Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National S... more Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded K-12 Math & Science Partnership (MSP) project with a goal of promoting math, science, and engineering learning through STEM integration-focused curricula. As part of this project, curriculum writers developed one-week modules providing instruction on a set of STEM practices within the context of the appropriate grade-level content. These STEM practices are Experimental Design, Data Visualization, and Data-Driven Decision Making; the emphasis of each of these practices is, respectively, the collection of data, the representation of data, and the use of data to support complex decision-making. Nine of these one-week modules were created in the science domain, one focused on each practice at grade levels 6, 7, and 8. A parallel set of nine modules in the math domain were also created. In this paper, we will focus on our assessment of the implementation of thes...
Performance assessment (PA) has been increasingly advocated as a method for measuring students’ c... more Performance assessment (PA) has been increasingly advocated as a method for measuring students’ conceptual understanding of scientific phenomena. In this study, we describe preliminary findings of a simulation- based PA utilized to measure 8th grade students’ understanding of physical science concepts taught via an experimental problem-based curriculum, SLIDER (Science Learning Integrating Design Engineering and Robotics). In SLIDER, students use LEGO robotics to complete a series of investigations and engineering design challenges designed to deepen their understanding of key force and motion concepts (net force, acceleration, friction, balanced forces, and inertia). The simulation-based performance assessment consisted of 4 tasks in which students engaged with video simulations illustrating physical science concepts aligned to the SLIDER curriculum. The performance assessment was administered to a stratified sample of 8th grade students (N=24) in one school prior to and following ...
2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC sin... more She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC since 1996 developing and managing university-K-12 educational partnership programs. She currently leads up a team of educators and educational researchers who are exploring how to integrate science, mathematics and engineering within authentic school contexts and researching the nature of the resultant student learning.
and Computing. She has been with CEISMC since 1996 managing programs, interacting with K-12 schoo... more and Computing. She has been with CEISMC since 1996 managing programs, interacting with K-12 schools, and assisting Georgia Tech faculty in creating K-12 educational outreach initiatives. Before coming to CEISMC, Marion earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and taught biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2018
With the inclusion of engineering disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), the Next Generation Science Sta... more With the inclusion of engineering disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) position engineering as a new priority in K-12 science classrooms. This paper reports findings from the implementation of SLIDER, a problem-based learning 8th grade physical science curriculum that integrates engineering and physical science core ideas. As a culminating engineering design challenge, the SLIDER curriculum asks students to apply their understanding of energy, motion, and forces to design an automatic braking system for a robotic truck. The paper describes the curriculum and synthesizes findings from an array of data sources including student design interviews, written design recommendations, engineering notebooks, pre-and post-assessments, and teacher interviews to address two research questions: (1) To what extent and in what ways do students participating in the SLIDER curriculum engage in NGSS engineering DCIs: defining problems, developing solutions, and optimizing solutions? (2) To what extent and in what ways do students draw upon their understanding of science concepts as they engage in engineering design? Findings indicate variations in the degree to which students participating in the SLIDER curriculum engaged across the three NGSS engineering DCIs, with students generally demonstrating competency with regard to identifying and delimiting the engineering problem (ETS1.A) and, to varying degrees, developing solutions (ETS1.B) but experiencing more challenges engaging in the optimization of design solutions (ETS1.C). Findings also illustrate the degree to which students were able to apply their knowledge of relevant physical science core ideas (e.g., friction, force) as they developed and communicated their solutions. Implications of the findings for instruction, curriculum development, and assessment are discussed.
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC sin... more She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC since 1996 developing and managing university-K-12 educational partnership programs. She currently leads up a team of educators and educational researchers who are exploring how to integrate science, mathematics and engineering within authentic school contexts and researching the nature of the resultant student learning Paper ID #12315
Proceedings of the 7th Usenix Conference on Offensive Technologies, Aug 13, 2013
We discuss our tools and techniques to monitor and inject packets in Bluetooth Low Energy. Also k... more We discuss our tools and techniques to monitor and inject packets in Bluetooth Low Energy. Also known as BTLE or Bluetooth Smart, it is found in recent high-end smartphones, sports devices, sensors, and will soon appear in many medical devices. We show that we can effectively render useless the encryption of any Bluetooth Low Energy link.
