Mechanix: An Intelligent Web Interface for Automatic Grading of Sketched Free-Body Diagrams

Sketching free body diagrams is an essential skill that students learn in introductory physics and engineering classes; however, university class sizes are growing and often have hundreds of students in a single class. This situation creates a grading challenge for instructors as there is simply not enough time nor resources to provide adequate feedback on every problem. We have developed a web-based application called Mechanix to provide automated real-time feedback on hand-drawn free body diagrams for students. The system is driven by novel sketch recognition algorithms developed for recognizing and comparing trusses, general shapes, and arrows in diagrams. We have discovered students perform as well as paper homework or other online homework systems which only check the final answer through deployment to five universities with 450 students completing homework on the system over the 2018 and 2019 school years. Mechanix has reduced the amount of manual grading required for instructors in those courses while ensuring students can correctly draw the free body diagram

An Artificial Intelligence Teaching Assistant for Microelectronic Circuits Problems

For several decades, personal computers have been used as a tool to enhance training and education. Some of the early computer systems used in this field, referred to as Computer Based Training (CBT) and Computer Aided Instructions (CAI), are static in nature. As such, the problem of these systems is that they do not adapt to learners’ needs and abilities. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) were proposed to offer more human-like instruction to students by taking both the student and the knowledge domain into consideration. This thesis examines the components of such systems, discusses the challenges faced by designers, provides examples of previously implemented systems, and proposes a new system to tutor microelectronic circuits. This system concentrates on MOSFET circuits and their current-voltage characteristics. It also forms the base for future research to implement a more comprehensive microelectronics ITS

System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report – a major outcome of the programme – is written by TEL director Professor Richard Noss and a team of experts in various fields of technology-enhanced learning. The report features the programme’s 12 recommendations for using technology-enhanced learning to upgrade UK education

Adaptive intelligent tutoring for teaching modern standard Arabic

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe aim of this PhD thesis is to develop a framework for adaptive intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) in the domain of Modern Standard Arabic language. This framework will comprise of a new approach to using a fuzzy inference mechanism and generic rules in guiding the learning process. In addition, the framework will demonstrate another contribution in which the system can be adapted to be used in the teaching of different languages. A prototype system will be developed to demonstrate these features. This system is targeted at adult English-speaking casual learners with no pre-knowledge of the Arabic language. It will consist of two parts: an ITS for learners to use and a teachers‘ tool for configuring and customising the teaching rules and artificial intelligence components among other configuration operations. The system also provides a diverse teaching-strategies‘ environment based on multiple instructional strategies. This approach is based on general rules that provide means to a reconfigurable prediction. The ITS determines the learner‘s learning characteristics using multiple fuzzy inferences. It has a reconfigurable design that can be altered by the teacher at runtime via a teacher-interface. A framework for an independent domain (i.e. pluggable-domain) for foreign language tutoring systems is introduced in this research. This approach allows the system to adapt to the teaching of a different language with little changes required. Such a feature has the advantages of reducing the time and cost required for building intelligent language tutoring systems. To evaluate the proposed system, two experiments are conducted with two versions of the software: the ITS and a cut down version with no artificial intelligence components. The learners used the ITS had shown an increase in scores between the post-test and the pre-test with learning gain of 35% compared to 25% of the learners from the cut down version