An ITS that provides positive feedback for Beginning Violin Students

Feedback is highly important within any learning environment. Providing feedback in a manner which enhances, rather than damages students self-esteem is an important skill that is seldom taught. The art of good feedback is highly complex and this complexity is further heightened when the domain is music. Beginning violin students are faced with a steep learning curve due to the complex nature of the instrument and they may find it difficult to believe that mastery of the instrument is possible. Shinichi Suzuki believed that talent is a product of environment rather than heredity and therefore mastery is possible. The research proposed in this paper involves the development of an Intelligent Tutoring System that provides an individualised positive learning environment for beginning violin students practicing at home. The pedagogical framework that informs the system is the Suzuki method as it is based on the premise that through positive feedback students can reach their potential

Towards Personalised Support for Home Tutors: Identification of Tutoring Rules

There has been little focus on providing personalised support for parents in their role as home tutors. This is surprising given the high correlation between parental involvement in learning activities in the home and the child's academic success. P.A.C.T is a system that provides personalised coaching for parents in their role as home tutors. The core component of P.A.C.T. is the tutoring rules, which define what tutoring tactics the parent must master and under which conditions they need to be used. This paper illustrates the development and implementation of tutoring rules, which form the basis of the adaptive nature of P.A.C.T. In particular, this paper presents the results of two empirical studies. The first provides us with validation for a set of tutoring tactics the second provides evidence about the conditions under which tutoring tactics should be used. This paper demonstrates how both studies support the development of a personalised home tutoring system for parents

Supporting the Tutor in a Tutor-Tutee Adaptive Educational System.

Adaptive educational systems have been successful in providing personalised support in a myriad of domains (Melias & Siekmann, 2004).To provide such support,the adaptive educational system builds an internal representation of the user by analysing the user’s behaviour including their knowledge and traits(Brusilovsky & Peylo, 2003).The resulting model is used to adapt the learning environment to that which best suits the individual learner. Furthermore, within a tutoring environment where there are two users, tutor and tutee, working collaboratively to reach a common goal, there may be a need to provide personalised domain support for both users. One particular environment where there may be a need for such a system is home tutoring.Despite the large body of research,which suggests a high correlation between home tutoring and a child’s academic success(Greenwood & Hickman, 1991;Dornbusch & Ritter,1988),parental involvement in learning activities in the home may not occur spontaneously due to self-believed lack of ability, knowledge and skills(Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler,1995). However,research indicates the benefit of supporting the tutor in the development of tutoring strategies (Cotton & Savard, 1982).Hence,the need for the development of an adaptive educational system, which supports both,tutor (parent)and tutee(child) during the home tutoring process.Such a system could in particular be of most benefit in supporting the tutor in the development of tutoring strategies. There are many unresolved issues in developing such an adaptive educational systems.Research questions still outstanding include:(1)how can an adaptive engine simultaneously support dual users (tutor and tutee)(2) what is the appropriate educational theory from which to elicit a set of rules, which define tutoring best practice and (3) what is an appropriate basis for adapting to the needs of the tutor and tutee?This thesis describes how the Parent and Child Tutor(P.A.C.T.)adaptive educational system addresses these challenges. Firstly, the thesis describes how P.A.C.T.’s architecture differs from that of a traditional adaptive educational system in an endeavour to provide dual user adaptivity. Secondly,the thesis describes how Talent Education philosophy (Suzuki, 1986)informs a set of tutoring rules, which define tutoring best practice.Thirdly,the thesis describes how self-efficacy(person’s belief in their ability to accomplish a particular task)can be used to determine the appropriate level of support required by the tutor and how affect (the emotional state) can be used to determine the type of support required by the tutee. Empirical studies were conducted to explore the effect of using an adaptive educational system to support the home tutoring process in the domains of Suzuki violin and mathematics. In particular, these studies explored the effect of P.A.C.T. on parents’ (1)self-efficacy(2) knowledge and (3) perception of their role as home tutor. In addition, studies investigated the effect of providing affective support for the child throughout the home tutoring process.Results suggest that P.A.C.T. may be of benefit in increasing parental self-efficacy and parents’ knowledge of home tutoring skills. They also indicate that P.A.C.T. may have a positive effect on parents’ perception of their role as home tutor. Results also suggest that adapting the tutoring process based on the affective needs of the child may have a positive effect on the home tutoring process. In summary the main contributions of this thesis are: • The design and development of an architecture, which supports dual user adaptivity in the domain of home tutoring. • The articulation and development of a set of novel tutoring rules based on Talent. Education philosophy, which defines tutoring best practice. • Empirical evidence,which indicates the effectiveness of adaptive strategies based on self-efficacy in supporting the parent as tutor and strategies based on affect in supporting the child as tutee