Comparison of two images of the same object or phenomenon taken some time apart is a bit complica... more Comparison of two images of the same object or phenomenon taken some time apart is a bit complicated due to fact that, there may be sensor variation, illumination variation, non-uniform attenuation, atmospheric absorption or any other environmental effects which may render some changes. That eventually makes it quite difficult to achieve a good compression rate in terms of any prediction based approach. That's why optimizing the functional relation between two distinct time satellite image is the basic and prerequisite for many studies in the sequential transmission of remote sensed data. Shannon's entropy represents an absolute limit on the best possible lossless compression of any communication. In the sequential transmission of the remote sensed data the images will be available frequently, so we need to achieve the lowest entropy of the data to be sent. We want to have an optimization process that will minimize the residual entropy of any regression based prediction approach. Minimizing the entropy of the residual for any prediction will in fact make the residual symbol's probability as independent as possible (decor related). In this paper we have used simple linear model to be optimized by the modified objective function of entropy minimization rather that sum square based least square approach. We have used brute force search or exhaustive search for the optimization process. Considering our objective function, optimization search techniques like Simulated Annealing, Tabu search, Genetic algorithm, Cross Entropy method are the best candidates for this procedure. From the experimental results we can easily differentiate our procedure from the SSE based regression analysis. In fact in most of the cases of the image pairs our optimization method achieves lower entropy than that of the least square regression analysis.
In this paper, a selective data compression scheme is developed to combine the need for efficient... more In this paper, a selective data compression scheme is developed to combine the need for efficient data transmission and the receivers' interest in changes presented in the data by taking the advantage of previous data. Remote sensed images, especially hyperspectral images, require considerable storage capacity and transmission bandwidth, which continues to challenge the capabilities of available technologies.
Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National S... more Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded K-12 Math & Science Partnership (MSP) project with a goal of promoting math, science, and engineering learning through STEM integration-focused curricula. As part of this project, curriculum writers developed one-week modules providing instruction on a set of STEM practices within the context of the appropriate grade-level content. These STEM practices are Experimental Design, Data Visualization, and Data-Driven Decision Making; the emphasis of each of these practices is, respectively, the collection of data, the representation of data, and the use of data to support complex decision-making. Nine of these one-week modules were created in the science domain, one focused on each practice at grade levels 6, 7, and 8. A parallel set of nine modules in the math domain were also created. In this paper, we will focus on our assessment of the implementation of thes...
Performance assessment (PA) has been increasingly advocated as a method for measuring students’ c... more Performance assessment (PA) has been increasingly advocated as a method for measuring students’ conceptual understanding of scientific phenomena. In this study, we describe preliminary findings of a simulation- based PA utilized to measure 8th grade students’ understanding of physical science concepts taught via an experimental problem-based curriculum, SLIDER (Science Learning Integrating Design Engineering and Robotics). In SLIDER, students use LEGO robotics to complete a series of investigations and engineering design challenges designed to deepen their understanding of key force and motion concepts (net force, acceleration, friction, balanced forces, and inertia). The simulation-based performance assessment consisted of 4 tasks in which students engaged with video simulations illustrating physical science concepts aligned to the SLIDER curriculum. The performance assessment was administered to a stratified sample of 8th grade students (N=24) in one school prior to and following ...
