Gesture enhancement of a virtual tutor via investigating human tutor discursive strategies: Forms and functions for proportions

We examine expert human mathematics-tutor gestures in the context of an interactive design for proportionality in order to design a virtual pedagogical agent. Early results implicate distinct gesture morphologies serving consistent contextual functionalities in guiding learners towards quantitative descriptions of proportional relations

Cyber Enigmas? Passive Detection and Pedagogical Agents: Can Students Spot the Fake?

This paper presents a study that was undertaken to examine human interaction with a pedagogical agent and the passive and active detection of such agents within a synchronous, online environment. A pedagogical agent is a software application which can provide a human like interaction using a natural language interface. These may be familiar from the smartphone interfaces such as ‘Siri’ or ‘Cortana’, or the virtual online assistants found on some websites, such as ‘Anna’ on the Ikea website. Pedagogical agents are characters on the computer screen with embodied life-like behaviours such as speech, emotions, locomotion, gestures, and movements of the head, the eye, or other parts of the body. The passive detection test is where participants are not primed to the potential presence of a pedagogical agent within the online environment. The active detection test is where participants are primed to the potential presence of a pedagogical agent. The purpose of the study was to examine how people passively detected pedagogical agents that were presenting themselves as humans in an online environment. In order to locate the pedagogical agent in a realistic higher education online environment, problem-based learning online was used. Problem-based learning online provides a focus for discussions and participation, without creating too much artificiality. The findings indicated that the ways in which students positioned the agent tended to influence the interaction between them. One of the key findings was that since the agent was focussed mainly on the pedagogical task this may have hampered interaction with the students, however some of its non-task dialogue did improve students' perceptions of the autonomous agents’ ability to interact with them. It is suggested that future studies explore the differences between the relationships and interactions of learner and pedagogical agent within authentic situations, in order to understand if students' interactions are different between real and virtual mentors in an online setting

Situation Creator: A Pedagogical Agent Creating Learning Opportunities

Miao, Y., Hoppe, H. U., & Pinkwart, N. (2007). Situation Creator: A Pedagogical Agent Creating Learning Opportunities. In R. Luckin, K. Koedinger & J. Greer (Eds.), Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 614-617). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IOS Press.In a multi-user, real-time, and situation-based learning environment, the availability of enough and appropriate situations is crucial for success. In order to improve effectiveness and efficiency of learning, we develop a new type of pedagogical agent: situation creator. Such an agent intentionally creates specific situations in the shared virtual driving place according to users’ performance information. We conduct a pilot evaluation and found that the situation creators significantly increase the number of situations that a learner can expect to encounter while using the system

Pedagogical Agents in Interactive Multimedia Modules: Issues of Variability

AbstractThis paper introduces the pedagogical agents and describes its characteristics and roles in multimedia modules. It will also include examples of the use of pedagogical agents in previous studies and effective use of pedagogical agents on learning. Next, pedagogical agent variability in terms of physical (ethnicity, gender, image, voice) and internal features (roles, communication and competency) will be discussed in the context of its impact on learners’ diversity. This is then followed by a discussion and suggestions for further research regarding the effective use of pedagogical agent in multimedia modules

Performance, perception, and choice of animated pedagogical agent

This study was designed to investigate learning with animated pedagogical agents (APAs) in the chemistry domain. Of interest was whether learners achieved more when paired with an APA, the learner\u27s perception of the APA, and whether the ability to choose an APA affected learner performance and perception; An APA (Animated Pedagogical Agent) is a computerized character that is designed to facilitate learning. The ability of the student to choose which APA to study with was integral to this study, so that the effects of student choice on performance and perception of the APA could be investigated. Further, the student\u27s view of the APA in general was analyzed from open-ended comments submitted by the students; The APAs were carefully constructed according to cognitive load theory (CLT), the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) and social agency theory. Presentation of the APA, worked examples and self-explanation prompts for weekly chemistry quizzes were built in accordance with these theories. What is surprising is that the students did not react to the APAs as expected; The students should have performed better when studying with an APA, and should have enjoyed studying with their APA. However, the results of this study did not reveal this; The interesting results of this study do not lie with differences sought between the groups. The condition, whether no APA, assigned APA or self-selected APA, did not seem to make a significant difference in this study. What made a difference was the APA itself, whether selected or assigned, and the comments of the students; One possible interpretation may be that there is an initial novelty effect when students study with an APA, and that this benefit is lost over time such as in this multiple measures study. Further, the APA may be viewed as a kind of decoration, since the appearance of the APA led to significant differences in perception of the APA. Finally, the ability to customize the APA may be linked to student perception of the APA

