Facilitating teacher participation in intelligent computer tutor design : tools and design methods.

This work addresses the widening gap between research in intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) and practical use of this technology by the educational community. In order to ensure that ITSs are effective, teachers must be involved in their design and evaluation. We have followed a user participatory design process to build a set of ITS knowledge acquisition tools that facilitate rapid prototyping and testing of curriculum, and are tailored for usability by teachers. The system (called KAFITS) also serves as a test-bed for experimentation with multiple tutoring strategies. The design includes novel methodologies for tutoring strategy representation (Parameterized Action Networks) and overlay student modeling (a layered student model), and incorporates considerations from instructional design theory. It also allows for considerable student control over the content and style of the information presented. Highly interactive graphics-based tools were built to facilitate design, inspection, and modification of curriculum and tutoring strategies, and to monitor the progress of the tutoring session. Evaluation of the system includes a sixteen-month case study of three educators (one being the domain expert) using the system to build a tutor for statics (forty topics representing about four hours of on-line instruction), testing the tutor on a dozen students, and using test results to iteratively improve the tutor. Detailed throughput analysis indicates that the amount of effort to build the statics tutor was, surprisingly, comparable to similar figures for building (non-intelligent) conventional computer aided instructional systems. Few ITS projects focus on educator participation and this work is the first to empirically study knowledge acquisition for ITSs. Results of the study also include: a recommended design process for building ITSs with educator participation; guidelines for training educators; recommendations for conducting knowledge acquisition sessions; and design tradeoffs for knowledge representation architectures and knowledge acquisition interfaces

Attentional Guidance and Media Presentation during Explicit Instruction

While much is known about how certain types of images influence learning in multimedia educational systems, comparatively little work has been done on how different image types compare to each other in terms of the types of knowledge conveyed and transfer of knowledge. Two popular types of media found in many multimedia environments, pictures and concept maps, are capable of blending verbal information (such as in picture labels or node/link labels) and visual information (such as structural information) into a single image, which may result in increased exposure to vocabulary (improving learning) or may create split attention (decreasing learning). Both types can also be presented using animation techniques, although questions remain as to whether animation always improves learning in different kinds of media. This study explores media differences and animation techniques in two experiments, both of which utilize Khan Academy lessons as the basis for the multimedia presentation. In the first experiment, a 2x2 between-subjects design was utilized to examine different media types (labeled pictures vs. concept maps) and animation (animated vs. static). The results of this study indicate that animation improves relational knowledge and free recall scores, but an animation x media type interaction indicates that animated pictures are not very effective for conveying conceptual knowledge. In Study 2, a 2x2 between-subjects experiment dove deeper into the function of labels by examining how animation (animated vs. static) and labels (present vs. absent) interact, as both may be attention directing devises. It was found that animation and prior knowledge both had consistent effects on learning, where those with high prior knowledge did not gain as much from viewing an animated presentation as those with low prior knowledge did, but labels had minimal effects on learning. In all, research indicates that different media should be used depending on the educational goals, animation may be particularly helpful for low prior knowledge students, and labels are not necessarily helpful for learning when the same information is presented orally