Simon News, 2015
December 14, 2015
Did you Love Watching Lectures from your Professors?
The Hechinger Report
December 14, 2015
Logic & Proofs: Computer-Supported Learning and the Philosophy of Mathematics
The Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
December 3, 2015
The First Simon Lunch
The Simon Initiative
December 1, 2015
U.S. Researchers Developing Software to Replace Teachers in Developing Countries
Education World
November 18, 2015
CMU’s Norman Bier Named Among Top Technologists, Transformers and Trailblazers
Center for Digital Education
As the executive director of Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) Simon Initiative, Bier is charged with a challenging task: accelerate, connect and advance CMU’s unique learning engineering ecosystem.
November 17, 2015
Carnegie Mellon Building Educational Software To Teach Children Basic Skills Without a Teacher
Carnegie Mellon University
As part of the Global Learning XPRIZE, students and faculty have teamed up to build intelligent software to teach children basic skills.
November 16, 2015
Teachable Moments
Carnegie Mellon Today
Without a strong educational foundation, how can we expect K-12 students to be prepared for higher education? It’s an issue at the forefront for educators everywhere and one of the reasons the U.S. Secretary of Education visited Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Ready for Success Tour.
November 6, 2015
Engineering the Learning Process
Biomedical Computation Review
The accelerating pace of advances in bioinformatics demands new, more effective approaches to training and education for students and experienced practitioners alike. How can technology be used to meet this need?
October 27, 2015
No More Pencils, No More Books
Slate
Artificially intelligent software is replacing the textbook—and reshaping American education.
October 20, 2015
Innovating Foreign Language Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Whether it is for travel, career opportunities or personal growth, speaking a foreign language and understanding other cultures have become incredibly valuable skills. Often though, the time and commitment necessary to fully learn a second or third language can be a challenge. Nearly two decades ago, CMU's Department of Modern Languages set out to solve this problem in higher education by offering online courses.
October 13, 2015
Founder of Duolingo Headlines LaunchCMU
Carnegie Mellon University
LaunchCMU creates crucial connections between Carnegie Mellon alumni entrepreneurs and investors, and features some of the world’s most successful startup companies. For 2015, LaunchCMU explored “The Business of Learning” and showcased transformative efforts in improving education, including initiatives for technology-enhanced learning.
October 9, 2015
Eureka! New Seminar Preps First-Year Scientists for Success
The Piper
Every Monday evening, the entire first-year class of the Mellon College of Science gathers for a course that draws on the expertise of many faculty and staff across campus to help prepare students for their future as a scientist and for their lives as CMU students.
October 6, 2015
Carnegie Mellon Students To Develop Embodied Learning Scenarios for K-12
THE Journal
This year, students at Carnegie Mellon University will help SMALLab Learning develop new embodied learning scenarios for middle and elementary school students.
October 2, 2015
Life After MOOCs
Communications of the ACM
Three years ago, Moshe Vardi published an editorial in Communications expressing concerns about the pedagogical quality of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and including the sentiment, "If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear."
September 30, 2015
Open edX Universities Symposium Announces that Prof. Koedinger Will Be the Keynote Speaker
IBL Studios
Open edX Symposium’s organizing committee has announced the opening keynote. It will be delivered by Kenneth Koedinger, professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.
September 23, 2015
HCII’s Ogan Helping State Department Improve English Education
School of Computer Science
Educational Technology Reseacher Participates in White House Workshop
September 21, 2015
CMU work to encourage women in robotics noted by U.S. Education Secretary
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Two or three times a month, Mopewa Ogundipe and other Carnegie Mellon University students visit local schools to talk about robotics and computer science.
September 21, 2015
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan Brings Back-to-School Bus Tour to CMU
Carnegie Mellon News
Carnegie Mellon University hosted U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as part of the "Ready for Success" back-to-school bus tour on Friday, Sept. 18 at the university's Cohon University Center.
September 16, 2015
In Online Courses, Students Learn More by Doing Than by Watching
Chronicle of Higher Education
When students enroll in MOOCs, they almost always watch a series of video lectures. But just watching videos — without also engaging interactively — is an ineffective way to learn, according to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
September 14, 2015
Learning Is Not a Spectator Sport
Carnegie Mellon University News
A recent study shows that the central approach of MOOCs — having students watch to learn — is ineffective. Instead, the emphasis on interactive activities as advocated by CMU's Simon Initiative helps students learn about six times more.
September 14, 2015
Department of Education Renews PIER Grant
Carnegie Mellon University News
Based on PIER’s impressive track record, with respect to training students both in their core disciplines as well as in education research, the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has funded CMU’s program for the third time with a grant of $3.67 million.
August 20, 2015
Simon Initiative Hires Learning Engineer
Carnegie Mellon University News
Carnegie Mellon University’s Simon Initiative has hired Kimberly P. Law as a learning engineer.
