Using Case-Based Reasoning in Instructional Planning.Towards a Hybrid Self-improving Instructional P
This paper presents a new approach, based on the Case-Based Reasoning technique, which is useful to enhance Intelligent Tutoring Systems with learning abilities. Case-Based Reasoning is a recent paradigm for problem solving that has an inherent learning capability. So we integrate a Case-Based Instructional Planner within existing Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) to enhance the pedagogical component with learning capabilities. In this way, the enhanced tutors combine the Case-Based Instruction
Aspects of Speech Act Categorisation: Towards Generating Teachers' Language
In this paper we examine a possible method for classifying speech acts produced by human teachers, with a view of informing the designs of intelligent natural language tutors and of providing the basis for a formal analysis of the effects that teachers' language has on students' learning. We argue that traditional means as initiated by the Ordinary Language Philosophers such as Austin (1962), Grice (1975) and Searle (1979) are not sufficient to account for all types of linguistic phenomena occur
Learning a New Game: Usability, Gender and Education
This research study aims to investigate the usability issues of a computer game; regarding how people learn a new game. Because the user characteristic and the strategies they use while learning a new tool are important factors for usability, they were also taken into account in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the study. 16 participants played the computer game. They were also observed and their eye-movements were recorded by an eye tracking device. Results show
Learning History by Playing a Mobile City Game
Digital games seem to be excellent tools for facilitating and supporting situated learning. This unbinding of knowledge from a specific context fosters its transfer to new problems and new domains. Additionally, childrenÂ’s attitude towards computer games is the very attitude we would like all our learners to have. Therefore, it makes sense to try to merge the content of learning and the motivation of games. The objectives of this paper are to generate insights into the practicalities and the ef
Mainstreaming AIED into Education?
What will Education look like in 2010, and what will be its problems? Will AIED have anything substantial to offer, and what can we do to maximise its contributions? We argue that Education is, for understandable reasons, the discipline of classroom teaching and learning, with some attention paid to learning by individuals but very little indeed to teaching that is effective in a one-to-one situation. Further, it is not strong in formulating precise theories of learning and teaching. It is there
Combining Knowledge Awareness and Information Filtering in an Open-ended Collaborative Learning Envi
Knowledge awareness (KA) has been proposed to increase collaboration opportunities in an open ended and collaborative learning environment. To encourage collaboration, an individual userâs agent called KA-Agent autonomously informs the learner about up-to-the-minute activities from other learners. For instance, a message might be ãsomeone is looking at the same knowledge that you are looking at.ä Although this message, called active KA, is very useful to create real-time collaboration, a larg
ActiveMath: A Generic and Adaptive Web-Based Learning Environment
ActiveMath is a generic web-based learning system that dynamically generates interactive (mathematical) courses adapted to the student's goals, preferences, capabilities, and knowledge. The content is presented in a semantic XML-based format. For each user, the appropriate content is retrieved from a knowledge base and the course is generated individually according to pedagogical rules. Then the course is presented to the user via a standard web-browser. One of the exceptional features of Active
ELM-ART: An Adaptive Versatile System for Web-based Instruction
This paper discusses the problems of developing versatile adaptive and intelligent learning systems that can be used in the context of practical Web-based education. We argue that versatility is an important feature of successful Web-based education systems. We introduce ELM-ART, an intelligent interactive educational system to support learning programming in LISP. ELM-ART provides all learning material online in the form of an adaptive interactive textbook. Using a combination of an overlay mod
Methodological Issues in the Content Analysis of Computer Conference Transcripts
This paper discusses the potential and the methodological challenges of analyzing computer conference transcripts using quantitative content analysis. The paper is divided into six sections, which discuss: criteria for content analysis, research designs, types of content, units of analysis, ethical issues, and software to aid analysis. The discussion is supported with a survey of 19 commonly referenced studies published during the last decade. The paper is designed to assist researchers in using
Analysing Educational Dialogue Interaction: Towards Models that Support Learning
The motivation for this special issue on analysing dialogue interaction was provided by the one-day workshop with the same title held at AI-Ed '99 in Le Mans. From this workshop a number of common themes and issues emerged. The call for papers for this special issue was based around these themes:
* valid and reliable approaches to identifying dialogue structures and features
* the role of dialogue in learning as evidenced by dialogue analysis
* computational models of dialogue in Intelligent Edu
