Papers by Kalliopi (Pepy) Meli
arXiv (Cornell University), Feb 12, 2024
The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) in education presents a transformative approach to traditiona... more The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) in education presents a transformative approach to traditional teaching methodologies, which often overlook the diverse needs of individual students. This study introduces a GenAI tool, based on advanced natural language processing, designed as a digital assistant for educators, enabling the creation of customized lesson plans. The tool utilizes an innovative feature termed 'interactive mega-prompt,' a comprehensive query system that allows educators to input detailed classroom specifics such as student demographics, learning objectives, and preferred teaching styles. This input is then processed by the GenAI to generate tailored lesson plans. To evaluate the tool's effectiveness, a comprehensive methodology incorporating both quantitative (i.e., % of time savings) and qualitative (i.e., user satisfaction) criteria was implemented, spanning various subjects and educational levels, with continuous feedback collected from educators through a structured evaluation form. Preliminary results show that educators find the GenAIgenerated lesson plans effective, significantly reducing lesson planning time and enhancing the learning experience by accommodating diverse student needs. This AI-driven approach signifies a paradigm shift in education, suggesting its potential applicability in broader educational contexts, including special education needs (SEN), where individualized attention and specific learning aids are paramount.
The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) in education presents a transformative approach to traditiona... more The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) in education presents a transformative approach to traditional teaching methodologies, which often overlook the diverse needs of individual students. This study introduces a GenAI tool, based on advanced natural language processing, designed as a digital assistant for educators, enabling the creation of customized lesson plans. The tool utilizes an innovative feature termed 'interactive mega-prompt,' a comprehensive query system that allows educators to input detailed classroom specifics such as student demographics, learning objectives, and preferred teaching styles. This input is then processed by the GenAI to generate tailored lesson plans. To evaluate the tool's effectiveness, a comprehensive methodology incorporating both quantitative (i.e., % of time savings) and qualitative (i.e., user satisfaction) criteria was implemented, spanning various subjects and educational levels, with continuous feedback collected from educators through a structured evaluation form. Preliminary results show that educators find the GenAIgenerated lesson plans effective, significantly reducing lesson planning time and enhancing the learning experience by accommodating diverse student needs. This AI-driven approach signifies a paradigm shift in education, suggesting its potential applicability in broader educational contexts, including special education needs (SEN), where individualized attention and specific learning aids are paramount.
The aim of this doctoral dissertation is the design, the implementation and the evaluation of a t... more The aim of this doctoral dissertation is the design, the implementation and the evaluation of a teaching and learning sequence for the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT) addressing the students of the upper secondary school, in the context of the constructivist approach for the science curriculum. It is a feasibility research that is conducted at the levels of analysis, design and implementation-evaluation.The analysis level integrates the epistemological analysis of the macroscopic thermodynamics framework for the FLT, the analysis of the students’ mental representations of the FLT and the analysis of the pedagogical framework of the constructivist approach for the science curriculum. The conclusions from the analysis level formulate the teaching and learning objectives of the sequence. The design level includes the articulation of the teaching and learning objectives in reference to the structure and the content of the sequence. These are cognitive objectives that mainly address th...
Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school science cl... more Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school science classes are important not only for students who will pursue studies and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) but also for the scientific literacy of the 21st-century citizen. This case study presents a physics teachers' webinar series for a STEM-oriented constructivist approach of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school. The pre- and during-webinar results indicated that physics teachers, to a great extent, lacked the epistemological and pedagogical knowledge that would allow them to overcome the traditional instruction restrictions and yet they were very eager to incorporate STEM-oriented constructivist components in their upcoming classes. Post-webinar results confirmed this inceptive conclusion, as teachers expressed their intention to adopt many of the training program suggestions for the development of new thermodynamics teaching and lear...
