Student-centered learning | EPFL Graph Search

Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students by imparting to them skills, and the basis on how to learn a specific subject and schemata required to measure up to the specific performance requirement. Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem-solving. Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience. Student-centered learning puts students' interests first, acknowledging student voice as central to the learning experience. In a student-centered learning space, stude

Unsupervised extraction of students navigation patterns on an EPFL MOOC

Thibault Lucien Christian Asselborn, Victor Faramond, Louis Pierre Faucon

How do students learn in MOOCs? This project aims at answering this question by analyzing the activities of thousands of students registered on EPFL Scalaa MOOC hosted by Coursera. With the rapid growth of MOOCs, Education Science has entered the Big Data bubble, bringing new opportunities to study and improve learning technologies. We are interested in studying students navigation patterns which are the short sequences of learning activities that a students perform on the MOOC platform. In our case, the learning activities are one of watching a video lecture, reading or posting on the forum and submitting assignments. In this project we use unsupervised machine learning techniques to extract the main navigation patterns of students and gain insights on their behavior. We produce a simple and efficient visualization tool in order to provide feedback to teachers to help them understand the potential difficulties encountered by their students during the course and, if necessary, take actions accordingly

2017

Postural Control and Consciousness and Their Applications to Lower-Limb Exoskeletons

Jemina Fasola

Human postural control requires high coordination and is distributed over the whole musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Hence, postural balance can be impaired due to various pathologies. Efficient rehabilitation programs and technological solutions are therefore needed to alleviate the burden due to the risk of falls and lack of mobility. In this thesis, I have sought for solutions to improve postural balance with two different approaches. One approach is based on the application of neuroscience principles, while the other relies on engineering. With the emergence of exergames for balance training, it is essential to understand how the central nervous system integrates augmented visual feedback. Research in motor learning has demonstrated the need of experiencing errors to adapt to the environment and learn new skills. Hence, studies have proposed to visually amplify trajectory errors to promote learning. As this strategy demonstrated promising results for upper limb rehabilitation, I investigated whether visual error augmentation promotes motor adaptation during a balance task. Based on the observer model, I also investigated whether there is a link between sensorimotor learning and a conscious experience of movements known as the sense of agency. Our results suggest that visual error augmentation may promote balance learning and that the optimal gain may be influenced by the sense of agency. Moreover, our results illustrate that humans monitor their actions in an effector-independent manner. Although motor learning is different from neurorehabilitation, these studies help to understand cognitive components of motor learning that are of scientific and clinical relevance. Patients with severe balance deficits need engineering solutions to stand up and walk. We developed a lower-limb exoskeleton, called TWIICE, with the goal to give back autonomy to people with a complete spinal cord injury. Most exoskeletons require that the user manages balance while walking or standing with the help of crutches. To facilitate the interaction with the environment while standing, we developed the first postural controllers enabling patients with complete paraplegia to stand in a low-actuator count exoskeleton without the need for crutches. This could have important implications for the independence of individuals with paraplegia, their inclusion in social activities and their potential inclination to use an exoskeleton on a daily basis for the associated health benefits.

EPFL2020

Postural Control and Consciousness and Their Applications to Lower-Limb Exoskeletons

Jemina Fasola

EPFL2020