2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC sin... more She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC since 1996 developing and managing university-K-12 educational partnership programs. She currently leads up a team of educators and educational researchers who are exploring how to integrate science, mathematics and engineering within authentic school contexts and researching the nature of the resultant student learning.
and Computing. She has been with CEISMC since 1996 managing programs, interacting with K-12 schoo... more and Computing. She has been with CEISMC since 1996 managing programs, interacting with K-12 schools, and assisting Georgia Tech faculty in creating K-12 educational outreach initiatives. Before coming to CEISMC, Marion earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and taught biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2018
With the inclusion of engineering disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), the Next Generation Science Sta... more With the inclusion of engineering disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) position engineering as a new priority in K-12 science classrooms. This paper reports findings from the implementation of SLIDER, a problem-based learning 8th grade physical science curriculum that integrates engineering and physical science core ideas. As a culminating engineering design challenge, the SLIDER curriculum asks students to apply their understanding of energy, motion, and forces to design an automatic braking system for a robotic truck. The paper describes the curriculum and synthesizes findings from an array of data sources including student design interviews, written design recommendations, engineering notebooks, pre-and post-assessments, and teacher interviews to address two research questions: (1) To what extent and in what ways do students participating in the SLIDER curriculum engage in NGSS engineering DCIs: defining problems, developing solutions, and optimizing solutions? (2) To what extent and in what ways do students draw upon their understanding of science concepts as they engage in engineering design? Findings indicate variations in the degree to which students participating in the SLIDER curriculum engaged across the three NGSS engineering DCIs, with students generally demonstrating competency with regard to identifying and delimiting the engineering problem (ETS1.A) and, to varying degrees, developing solutions (ETS1.B) but experiencing more challenges engaging in the optimization of design solutions (ETS1.C). Findings also illustrate the degree to which students were able to apply their knowledge of relevant physical science core ideas (e.g., friction, force) as they developed and communicated their solutions. Implications of the findings for instruction, curriculum development, and assessment are discussed.
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC sin... more She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and has been with CEISMC since 1996 developing and managing university-K-12 educational partnership programs. She currently leads up a team of educators and educational researchers who are exploring how to integrate science, mathematics and engineering within authentic school contexts and researching the nature of the resultant student learning Paper ID #12315
Proceedings of the 7th Usenix Conference on Offensive Technologies, Aug 13, 2013
We discuss our tools and techniques to monitor and inject packets in Bluetooth Low Energy. Also k... more We discuss our tools and techniques to monitor and inject packets in Bluetooth Low Energy. Also known as BTLE or Bluetooth Smart, it is found in recent high-end smartphones, sports devices, sensors, and will soon appear in many medical devices. We show that we can effectively render useless the encryption of any Bluetooth Low Energy link.
Comparison of two images of the same object or phenomenon taken some time apart is a bit complica... more Comparison of two images of the same object or phenomenon taken some time apart is a bit complicated due to fact that, there may be sensor variation, illumination variation, non-uniform attenuation, atmospheric absorption or any other environmental effects which may render some changes. That eventually makes it quite difficult to achieve a good compression rate in terms of any prediction based approach. That's why optimizing the functional relation between two distinct time satellite image is the basic and prerequisite for many studies in the sequential transmission of remote sensed data. Shannon's entropy represents an absolute limit on the best possible lossless compression of any communication. In the sequential transmission of the remote sensed data the images will be available frequently, so we need to achieve the lowest entropy of the data to be sent. We want to have an optimization process that will minimize the residual entropy of any regression based prediction approach. Minimizing the entropy of the residual for any prediction will in fact make the residual symbol's probability as independent as possible (decor related). In this paper we have used simple linear model to be optimized by the modified objective function of entropy minimization rather that sum square based least square approach. We have used brute force search or exhaustive search for the optimization process. Considering our objective function, optimization search techniques like Simulated Annealing, Tabu search, Genetic algorithm, Cross Entropy method are the best candidates for this procedure. From the experimental results we can easily differentiate our procedure from the SSE based regression analysis. In fact in most of the cases of the image pairs our optimization method achieves lower entropy than that of the least square regression analysis.
In this paper, a selective data compression scheme is developed to combine the need for efficient... more In this paper, a selective data compression scheme is developed to combine the need for efficient data transmission and the receivers' interest in changes presented in the data by taking the advantage of previous data. Remote sensed images, especially hyperspectral images, require considerable storage capacity and transmission bandwidth, which continues to challenge the capabilities of available technologies.
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Papers by Mike Ryan