Ο στόχος της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η σχεδίαση, η εφαρμογή και η αξιολόγηση μιας δ... more Ο στόχος της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η σχεδίαση, η εφαρμογή και η αξιολόγηση μιας διδακτικής ακολουθίας για τη διδασκαλία και τη μάθηση του Πρώτου Θερμοδυναμικού Νόμου (ΠΘΝ) σε μαθητές της Β’ Λυκείου, στο πλαίσιο της εποικοδομητικής αντίληψης για το αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα των φυσικών επιστημών. Πρόκειται για μια έρευνα εφικτότητας, η οποία διενεργείται στα επίπεδα της ανάλυσης, του σχεδιασμού και της εφαρμογής-αξιολόγησης. Το επίπεδο της ανάλυσης περιλαμβάνει την επιστημολογική ανάλυση του πλαισίου της μακροσκοπικής θερμοδυναμικής για τον ΠΘΝ, την ανάλυση των νοητικών παραστάσεων των μαθητών για τον ΠΘΝ και την ανάλυση των στοιχείων του παιδαγωγικού πλαισίου για την εποικοδομητική αντίληψη του αναλυτικού προγράμματος των φυσικών επιστημών. Τα πορίσματα από την ανάλυση διαμορφώνουν τους διδακτικούς στόχους της ακολουθίας. Το επίπεδο του σχεδιασμού περιλαμβάνει τη διατύπωση των διδακτικών στόχων σε συνάρτηση με τη δομή και το περιεχόμενο της ακολουθίας. Οι στόχοι αυτοί είνα...
This study investigates the predictive value of high school physics achievement on university phy... more This study investigates the predictive value of high school physics achievement on university physics department selection, amid concerns of declining enrollment in the field globally. Through a longitudinal analysis of secondary students in Greece, the research reveals that early performance in physics, notably from Grade 10, significantly correlates with students' inclination toward a physics major, highlighting the formative role of a 'physics identity'. The findings show that students' physics scores surpass their general GPA as they approach university, with Grade 12 emerging as a critical period where those aiming for physics departments excel. The study advocates for leveraging these insights to inform educational strategies and suggests further research into predictive models and the impact of demographic factors on students' trajectories in science education.
Science & Education, 2021
Teaching and learning introductory thermodynamics has drawn considerable research attention over ... more Teaching and learning introductory thermodynamics has drawn considerable research attention over the last two decades, especially in several disciplines of higher education. Under particular investigation is the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT), which offers an expression of energy conservation in thermodynamic systems, as the evidence shows that students struggle with this fundamental principle. At the upper secondary education level, existing research on this issue is rather limited. This study is concerned with the above, presenting epistemological and cognitive perspectives on the FLT and, based on these, proposes a constructivist approach for its teaching and learning. We place a special focus on the meaningful bridging between thermodynamic processes and a suitable constructivist model (Energy Chain Model) that can accurately describe the mathematical expressions of the First Law. To accomplish this, we implemented a teaching and learning sequence (12 45-min lessons) in the second year of the upper secondary school (ages 16–17). A significant part of the sequence (six lessons in 2 weeks) employed a model-based educational simulation (Ideal Gas Educational Simulation), which was designed and developed for this particular purpose. In this study (N = 19), the results indicated gradual improvement in students’ representations of thermodynamic processes, wherein they were able to more accurately describe these processes in terms of energy chains and mathematical expressions of the First Law. Some barriers that students could not seamlessly bypass were detected, which are in line with the findings of the existing literature for tertiary education students.
ICERI Proceedings, 2020
The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that affect the rate at which experts resp... more The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that affect the rate at which experts respond to questions on Community Question-Answering (CQA) platforms. While the pertinent literature mostly focuses on large-scale, CQA platforms with generic content, we explore the education-oriented small-scale platform "100mentors" in order to more efficiently explore experts' behavior toward student questioning. We approach this field in terms of virtual environment, students' questions, and experts' personal motives in order to identify the factors that affect experts' activity on such platforms. To pursue our research objective, we designed, implemented, and evaluated a pilot survey informed by a review of the relevant literature. In this study, we present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of this survey (N=9). Our pilot survey results suggested that the most prevailing factors for providing answers were related to experts' personal motives and, more explicitly, to their intention to assist young students. Concerning experts' perceptions of students' questions, the most important factor determining the response rate was a question's relevance to each expert's field of expertise. In line with this finding, another factor that arose is that experts found it important for the CQA platform to support filtering features. The pilot survey outcomes are consistent with previous findings and indicate that this research tool is a proper basis for the development of our final survey.
Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education, 2016
The present study refers to second year (16-17 years old) upper secondary school students’ concep... more The present study refers to second year (16-17 years old) upper secondary school students’ conceptions on elementary thermodynamics and especially the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT). This paper focuses on students’ explanations of a real situation representing an adiabatic compression and their forms of reasoning in providing explanations. We used descriptive statistics and hierarchical cluster analysis in order to process students’ answers. The main results were that (a) the vast majority of the responses consisted of alternative frameworks, namely FLT is highly disregarded among the students, (b) the students provided confused explanations that entangle diverse physics models and/or referred to the phenomenology of the situation and (c) linear causal reasoning was the prevailing way for providing explanations, although it was inadequate for this physics level.
