' everyday lives in the modern era of computing.These technology interactions are becoming increasingly invisible and intrusive in daily life.To navigate this computational landscape with agency, individuals take charge of their interactions in various ways.This form of engagement is inherently democratic, enabling individuals to cultivate a first-person, autonomous experience of computational technologies, free from apprehension or uncertainty.However, the characteristics of ubiquitous computing interactions can overwhelm children in urban Indian contexts who have limited exposure to technology interaction contexts.The authors of this Work-in-Progress (WiP) present AuthentiCT, a playground that emulates everyday computational interactions designed for urban Indian students in grades 7-8 (ages 11-14).AuthentiCT provides a structured space where students engage in everyday activities using computational objects, ultimately leading to the creation of a design project through three phases-Explore, Solve, and Evolve.This WiP submission outlines the research study plan.The authors anticipate that the study will offer insights into how learners from this context navigate everyday interactions through different dimensions of empowerment to take charge in AuthentiCT environment, along with the challenges they encounter.

One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations is Quality Education, specifically aiming to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (SDG 4). This goal emphasizes the provision of education that is accessible, fair, and of high quality to individuals regardless of their background or circumstances. Innovative technologies, such as Generative Al, offer new prospects for enhancing both the access to and quality of education. However, they also introduce new challenges that could potentially have negative impacts. This panel aims to provide a platform for sharing international perspectives, with panellists from different countries, and for exchanging ideas, experiences, and practices towards achieving SDG 4. The discussion will focus on three main areas: 1) global challenges in achieving inclusive and equitable quality education; 2) good practices in promoting inclusive and equitable education with digital technology; 3) the impact of innovative technologies, such as Generative Al in promoting access to quality education. The goal of this panel is to promote research in inclusive and equitable education within APSCE by highlighting the significance of digital technology as a catalyst for change and exploring strategies to realize quality education for all.

Understanding learning patterns in online learning platforms is an important aspect of digital learning. Our study aimed to present preliminary findings of learners' interactions (N=29,826) with course content (on an online interactive learning platform) for the course "social emotional learning for teachers", using course engagement time and quiz attempts as two parameters of learner engagement. Our findings suggest that question difficulty and learner characteristics (motivation to engage) both influence attempt patterns. The results of such analysis can provide data-driven strategies to improve content engagement, teaching methods, and platform features, enhancing online learning experiences.

Abstract: In this we focus on critical thinking activities conducted in an online environment and interaction markers based on the data collected from those activities. The work is based on the ENACT framework. We conducted an empirical study to understand the clusters of critical thinkers based on Performance and interactional marker values of the participants (n=37). The highlights the definitions of the interaction markers and conducts an clustering analysis of the of Critical Thinking patterns that emerged. The results show two clusters with similar critical thinking outcome performance but different action patterns. We discuss the need of further empirical evidence relating learning effect on the actions and Critical Thinking.

In the age of rapid Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement, universities worldwide have responded by offering specialized AI and Machine Learning (ML) courses to meet industry demands. However, amidst this surge in AI education, AI deployment's ethical and societal implications often need more attention. Unlike traditional algorithmic programming, AI involves intricate decision-making processes that are challenging to predict or explain, demanding a comprehensive understanding of its ethical dimensions. Various global initiatives have highlighted the ethical considerations surrounding AI, resulting in an increased emphasis on integrating ethics education into AI curricula. Despite this, there remains a gap in addressing these vital aspects across the broader AI education landscape, with ethics often relegated to the periphery of computer science courses. In this context, this paper explores the imperative for ethics courses in undergraduate AI education in India. We examine educators ' awareness and perceptions regarding ethics education in AI curricula through interactions with faculty members participating in professional development programs and workshops focused on AI pedagogy. Our analysis reveals that there is a pressing need to extend discussions on ethics beyond mere privacy concerns and traditional performance metrics, integrating real-life scenarios into the curriculum. This paper serves as a preliminary step towards a need for a general framework in structuring ethics education in AI in India, aiming to initiate a more comprehensive and standardized approach to AI ethics education, fostering responsible AI development in the future.

Self-directed learning presents a promising approach to enable students to achieve self-reliance and cultivate greater ownership over their learning pursuits. In the current teaching-learning scenarios, the implementation of classroom-oriented self-directed learning (SDL) strategies does not achieve their desired goal. The primary reason may be that the teachers are not trained to implement these strategies. According to the literature, learners face difficulties in following different SDL strategies. Question posing (QP) serves as a tool that can help learners understand the concept, clear misconceptions, and collaborate with peers to construct their knowledge. We have analyzed existing papers on question-posing-based classroom- oriented self-directed learning strategies to find how question-posing may help students overcome their difficulties and find ownership in their learning. We find that QP-based teaching-learning approaches require well-designed activities that can help students elicit questions and with which students can navigate in achieving ownership of their learning. The paper concludes with the identification of a QP-based strategy that conforms to the essential set of requirements of self-directed learning.

In the rapidly changing ChatGPT world, human skills training is the need of the hour. With a large amount of data, ChatGPT is training itself day by day to understand human prompts and to provide appropriate results. A lot of prompt engineering courses educate learners in structuring the prompts based on how the ChatGPT engine processes any prompt and response. However, these courses do not target specific cognitive skills required by users (learners) to unfold, understand, and express what they really need and want to know from ChatGPT. In this paper, we look at ChatGPT as a tool to support knowledge acquisition and we discuss the questioning skill as an essential cognitive skill required to interact with and make optimal use of ChatGPT capabilities. We argue that risk to the fairness of access does not just stem from the monetary availability of such technologies, but it can also arise from the unpreparedness of the target users. The AI and ethics of AI literacy communities should also focus on training individuals on the cognitive skills needed to become optimal users of such technologies.

