Constructivism-Based Methodology for Teaching Artificial Intelligence Topics Focused on Sustainable Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I do not agree the statement ‘Even though AI has a promising future in teaching, there are hardly any support materials for students to develop practical skills for the programming of AI techniques.’ Public free AI courses such as coursera among many others offer the free online courses, and even video lectures on youtube provide the same opportunity.
In addition, python is a more popular method compared to Matlab for AI research, ‘The proposed course aimed to encourage the students to perform practical implementations in Matlab’.
The abstract has too many context for the background, while the results and conclusion in the abstract are too slim and should be expanded.
Author Response
I do not agree the statement ‘Even though AI has a promising future in teaching, there are hardly any support materials for students to develop practical skills for the programming of AI techniques.’ Public free AI courses such as coursera among many others offer the free online courses, and even video lectures on youtube provide the same opportunity.
A: Thank you for your comments. We agree with your statement. Then, we rewrote the Abstract to be more clear. And the section Practical sessions we discuss the facility.
In addition, python is a more popular method compared to Matlab for AI research, ‘The proposed course aimed to encourage the students to perform practical implementations in Matlab’.
A: Thank you for your comments. We agree with your statement. Then, we rewrote the sentence as follows: There is a certain useful software for teaching AI techniques. For instance: Phyton, C#, C++, to mention a few. However, due to the time spent in the laboratory, the Matlab environment has been used since it has the functions to develop the workshop in the scholar period.
Although python is more popular in research, this is done largely based on previously developed libraries like Keras or Tensorflow, where the fundamental concepts of the ANN are hidden.
The abstract has too many context for the background, while the results and conclusion in the abstract are too slim and should be expanded.
A: Thank you for your comments. The Abstract has been rewritten as well as the Result and the Conclusions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Abstract.
The performed study is interesting but is not clear enough the novelty in the context of the state- of-the-art. There are not presented some concrete evaluation results.
Keywords
“ABET accreditation”
Avoid the using of acronyms in the keywords section. For instance, in the example from above, it is not clear what is the significance of ABET.
Page 1, line 31
“It is important to consider authors such as Piaget and Vygotsky for… “
There is not indicated any work of these authors.
At the end of introduction, section must be included the upcoming structure of the paper, by presenting briefly what subject is treated in each section.
The introduction section must be reorganized in paragraphs in order to better present the contribution.
“2. Background”
Extend the section name in order to be more expressive.
“2. Background”
At the beginning of the second section, before subsection 2.1 it must be indicated what subject is treated in each section. What is the reason for presenting classical subjects in this section?
“2.1. Multilayer Perceptron (MLP)”
Delete “(MLP)”. Avoid introducing acronyms in the title of section and subsections. Take this observation into consideration in the following.
……….
The actual conclusions section is appropriate as a discussion section. Such a discussion section is necessary.
The conclusion section must be short and concise.
The main problem with the paper is that on the obtained experimental evaluation is not applied the necessary statistics based on this fact cannot be formulated clear conclusions. Considering this aspect the paper could not be accepted in the actual form.
Author Response
The performed study is interesting but is not clear enough the novelty in the context of the state- of-the-art. There are not presented some concrete evaluation results.
A: Thank you for the review. The novelty of this paper is based on the constructivism methodology regarding AI and sustainable development, and moreover, it can be implemented in different majors. In Conclusion and in the Abstract Sections, we are discussing the novelty.
Keywords
“ABET accreditation”
Avoid the using of acronyms in the keywords section. For instance, in the example from above, it is not clear what is the significance of ABET.
A: Thank you for the comment. ABET accreditation is very important in this paper. Then, we define the way we are using it in the Introduction Section. But we remove ABET from the keyword list.
Page 1, line 31
“It is important to consider authors such as Piaget and Vygotsky for… “
There is not indicated any work of these authors.
A: Thank you for the review. Those authors are important in the pedagogical area. Then, in this version, we are citing [2] y [3] as a work of those authors.
Piaget, J. The psychology of intelligence. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield 1972. Vygotsky, L.S. Los procesos psicológicos superiores. El desarrollo de los procesos psicológicos superiores, Crítica, 1979.
At the end of introduction, section must be included the upcoming structure of the paper, by presenting briefly what subject is treated in each section.
A: Thank you for the observation. In the new version, we are indicating in the Introduction, what is going to be treated in each section.
The introduction section must be reorganized in paragraphs in order to better present the contribution.
A: Thank you for the observation. In the new version, we are highlighting the contribution in the Introduction Section.
“2. Background”
Extend the section name in order to be more expressive.
A: We expand the title of this Section to be more specific in the content that is presented: “Theory topics covered in the laboratory class”.
“2. Background”
At the beginning of the second section, before subsection 2.1 it must be indicated what subject is treated in each section. What is the reason for presenting classical subjects in this section?
A: Thank you for the review. We are indicating that the classical subjects are depicted because it is necessary that the reader, named student, take into account specific topics of AI. Then, we wrote:
“The following section briefly describes the theory of signal processing techniques used by students in the development of practices, as well as the theory of multilayer perceptron.”
“2.1. Multilayer Perceptron (MLP)”
Delete “(MLP)”. Avoid introducing acronyms in the title of section and subsections. Take this observation into consideration in the following.
A: Thank you for the review. We place your observation in the paper.
The actual conclusions section is appropriate as a discussion section. Such a discussion section is necessary.
A: Thank you for the review. We rewrote the Conclusion and the Discussion Sections.