August 13, 2015
New Information Is Easier To Learn When Composed of Familiar Elements
Dietrich College News
CMU psychologists, led by Professor Lynne Reder, uncover a critical relationship between working memory and the strength of information “chunks.”
August 5, 2015
Training PA’s Chinese Teachers
Dietrich College News
Three Modern Language Department professors are working to help improve and strengthen Chinese language and culture instruction.
July 30, 2015
LearnLab Summer School
Carnegie Mellon University News
When Bill Buttlar, a professor and associate dean at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues were charged with revamping their graduate program, they decided to attend CMU to learn how to effectively implement cognitive tutors.
July 27, 2015
The Skeptic: Stanford’s John Hennessy
Technology Review
Stanford’s president questions online learning and says more experimenting needs to be done like what is happening at Carnegie Mellon.
July 27, 2015
Carnegie Mellon Project Revives inBloom's Student Data Dream
U.S. News & World Report
LearnSphere, a new $5 million federally funded project at Carnegie Mellon University, aims to become "the biggest open repository of education data" in the world.
July 22, 2015
Latest Language Tech Innovations Come From Synergies Among Entrepreneurs, Academics And Pittsburgh
Forbes
Professor Jaime Carbonell founded the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 1996. The LTI does research on speech recognition and speech synthesis, machine translation, computational linguistics, search engines, text mining, and language tutoring systems.
July 21, 2015
Practical Guidance from MOOC Research: Students Learn by Doing
Education Week
CMU’s Ken Koedinger compared students who did activities in a MOOC with students who watched videos, and he found that students who did activities outperformed those who did not, even those who watched lots of videos.
July 12, 2015
Can neuroscience solve the mystery of how students learn?
The Guardian
Carnegie Mellon scientists are making discoveries about how we learn.
June 18, 2015
Google-funded Project Seeks Ways To Meet Growing Demand for Classes
Carnegie Mellon University News
Carnegie Mellon University will begin adding online instructional tools and targeted study groups to a popular introductory computer science course this fall in an effort to accommodate more students while maintaining instructional quality.
June 12, 2015
Learning in the Real World Tops Learning From a Tablet
Carnegie Mellon University News
Despite the increasing use of technology, CMU researchers demonstrated that kids still need physical experiments to enhance their learning. Watch a video of the research in action.
June 10, 2015
HCII Welcomes New Simon Initiative Faculty
Human Computer Interaction Institue
The HCII will add three assistant professors to its world-class faculty in August, when Geoff Kaufman and Chinmay Kulkarni will join the community and John Stamper will transition from his systems scientist role.
June 9, 2015
Scientists Gain First Glimpse of New Concepts Developing in the Brain
Carnegie Mellon University News
CMU scientists have — for the first time — documented the formation of a newly learned concept inside the brain, which shows that it occurs in the same brain areas for everyone.
June 5, 2015
GLC to Present Draft White Paper to APLU Member Presidents and Chancellors
Global Learning Council
The Global Learning Council (GLC) will present its draft white paper regarding technology-enhanced learning (TEL) and the sharing of learning data to the Association of Public and Land-grant University (APLU) member presidents and chancellors on June 18, 2015. The GLC was formed in conjunction with the launch of the Simon Initiative at CMU.
April 20, 2015
GLC Releases Draft White Paper for Public Comment: Addresses Key Challenges in Technology-Enhanced Learning, Data Sharing
Global Learning Council
The GLC released a first draft of a white paper that includes proposed recommendations regarding technology-enhanced learning (TEL) and the sharing of learning data. The paper is available for public comment and will be shared with higher education leaders over the next few months.
April 20, 2015
Carnegie Corporation of New York Grants Carnegie Mellon $1 Million To Support Activities of the Simon Initiative
Carnegie Mellon University News
The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded CMU a $1 million, two-year grant, to demonstrate and help promote the use of technology-enhanced learning techniques in higher education.
March 17, 2015
Teaching Science to the Brain: Carnegie Mellon Scientists Discover How the Brain Learns the Way Things Work
Carnegie Mellon University News
When you learn a new technical concept, something happens in your brain, but exactly what has been a mystery until now. For the first time, CMU scientists have traced the brain processes that occur during the learning of technical concepts.
January 28, 2015
Freeman Hrabowski, III, Delivers Simon Initiative Distinguished Lecture
Carnegie Mellon University News
Freeman Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, recently challenged Carnegie Mellon University to focus its goodwill, brainpower and expertise in the science of learning to understand the intricacies of race, poverty and academic excellence.
January 4, 2015
The Most Important Higher Ed Story of 2015
Inside Higher Ed
The days of the lower-division large enrollment course subsidizing the upper-division seminar are over.