Evaluation Study and Results of Intelligent Pedagogical Agent-led Learning Scenarios in a Virtual World

The use of intelligent pedagogical agents (IPAs) has shown to provide positive learning results and new learning possibilities. The IPA has specific importance in immersive learning environments to enable 24/7 availability, offer a learning companion opportunity, and increase learner engagement. In that regard, a proof of concept prototype implementation of an intelligent pedagogical agent (IPA) in the Open Wonderland virtual world environment was created. This paper reports a qualitative evaluation study and experiment performed by a team of six experts in relevant areas of expertise. Those areas include cognitive science, computer science, e-education, and virtual worlds. The experiment studied key prototype components in relation to four learning scenarios with distributed control between the learner avatar and the pedagogical agent to answer questions relevant to their effect on learning attributes such as motivation, engagement, and the learning experience. Given the qualitative nature of the experiment, the paper also analyzes and reports results relevant to expert input of how the prototype can better contribute to future pedagogical agent realizations and the impact on learning enhancement

Touch Screen Avatar English Learning System For University Students Learning Simplicity

This paper discusses on touch screen avatar for an English language learning application system. The system would be a combination of avatar as Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA) and a touch screen application that adapt the up to date gesture-based computing which is found as having potential to change the way how we learn as it could reduce the amount of Information Communication Technology (ICT) devices used during teaching and learning process. The key here is interaction between university students and touch screen avatar intelligent application system as well as learning resources that could be learned anytime anywhere twenty four hours in seven days 24/7 based on their study time preference where they could learn at their own comfort out of the tradition. The students would be provided with a learning tool that could help them learn interactively with the current trend which they might be interested with based on their own personalization. Apart from that, their performance shall be monitored from a distance and evaluated to avoid disturbing their learning process from working smoothly and getting rid of feeling of being controlled. Thus, the students are expected to have lower affective filter level that may enhance the way they learn unconsciously. Keywords: Gesture-Based Computing, Avatar, Portable Learning Tool, Interactivity, Language Learnin

Kesan Tahap Realisme Agen Pedagogi Berbeza Terhadap Pencapaian Dan Motivasi Pelajar Dalam Pembelajaran Atas Talian

This study was conducted to elucidate the effects of different levels of realism of the pedagogical agent on student achievement and motivation in online learning. It involved three different levels of realism of the pedagogical agent, namely, the pedagogical agent with a cartoon character, the pedagogical agent with an illustrative character and the pedagogical agent with a realistic character. The Moodle open source Learning Management System was used as a delivery platform in the online learning and the pedagogical agents were embedded in it

INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEMS, PEDAGOGICAL AGENT DESIGN, AND HISPANIC ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

According to the most recent data from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) there were approximately 5 million English Language Learners (ELLs) in the U.S. public schools in the Fall of 2016, representing about 10% of the student population (2019). Spanish is the primary language for most ELL students, by a large margin. As a group, ELLs have faced a deeply rooted and persistent math achievement gap (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Despite research indicating that intelligent tutors and animated pedagogical agents enhance learning, many tutors are not designed with ELLs in mind. As a result, Hispanic ELL students may experience difficulty accessing the relevant content when using a tutor. This mixed-method research investigates how a tutor can reach Hispanic ELL students, based on the social and cultural Identity framework of the Figured Worlds Theory by Holland et al., (1998). Students will socially and culturally engage with their animated pedagogical agents constructing figured worlds of learning and connection that have the power to shape the students’ senses of themselves as learners of math. This study investigates how Hispanic ELL students perceive the utility of and relate to a learning companion (LC) design. Data was examined from 76 middle school students interacting with a math tutor, MathSpring. The findings indicate that ELL students find the MathSpring LC more useful and helpful than do non-ELL students and the ELL students designed LCs that looked more like themselves than did the non-ELL students. The findings also indicate that students formed ‘She/Me Connection’ and ‘She is Like Me’ figured worlds