The conclusion section must be short and concise.
A: Thank you for the review. We rewrote the Conclusion and the Discussion Sections.
The main problem with the paper is that on the obtained experimental evaluation is not applied the necessary statistics based on this fact cannot be formulated clear conclusions. Considering this aspect the paper could not be accepted in the actual form.
A: Thank you for the review. In this new version, we are discussing that the obtained experimental evaluation is based on statistics. Due to this, we rewrote the Conclusion and the Discussion Sections.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors address the comments.
Author Response
Thank you for your support
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Title
“….Artificial Intelligent……” -> “….Artificial Intelligence……”
Abstract
The abstract is slightly reformulated. It is mentioned some kind of novelty at a very general level, but this should be extended in order to put it in evidence in the context of the state-of-the-art. What is reported in the state-of-the-art, and what this paper brings new?
Section title
“2. Theory topics covered in the manual”
What manual?
“The following section briefly describes the theory of signal processing techniques used by students in the development of practices, as well as the theory of multilayer perceptron.”
It could be extended with some additional explanations in brief. It is a short description, but you mention a whole theory.
Section title
“3. Course description”
What course?
The first sentence in the section. “The course is composed of both theoretical and practical sessions.” What course?
The size of figure 2 could be increased. In the actual for it is not visible very well the text that it includes.
In the subsection
“3.1. Practical sessions”
The name of different parts can be outlined, for instance by italic (do not underline!). Names of parts: “Objective”, “Theory time”…..
In the section
“5. Discussion”
“…2015 and 2016 4.5; 2017 4.54; and 2018 4.63….”
It is better to reformulate, for instance taking “2018 4.63” to easier to identify that 2018 is the year and to identify “4.63” what is it.
In the last paragraph of the discussions section, must be included the year.
Where the reference list begun?
The references included in the list are acceptable. An improvement that could be made, not mandatory based on the specific of the paper is to extend it with some novel representative recent papers.
Author Response
Title
“….Artificial Intelligent……” -> “….Artificial Intelligence……”
A: Artificial intelligence is the right term. We are sorry for the confusion.
Abstract
The abstract is slightly reformulated. It is mentioned some kind of novelty at a very general level, but this should be extended in order to put it in evidence in the context of the state-of-the-art. What is reported in the state-of-the-art, and what this paper brings new?
A: Thank you for your observation. These sentences have been added to show the novelty of the work based on the state-of-the-art.
The novelty of this paper is based on the constructivism methodology regarding artificial intelligence and sustainable development… In this paper, it has been presented a methodology that can be adapted to certain academic programs. It does not matter the frequency of the subject. For instance, it can be implemented in summer or semestral period. Besides, the orientation of the senior project is to solve issues of the society and industry sustainably….
Also, Tables 4, 2, 3, and Figures 5 and 7 give evidence of the new methodology that works for different majors and taking the constructive model as a base. This has not been reported in the literature.
Section title
“2. Theory topics covered in the manual”
What manual?
A: Thank you for your observation. These, in the introduction we are mentioning the terminology: This article proposes the creation of a course based on a series of practical sessions... We change the word “manual” along the paper to avoid confusion.
“The following section briefly describes the theory of signal processing techniques used by students in the development of practices, as well as the theory of multilayer perceptron.”
It could be extended with some additional explanations in brief. It is a short description, but you mention a whole theory.
A: Thank you for your observation. We added the next statement: …signal processing is fundamental in most current systems. The rapid advance in computer science as well as hardware, has allowed the implementation of several ideas developed some centuries ago, for example, the Fourier Transform (FT).
Unlike synthetic signals, where the signal-to-noise ratio is a controlled parameter, signals present in nature as brain activity or vibrations in an engine present usually a low signal-to-noise ratio, with unwanted noises and interference which limits the learning process of a neural network. On the other hand
The type of signal will determine the processing that can be applied; that is, it will depend on whether they are multichannel, multidimensional, deterministic, random, continuous or discrete signals in the time domain.
In this work the signal processing proposed techniques in both, time and frequency domain, selecting those that, according to the literature, are signal processing techniques commonly used in the analysis of biomedical signals and signals from machine tools such as lathes and milling machines…
Section title
“3. Course description”
What course?
The first sentence in the section. “The course is composed of both theoretical and practical sessions.” What course?
A: Thank you for your observation. We are sorry for the confusion, in the introduction we are mentioning the terminology: This article proposes the creation of a course based on a series of practical sessions... We change the word “manual” along the paper to avoid confusion.
The size of figure 2 could be increased. In the actual for it is not visible very well the text that it includes.
A: Thank you for your comment. We resized F2.
In the subsection
“3.1. Practical sessions”
The name of different parts can be outlined, for instance by italic (do not underline!). Names of parts: “Objective”, “Theory time”…
A: Thank you for your suggestions. In the new version now is an italic style to highlight some parts.
In the section
“5. Discussion”
“…2015 and 2016 4.5; 2017 4.54; and 2018 4.63….”
It is better to reformulate, for instance taking “2018 4.63” to easier to identify that 2018 is the year and to identify “4.63” what is it.
In the last paragraph of the discussions section, must be included the year.
Where the reference list begun?
A: Thank you for your suggestions. This issue has been changed.
The references included in the list are acceptable. An improvement that could be made, not mandatory based on the specific of the paper is to extend it with some novel representative recent papers.
A: Thank you for your suggestions. In the new version, we included certain contemporary references.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