An Intelligent SQL Tutor on the Web
The paper presents SQLT-Web, a Web-enabled intelligent tutoring system for the SQL database language. SQLT-Web is a Web-enabled version of an earlier, standalone ITS. In this paper we describe how the components of the standalone system were reused to develop the Web-enabled system. The system observes students' actions and adapts to their knowledge and learning abilities. We describe the system's architecture in comparison to the architectures of other existing Web-enabled tutors. All tutoring
MArCo: Building an Artificial Conflict Mediator to Support Group Planning Interactions
The emphasis on building co-operative/collaborative environments has brought out the matter of group interactions. This, in its turn, has highlighted the issue of conflicts, inherent to group problem solving. If well employed, conflicts can act as triggers of cognitive changes, and thus help to refine the group's solution to the task. In this paper, we present a computational framework for detecting and mediating Meta-Cognitive conflicts. The theoretical framework presented here enables a comput
Going Beyond the Problem Given: How Human Tutors Use Post-Solution Discussions to Support Transfer
Two studies investigated the role and effectiveness of post-solution, reflective dialogues in physics tutorials. The first study investigated the instructional roles of post-solution discussions, their relationship to problem-solving discussions, and features that predict learning. Seven tutors individually guided 15 students as they worked on problems in the Andes physics tutoring system. Tutors adapted the post-solution discussions to students' ability levels and their performance on the curre
Care - Making the Affective Leap: More Than a Concerned Interest in a Learner's Cognitive Abilities
This commentary addresses the issues of 'care' in intelligent learning systems more precisely, elaborating and extending the definition to include recent research from neuroscience and education on the affective aspects of learning. It reflects on the association of profound empathy with care and in what ways the systems described in this issue illustrate features of profound empathy. It concludes that though they all include some features of profound empathy they all lack an elaborate definitio
An Intelligent Tutoring System for Entity Relationship Modelling
The paper presents KERMIT, a Knowledge-based Entity Relationship Modelling Intelligent Tutor. KERMIT is a problem-solving environment for the university-level students, in which they can practise conceptual database design using the Entity-Relationship data model. KERMIT uses Constraint-Based Modelling (CBM) to model the domain knowledge and generate student models. We have used CBM previously in tutors that teach SQL and English punctuation rules. The research presented in this paper is signifi
Looking Ahead to Select Tutorial Actions: A Decision-Theoretic Approach
We propose and evaluate a decision-theoretic approach for selecting tutorial actions by looking ahead to anticipate their effects on the student and other aspects of the tutorial state. The approach uses a dynamic decision network to consider the tutor’s uncertain beliefs and objectives in adapting to and managing the changing tutorial state. Prototype action selection engines for diverse domains – calculus and elementary reading – illustrate the approach. These applications employ a rich mod
Confronting ideas in collaborative scientific discovery learning
This study investigated how collaborative knowledge construction within a scientific discovery (or inquiry)learning environment can be assisted with tools that aim to support studentsÂ’ proposition generation and testing
processes. Sixty-six fourth year pre-university education students participated in a kinematics learning task. The instructional goal of the learning activity was to develop studentsÂ’ understanding of one dimensional kinematics. All students completed a proposition test in whic
A Collaborative Case Study System For Distance Learning
Distance Learning from Case Studies involves enabling collaboration between two or more learners at a distance on a case study activity. In this paper we present an empirical qualitative study that simulates a learning scenario in which a pair of subjects at a distance are provided with a collaborative learning environment and required to collaborate in order to solve a case study. The results of this empirical qualitative study have implications that informed the design of a system: LeCS (Learn
Email use in elementary school: An analysis of exchange patterns and content
E-mail was embedded in a project in design & technology education in elementary school. During four lessons children worked in groups on building a flying object. These groups communicated through e-mail with groups of children from another school. The analyses of the e-mails, as viewed from distributed cognition theory, focus on the exchange patterns and content. Two characteristic exchange patterns are stacking and compounding. In stacking e-mails are sent out quickly enough to afford a ‘just
ZAPs: Using interactive programs for learning psychology
ZAPs are short, self-contained computer programs that encourage students to experience psychological phenomena in a vivid, self-explanatory way, and that are meant to evoke enthousiasm about psychological topics. ZAPs were designed according to principles that originate from experiential and discovery learning theories. The interactive approach that is offered invites students to engage in subject matter through exploration, experience, and discovery of psychology. In an empirical study the effe
