ALICE

The Coronavirus Crisis has spurred an urgent need to support students’ learning via digital technologies. Digital technologies can also adapt to learners’ knowledge and skills and can adaptively provide them with learning materials and instruction that are tailored to their competence. However, this requires that the digital learning environment is able to model learners’ understanding and performance during the learning process and make predictions about each individual learners’ potential progress during the learning activity.
This project aims at establishing theoretical and methodological foundations for providing learners with adaptive support during mathematics and science education. To this end, the project combines four research strands, that are

1) developing digital learning materials that is based on learning-progressions in mathematics, biology, chemistry or physics.

2) Collecting authentic data from students who are engaging with this learning material in order to develop predictor models of how learners’ competence develops over time.

3) Reconstructing learners’ learning trajectories, and finally

4) investigating the effectiveness of different learning trajectories and developed instructional support that helps learners achieve their learning goals.

IPN – Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

The Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) was established in 1966 as a research center for science education. As an institute of the Leibniz Association, the IPN has a nationwide function. It is also affiliated to the University of Kiel. The department heads at the IPN hold professorships at the University of Kiel.

The institute’s mission is to advance science and mathematics education through its research. Therefore, research deals with the full range of issues concerning teaching and learning in the sciences and in mathematics inside and outside schools. The institute comprises six departments: Educational Research, Educational Assessment and Measurement, Biology Education, Chemistry Education, Mathematics Education, and Physics Education. Approximately 170 people make up the IPN staff; about 130 work as researchers, including 60 doctoral students. About 50% of the staff work on projects funded by different research foundations or clients.

The IPN’s work ranges across the entire field of science, mathematics, and technology education. The IPN concentrates on long-term and nationwide research projects, which cannot be covered by universities.

The IPN research program focuses on following areas:

  • Aims and models of mathematics and science education
  • Prerequisites for teaching and learning mathematics and science
  • Implementation and Evaluation of Concepts for Subject-Specific Teaching and Learning Processes in Mathematics and Science
  • Promotion of Mathematics and Science through Competitions and Supplementary Learning Opportunities
  • Educational Assessment and Measurement

Besides its research activities, the IPN offers different transfer activities: Coordination of national and international student competitions in biology, chemistry, physics and environmental issues, programs for teacher education, and publications on science and mathematics education addressing teachers and scientists.