ENaCT is a framework for the design and analysis of critical thinking environments based on 4E cognition perspectives. In this paper, we describe a web-based critical thinking environment designed to implementœ the ENaCT framework. When users perform a critical thinking task in the environment their interaction logs are captured. We report on a pilot study with undergraduate participants and analyse how participants used the affordances in the environment as they performed the critical thinking task. One case of task-related behaviours (high activity) is elaborated to highlight the current possibilities of the system and discuss implications for redesign.

Drawing on Mishra and Koehler's "TPACK" model [1], we recognize that great Computer Science (CS) teaching demands great pedagogy, great technology skills and great subject knowledge. The main challenge facing any jurisdiction in implementing a CS curriculum within schools is the shortage of new teachers being trained in CS and to meet the demand many countries have focused on professional development (PD) for existing teachers across a diverse range of subjects. Some initial PD efforts in CS were often brief, with little follow-on support, and supported through external grant funding. This created challenges and opportunities for teacher PD in CS. As the need for CS at the K-12 level continues to grow, approaches should be sustainable and scalable. This includes preparing teachers at all levels, pre k-12, while they are still learning to be teachers and some funding initiatives have included preservice teacher support as part of this [2]. Inside the European Union (EU) the Scientix project [3] represents a focus European Commission (EC) funded projects and is a repository for PD with resources for pedagogy, technology and subject knowledge. Besides this effort, spreading CS knowledge has been supported by volunteers led movements like CoderDojo. The panelists will discuss the following main topics: 1) Pre-service vs in-service, where do teachers come from? 2) Interdisciplinary ways of infusing CS. 3) Ways of replicating across countries CS teacher training initiatives aimed at sustaining and growing the number and quality of both in-service and pre-service teachers able to teach CS effectively. 4) Effective approaches to help teachers to build confidence in their ability to teach Computer Science (CS)

Much of the existing work on student experiences in the CS major focuses on CS in American and European contexts. This paper explores the experience of CS students who due to India's unusual educational system, joined CS with very little knowledge about CS outside of its reputation. The study was a grounded-theory based interview study based on 20 students at 2 tiers of schools in India. Results suggest that although students generally enjoyed the CS content of their courses, they had a great deal of concern about the lack of freedom in professional programming. This is surprising considering the highly positive view of CS jobs is what initially seems to attract students to the major. We contrast this with educational findings in other contexts and discuss the educational implications of the result.

In order to create deep conceptual understanding, students need to integrate knowledge pieces into coherent knowledge structures. When students first engage with new knowledge, it is fragmented and weakly connected with their existing knowledge and they need to do the integration process. However, current teaching - learning methods do not explicitly train students in order to do so. The Ph.D. work discussed in this paper aims at designing and evaluating a technology enhanced learning environment to train students in knowledge integration. The theoretical foundation of the technology enhanced learning environment is exploratory question posing, i.e., asking new questions related to a given concept. By the end of doctoral research I expect the following contributions: 1) an empirically evaluated online intervention for knowledge integration 2) cognitive scaffolds for knowledge integration (specific to data structures domain) based on exploratory questioning strategies and 3) a validated assessment framework to evaluate knowledge integration performance. I am carrying out this research in the domain of data structures and the target population is first year CS engineering undergraduates.

Question posing by students is a valuable mechanism for learning. In this paper we demonstrate how student generated questions can result in unfolding of knowledge. We conducted field studies in Data Structures courses, where we provided a semi-structured question-posing situation to students. We analyzed the questions generated by students using inductive qualitative data analysis. We found that students pose exploratory questions and unfold knowledge using seven strategies, viz., Apply, Organize, Probe, Compare, Connect, Vary, and Implement. These strategies were validated within the data structures domain and were also found to be valid in another CS application domain (Artificial Intelligence). The content analysis of the questions has shown that students tend to unfold more conceptual knowledge than procedural knowledge.

Problem posing involves the asking of new questions around a given situation. It is highly desirable that students pose quality problems to address their knowledge deficit and unfold new knowledge. The Ph.D. work discussed in this document aims at devising interventions to develop students' Problem Posing Skills. We anticipate that by the completion of this doctoral thesis we would be able to contribute with a validated assessment instrument to evaluate PP skills, an efficient instructional intervention to develop PP skills, and models of PP strategies that students employ while doing knowledge discovery through Problem Posing in CS applications domain. The research is being carried out in CS applications domain and the target population is engineering undergraduates.

A large CS1 class often needs to provide scaffolding for novices while keeping advanced learners engaged. Scratch has been shown to be suitable to address a diverse set of requirements. In this study, we determine whether a 2-week Scratch intervention in a CS1 course is useful from two perspectives: i) as a scaffold for novices to learn basic programming concepts and transition to C++, and ii) as a tool for advanced learners to remain engaged and do challenging work. We conducted a field study of 332 first-year undergraduate engineering students, two-thirds of whom were novices. We analyzed student performance on exams and Scratch projects. We administered a survey to determine student perceptions on the usefulness of Scratch. Some key findings of our study are: (i) Novices were able to catch-up to advanced learners in Scratch questions of the type 'Predict the output' and 'Debug the program', (ii) Projects by advanced learners reached 80% of the complexity of 'most loved projects' on the Scratch website, and (iii) 69% of students perceived Scratch to be useful for learning programming concepts and transitioning to C++.