Using Student Understanding to inform the development of Learning Content

The challenges associated with teaching computer programming are recognised (Biddle & Tempero, 1998; Jenkins, 2002). However, categorising the different ways in which students understand or think about programming is central to improving teaching and learning in the area. This paper presents an empirical study, which investigates students' understanding of the iteration concept in computer programming. This study involved two phases carried out over two academic years. Phase one involved 22 student interviews using a phenomenographic research approach (Stamouli, 2007). A phenomenographic research study identifies a finite set of ways in which students understand particular phenomena. The data arising from student interviews formed categories of understanding, which indicate that although students may be proficient in programming iteration, a deep understanding of the concept may be lacking. While this type of data may also be captured in exams, an empirical research study such as this is necessary to explain the origins of the understanding or misunderstanding. As a result of phase one, a number of modifications were made to the teaching resources associated with iteration and their delivery. Phase two involved 18 student interviews using a phenomenographic research approach. Once again, data from these interviews formed categories of understanding. A comparison of those categories arising from phase one and phase two of the empirical study indicate a deeper understanding among students from phase two of the research study. This suggests that analyzing student understanding and using this to inform the development of learning content may have a positive effect on teaching and learning. This paper has the following format, section one provides an overview of the key challenges with teaching computer programming. Section two provides a detailed explanation of the phenomenographic research approach. Section three presents phase one of the empirical research and its results, with section four outlining the modifications made to teaching resources based on those results. Section five describes phase two of the study with its results and section six draws conclusions and outlines the next steps in the research journey

Music Matters an ITS for Violin students

The application of Artificial Intelligence in Music Education is quite challenging due to the subjective nature of music. Music Matters is an Intelligent Tutoring System that provides an individualised learning environment for beginning violin students practicing at home. The system will monitor the student, infer a student model and deliver feedback on the basis of explicit teaching strategies. Music Matters provides guidance for the student when practicing by identifying melodic and rhythmic inaccuracies, providing feedback on posture and movement and presenting additional exercises where appropriate. The system contains a range of multimedia input and output devices as well as an intelligent tutoring module that reasons about and adapts to the player. The pedagogical framework that informs the system is the Suzuki method. Music Matters tries to overcome the complexities associated with learning the violin by identifying mistakes before they become ingrained in the playing

Student Centered Learning in a Studio Classroom Environment

Arising from recent changes in Irish third-level education there has been a new paradigm in the provision of IT education at the National College of Ireland. Owing to the importance of student development a need has been identified and satisfied for a dynamic learning environment, which aims to facilitate the students’ maximum learning potential. This student-centered learning space is achieved through the employment of state-of-the-art Studio Classrooms. This progressive learning environment encompasses aspects of the traditional classroom along with a computer laboratory, which allows students to interact via a Local Area Network. It also supports a lecturer Workstation, shared printer as well as access to the college intranet. Multimedia capabilities are also catered for. The benefits of this learning space are twofold. Benefits for the student include active experimentation, increased motivation, collaborative learning and the potential for maximum participation. In terms of the lecturer, benefits include higher retention and attendance rates, increased enthusiasm and student participation as well as a noticeable improvement in student assessment grades achieved. We will discuss our efforts at integration of modules within this unique learning space and identify other factors that contribute to the success of our teaching

Tutoring Strategies to facilitate positive emotional states during home tutoring

There has been little focus on providing personalised support for parents in their role as home tutors. This is surprising given the high correlation between parental involvement in learning activities in the home and the child’s academic success. P.A.C.T. is a system that provides personalised coaching for parents in their role as home tutors. P.A.C.T. endeavors to coach parents in a set of tutoring strategies that provide a mechanism to positively affect the emotional state of the child therefore enhancing the learning process. The core component of P.A.C.T. is a set of tutoring rules, which define what tutoring tactics the parent needs to master and under which conditions they need to be used. These conditions comprise the emotional state of the child and the current phase in the tutoring process. This paper illustrates the development, implementation and validation of this set of tutoring rules. In particular this paper presents an empirical research study, which results in feedback on 74% of tutoring rules, of which experts deemed 81% to be valid. In addition, preliminary results indicate that P.A.C.T. may be of significant educational benefit to parents during their role as home tutor

P.A.C.T. – Coaching the Parent in Home Tutoring Best Practice

Research informs us that there is a high correlation between parental involvement in learning activities in the home and the child's academic success. However, despite this there has been little focus on providing personalised support for parents in their role as home tutors. In this paper, we present P.A.C.T, a personalised coaching system for parents. More specifically, P.A.C.T. coaches parents in developing the necessary skills for home tutoring. The coaching process within P.A.C.T. comprises three stages. Within theses stages parents are supported at two levels. Parents are provided with "just-in-time" domain dependent support through the provision of domain dependent activities. P.A.C.T. also coaches the parent in domain independent tutoring skills. This paper illustrates how P.A.C.T.'s architecture and implementation support the parent during the tutoring process and provides a mechanism by which parents can develop their tutoring skills