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2019
The present study refers to the design principles of an educational simulation for the introducto... more The present study refers to the design principles of an educational simulation for the introductory physics level and their application on a recently developed simulation (IGasES: Ideal Gas Educational Simulation) for classical thermodynamics and specifically for the First Law of Thermodynamics. These principles rely on three modeling aspects (physics teaching, learning and educational simulations) and their convergence for the construction of a model-based educational simulation. The study also reviews some of the issues that commonly used simulations encounter for the teaching and learning of this topic. For addressing these issues, we choose the energy chain model as a proper representation of a thermodynamic system for mediating between the phenomenology and the mathematical expression of the First Law. In conclusion, this study draws attention on the characteristics of the educational software rather than the way they are put in use and also to the modeling procedures than can ...
Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 2015
This article presents a case study that examines the level of integration of mathematical knowled... more This article presents a case study that examines the level of integration of mathematical knowledge in physics problem solving among first grade students of upper secondary school. We explore the ways in which two specific students utilize their knowledge and we attempt to identify the epistemological framings they refer to while solving a physics problem. Participant observation was used for data collection, and the students' verbal interactions were videorecorded. The analysis shows that they tend to use a wide spectrum of epistemological framings that entangle mathematics and physics but at the same time face significant practical difficulties in modulating the two subjects. RÉSUMÉ Cet article présente une étude de cas qui analyse le niveau d'intégration des savoirs mathématiques appliqués à la résolution de problèmes de physique chez des élèves en première année du deuxième cycle au secondaire. Nous nous penchons sur les façons dont deux étudiants en particulier se servent de leurs connaissances et nous tentons de déterminer les cadres épistémologiques auxquels ils font référence pour la résolution d'un problème de physique. Nous avons observé les participants pour recueillir les données, et filmé sur vidéo leurs interactions verbales. L'analyse montre qu'ils utilisent un large éventail de cadres épistémologiques qui mélangent les mathématiques et la physique, mais aussi qu'ils font face à de sérieuses difficultés d'ordre pratique lorsqu'il s'agit de moduler les deux sujets.
ICERI Proceedings, 2020
The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that affect the rate at which experts resp... more The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that affect the rate at which experts respond to questions on Community Question-Answering (CQA) platforms. While the pertinent literature mostly focuses on large-scale, CQA platforms with generic content, we explore the education-oriented small-scale platform "100mentors" in order to more efficiently explore experts' behavior toward student questioning. We approach this field in terms of virtual environment, students' questions, and experts' personal motives in order to identify the factors that affect experts' activity on such platforms. To pursue our research objective, we designed, implemented, and evaluated a pilot survey informed by a review of the relevant literature. In this study, we present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of this survey (N=9). Our pilot survey results suggested that the most prevailing factors for providing answers were related to experts' personal motives and, more explicitly, to their intention to assist young students. Concerning experts' perceptions of students' questions, the most important factor determining the response rate was a question's relevance to each expert's field of expertise. In line with this finding, another factor that arose is that experts found it important for the CQA platform to support filtering features. The pilot survey outcomes are consistent with previous findings and indicate that this research tool is a proper basis for the development of our final survey.
Electronic Journal of e-Learning
This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational commu... more This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational community question-answering (CQA) platforms. Providing answers is essential for sharing knowledge on CQA platforms, but it also affects learners’ progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors correlate with each other to form a “map” of experts’ respective behavior. We examined experts’ perceptions of three dimensions: the CQA platform’s usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions. We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect them with the experts’ perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that...
Electronic Journal of e-Learning
This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational commu... more This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational community question-answering (CQA) platforms. Providing answers is essential for sharing knowledge on CQA platforms, but it also affects learners’ progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors correlate with each other to form a “map” of experts’ respective behavior. We examined experts’ perceptions of three dimensions: the CQA platform’s usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions. We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect them with the experts’ perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that...
Journal article, 2022
This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational commu... more This study explores the factors that influence experts’ regular contribution to educational community questionanswering (CQA) platforms. Providing answers is essential for sharing knowledge on CQA platforms, but it also affects
learners’ progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to
explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors
correlate with each other to form a “map” of experts’ respective behavior. We examined experts’ perceptions of three
dimensions: the CQA platform’s usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions.
