The research in this dissertation consists of two parts: An active learning algorithm for hierarchical labels and an embedding-based retrieval algorithm. In the first part, we present a new approach for learning hierarchically decomposable concepts. The approach learns a high-level classifier (e.g., location vs. non-location) by separately…

In this dissertation I explore instructors' work with instructional tasks as they plan to introduce various representations of derivatives. Drawing on the notion of "framing" from sociology, I adopt a situative lens to study calculus instructors' planning of instructional tasks. I rely on Herbst and Chazan's (2012) notion of…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine attitude and achievement among fifth grade students participating in inquiry and lecture-based forms of instruction through interactive television. Participants (N = 260) were drawn from registered users of NASA's Digital Learning Network[TM]. The first three levels of Bloom's Revised…

The fields of pattern recognition and machine learning are on a fundamental quest to design systems that can learn the way humans do. One important aspect of human intelligence that has so far not been given sufficient attention is the capability of humans to express when they are certain about a decision, or when they are not. Machine learning…