Unexpected Pairings Week 6: Education
February 28, 2026
001 Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Building
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
"AI-support for teaching and learning at scale"
Presented by Matthew Beckman, associate research professor of statistics
The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and large language models (LLMs) has sparked dramatic changes to the landscape of post-secondary education resulting in new opportunities—and obligations—to re-evaluate norms for teaching and learning. This presentation includes a brief overview with perspective about rethinking assessment practices—i.e., how student learning is evaluated—during a period of such rapidly evolving technology. The session then transitions to sharing greater detail about ongoing research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, and a strategic partnership between Penn State and the University of Auckland in New Zealand, which seeks to develop LLM and AI-based tools intended to amplify instructor efforts to provide timely, personalized feedback to open-ended questions during class, especially for use in large classes (hundreds of students) at scales for which the logistics of doing so would be either untenable or impossible without a teacher-AI partnership. To this end, Beckman will also discuss how his team has approached evaluating performance of the tools they develop in order to build trust and confidence that they make a responsible contribution to the teaching team.
Speaker Bio:
Matthew Beckman is an associate research professor in the Department of Statistics and holds a doctoral degree in muantitative Methods in education with an emphasis on statistics education. Matt is currently Executive Director of the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (www.causeweb.org) and recently received the Waller Education Award from the American Statistical Association in recognition of excellence in teaching introductory statistics and data science courses. His research interests include statistics and data science education, especially where these fields intersect with assessment development and educational measurement.
"The importance of self-regulated learning in the undergraduate STEM classroom"
Presented by Jennelle Malcos, associate dean for undergraduate education
While content understanding often appears to be the driver of success in STEM course, a student’s ability to effectively learn content, evaluate their knowledge, stay motivated, and manage their schedule are all fundamental components in this process and are referred to as self-regulated learning (SRL). Self-regulated learners are more successful in their coursework, have higher satisfaction in their education, and are, ultimately, lifelong learners. In this presentation, Malcos will provide a general overview of education research leading to her work in SRL with collaborator Rayne Sperling, professor of education. The presentation will then transition to recent work focused on the Success through SRL (StSRL) framework developed at Penn State and its use of an instructor-driven SRL intervention in several courses supported by the Eberly College of Science including Introductory Biology and Physics. Results from several studies supported by the National Science Foundation will be presented and explored, several exciting future directions including the use of artificial intelligence in growing students’ SRL skills will be introduced.
Speaker Bio:
Jennelle Malcos is the associate dean for undergraduate education and a full teaching professor of biology in the Eberly College of Science. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Canisius College, in New York, and a doctoral degree in plant physiology (with a cell biology focus) at Penn State. Her experience teaching in large, introductory biology courses prompted Malcos to explore how to better help students learn and lead to her collaboration with Rayne Sperling, professor of education starting in 2017. She has worked with Sperling to not only integrate self-regulated learning into her courses but to actively explore the role of SRL in STEM courses through a research lens. In addition to this work, Malcos was honored with the Atherton Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2015 for her efforts and was the past assistant director for the Grove Center for Excellence in Science Education leading the Learning Assistant program in the Eberly College of Science.