We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect
them with the experts’ perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors
web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that addresses learning communities around the world, and we conducted a
survey for their registered experts (N=126). The factorial structure indicated that experts first perceived the question quality
mostly based on its relevance to their expertise or experience (question quality); secondly, that their intention to answer
was mainly set by their motives to make a difference for the learner and partially by the user-friendliness of the platform
(added value of answering and CQA platform’s usability); and finally, that their actions were connected to the regular use of
the platform for answer-sharing (CQA platform’s usability). A future research challenge is to test the factorial structure in
large-scale educational CQA platforms. The further confirmation of the expert behavior pattern can have a practical
implication for the platforms to guide their expert community more efficiently and for the learners to pursue their learning
through progressive inquiry.
Low enrolment in undergraduate level physics programmes has drawn the attention of the relevant d... more Low enrolment in undergraduate level physics programmes has drawn the attention of the relevant disciplines, education policy-makers, and researchers worldwide. Many reports released during the previous decades attempt to identify the factors that attract young people to study science, but only few of them focus explicitly on physics. In Greece, in contrast to many other countries, physics departments are overflowing with young students. However, there are two categories of students: those for whom physics was the optimal choice of a programme (“choosers”) and those for whom physics was an alternative choice that they had to settle for. We suggest that the latter category be called “nearly-choosers,” in order to be differentiated from choosers as well as from “non-choosers,” namely those candidates that did not apply to a physics programme at all. We are interested in the factors that attract high school students to study physics and the differences (if any) between choosers and nea...
Mediterranean Journal of Education, 2021
Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school science cl... more Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school science classes are important not only for students who will pursue studies and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) but also for the scientific literacy of the 21st-century citizen. This case study presents a physics teachers’ webinar series for a STEM-oriented constructivist approach of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school. The pre- and during-webinar results indicated that physics teachers, to a great extent, lacked the epistemological and pedagogical knowledge that would allow them to overcome the traditional instruction restrictions and yet they were very eager to incorporate STEM-oriented constructivist components in their upcoming classes. Post-webinar results confirmed this inceptive conclusion, as teachers expressed their intention to adopt many of the training program suggestions for the development of new thermodynamics teaching and learning sequences.
Mediterranean Journal of Education, 2021
ABSTRACT Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school s... more ABSTRACT Efficient teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school science classes are important not only for students who will pursue studies and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) but also for the scientific literacy of the 21st- century citizen. This case study presents a physics teachers’ webinar series for a STEM-oriented constructivist approach of elementary thermodynamics in upper secondary school. The pre- and during-webinar results indicated that physics teachers, to a great extent, lacked the epistemological and pedagogical knowledge that would allow them to overcome the traditional instruction restrictions and yet they were very eager to incorporate STEM-oriented constructivist components in their upcoming classes. Post-webinar results confirmed this inceptive conclusion, as teachers expressed their intention to adopt many of the training program suggestions for the development of new thermodynamics teaching and learning sequences.
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Papers by Kalliopi (Pepy) Meli
learners’ progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to
explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors
correlate with each other to form a “map” of experts’ respective behavior. We examined experts’ perceptions of three
dimensions: the CQA platform’s usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions.
We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect
them with the experts’ perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors
web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that addresses learning communities around the world, and we conducted a
survey for their registered experts (N=126). The factorial structure indicated that experts first perceived the question quality
mostly based on its relevance to their expertise or experience (question quality); secondly, that their intention to answer
was mainly set by their motives to make a difference for the learner and partially by the user-friendliness of the platform
(added value of answering and CQA platform’s usability); and finally, that their actions were connected to the regular use of
the platform for answer-sharing (CQA platform’s usability). A future research challenge is to test the factorial structure in
large-scale educational CQA platforms. The further confirmation of the expert behavior pattern can have a practical
implication for the platforms to guide their expert community more efficiently and for the learners to pursue their learning
through progressive inquiry.
learners’ progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to
explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors
correlate with each other to form a “map” of experts’ respective behavior. We examined experts’ perceptions of three
dimensions: the CQA platform’s usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions.
We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect
them with the experts’ perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors
web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that addresses learning communities around the world, and we conducted a
survey for their registered experts (N=126). The factorial structure indicated that experts first perceived the question quality
mostly based on its relevance to their expertise or experience (question quality); secondly, that their intention to answer
was mainly set by their motives to make a difference for the learner and partially by the user-friendliness of the platform
(added value of answering and CQA platform’s usability); and finally, that their actions were connected to the regular use of
the platform for answer-sharing (CQA platform’s usability). A future research challenge is to test the factorial structure in
large-scale educational CQA platforms. The further confirmation of the expert behavior pattern can have a practical
implication for the platforms to guide their expert community more efficiently and for the learners to pursue their learning
through progressive inquiry.