Cognitive Modeling & Intelligent Tutoring Systems
05832 / 05432
Vincent
Aleven
Assistant
Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Course
information
* 9 credits
* Tuesday and Thursday, 10:30AM-11:50AM
* SCR 265 (300 South Craig Street)
This course focuses on the development of intelligent
tutoring systems, software tutors that help learners acquire complex cognitive
skill, grounded in cognitive psychology and cognitive task analysis. Students
will learn data-driven and theoretical methods for analyzing human problem
solving. They will learn about the Cognitive Tutor technology that has been
demonstrated to dramatically enhance student learning in domains like math,
science, and computer programming. In addition to discussion and readings on
methods and models of problem solving, learning, and tutor design, the course
will have a substantial Òlearning by doingÓ component.
Course projects will focus on the development of an intelligent tutor using
CTAT, the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (see http://ctat.pact.cs.cmu.edu). One
suggested task domain for course projects is middle-school math, though other
choices are possible. Middle-school math teachers (recruited by the instructor)
will serve as consultants for each project, and teams will work with local
middle schools and have access to real students. Course projects will be
carried out in small teams with students selecting a topic in middle-school
math (or a domain of their choice), reading selected research papers about this
area, analyzing data, designing interfaces, and implementing their tutor with
CTAT. With this tool suite, it is possible to create and deliver tutors without
programming. Students are expected to take their tutors through multiple rounds
of formative evaluation with real users. The students may elect to field their
tutors on a new website being built in the instructorÕs research group with a
grant from the Department of Education, and may also draw on existing content
on the site for their project.
Students should either have programming skills, experience in the cognitive
psychology of human problem solving, or HCI skills, or permission from the instructor.
Figure. Creating a Flash-based example-tracing tutor with CTAT. An
author creates an interface through drag-and-drop techniques in the Flash IDE
(shown on the right), runs the interface (shown on the left, in a browser), and
uses CTATÕs Behavior Recorder (middle) to create, generalize, and annotate a
behavior graph. Being shown is a tutor for 6th-grade fractions. CTAT
also supports the creation of tutors that are based on a rule-based cognitive
model, implemented in the Jess production rule language.