Brief Biography

Dr. Bruce M. McLaren, currently a Senior Systems Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, is passionate about how technology can support education and has dedicated his work and research to projects that explore how students can learn with educational software, in particular, software that runs on the world-wide web. He is particularly interested in intelligent tutoring systems, e-learning principles, and collaborative learning. McLaren's research with intelligent tutors, for instance, investigates how students learn when presented with erroneous examples in conjunction with intelligent tutors on the web (See the AdaptErrEx project webpage). Dr. McLaren has also conducted a series of experiments investigating how chemistry students learn when presented with worked examples, in conjunction with intelligent tutors, as well as polite hints and feedback (See the Stoich studies webpage). Finally, Dr. McLaren has a keen interest in and experience with collaborative learning and technology for supporting and analyzing collaborative argumentation. In his work in Germany as an adjunct researcher at the Center for e-Learning Technology (CeLTech) at Saarland University, Dr. McLaren has focused on developing educational technology using AI techniques to help teachers moderate collaborative e-Discussions and online arguments (See the projects LASAD, ARGUNAUT, and Metafora). Dr. McLaren has over 100 publications spanning peer-reviewed journals, conferences, workshops, symposiums and book chapters (See McLaren's publications page for details).

In addition to his research background, Dr. McLaren has over 20 years experience in the commercial sector, applying research ideas to practical problems using Artificial Intelligence techniques. As Director of eCommerce Technologies at OpenWebs Corporation from 2000 to 2002, he led a group of engineers in the development of an intelligent inter-company (B2B) trading product. He was also the leader of many expert system projects during over 10 years working for Carnegie Group, Inc.

Dr. McLaren holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Intelligent Systems from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B.S. in Computer Science (cum laude) from Millersville University. He has been a member of many academic conference and workshop committees and, most recently, was the local organization co-chair for ITS-2010. In October 2011, McLaren was elected to the Executive Committee of the Artificial Intelligence in Education Society (AI-ED Executive Committee), for a six-year term, 2012-2017. Finally, Dr. McLaren is the co-holder of two patents and one patent pending.

Top citations to Bruce McLaren's Publications & Patents

Top authors in Computers and Education - Bruce McLaren's ranking, past 5 years

Highlight Publications:

McLaren, B.M., DeLeeuw, K.E., & Mayer, R.E.  (2011).  Polite web-based intelligent tutors: Can they improve learning in classrooms?  Computers & Education, 56(3), 574-584.  doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.09.019.  [ pdf ]  [ Online Citation ]

McLaren, B.M., Scheuer, O., & Mikšátko, J. (2010). Supporting collaborative learning and e-Discussions using artificial intelligence techniques. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (IJAIED) 20(1), 1-46.   [ pdf ]  [ Online Citation ]

Scheuer, O., Loll, F., Pinkwart, N. & McLaren, B.M. (2010). Computer-supported argumentation: A review of the state of the art. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning,  5(1), 43-102.  [ pdf ]  [ Online Citation ]
  (Oliver Scheuer is a PhD student at Saarland University, Germany who is advised by McLaren - See 'Advisees' Page)

Borek, A., McLaren, B.M., Karabinos, M., & Yaron, D. (2009). How much assistance is helpful to students in discovery learning? In U. Cress, V. Dimitrova, & M. Specht (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Learning in the Synergy of Multiple Disciplines (EC-TEL 2009), LNCS 5794, September/October 2009, Nice, France. (pp. 391-404). Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. [ pdf ]  (Alexander Borek is a graduated masters student who was advised by McLaren - See 'Advisees' Page)

McLaren, B.M., Lim, S., & Koedinger, K.R. (2008). When and how often should worked examples be given to students? New results and a summary of the current state of research. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.),  Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2176-2181). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. [ pdf ]

Mikšátko, J. & McLaren, B.M. (2008). What’s in a cluster? Automatically detecting interesting interactions in student e-discussions. In B. Woolf, E. Aimeur, R. Nkambou, S. Lajoie (Eds), Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-08), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5091 (pp. 333-342). Berlin: Springer. [ pdf ]   (Jan Mikšátko is a graduated masters student who was advised by McLaren - See 'Advisees' Page)

Scheuer, O. & McLaren, B.M. (2008). Helping teachers handle the flood of data in online student discussions. In B. Woolf, E. Aimeur, R. Nkambou, S. Lajoie (Eds), Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-08), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5091 (pp. 323-332). Berlin: Springer. [ pdf ]   (Oliver Scheuer is a PhD student at Saarland University, Germany who is advised by McLaren - See 'Advisees' Page)

McLaren, B.M., Scheuer, O., De Laat, M., Hever, R., De Groot, R., & Rosé, C.P. (2007). Using machine learning techniques to analyze and support mediation of student e-discussions. In R. Luckin, K.R. Koedinger, & J. Greer (Eds), Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED-07), Artificial Intelligence in Education: Building Technology Rich Learning Contexts That Work. (pp. 331-338). IOS Press. [ pdf ]

McLaren, B.M., Lim, S., Gagnon, F., Yaron, D., & Koedinger, K.R. (2006). Studying the effects of personalized language and worked examples in the Context of a Web-Based Intelligent Tutor. In M. Ikeda, K.D. Ashley, & T-W. Chan (Eds), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-2006), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4053 (pp. 318-328). Berlin: Springer. (Finalist for the Best Paper Award) [ pdf ]

McLaren, B.M. (2006). Computational models of ethical reasoning: Challenges, initial steps, and future directions. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Published by the IEEE Computer Society. July/August 2006. 29-37.  [ pdf ]  [ Online Citation ]

McLaren, B.M. (2003). Extensionally defining principles and cases in ethics: An AI model. Artificial Intelligence Journal, 150, 145-181.   [ pdf ]  [ Online Citation ]

Ashley, K.D. & McLaren, B.M. (1995). Reasoning with reasons in case-based comparisons. In the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning (ICCBR-95). Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 1010. October, 1995, Sesimbra, Portugal. (pp. 133-144). Springer: Berlin. (Won the Distinguished Paper Award) [ pdf ]

Select Research Presentations:

CSCL-2009 symposium "The Assistance Dilemma in CSCL", Rhodes, Greece, June 2009. Talk titled "Adapting Assistance to the Student(s): Preliminary Ideas from Individual and Collaborative Computer-Supported Learning Contexts"

Kaleidoscope Symposium on Technology-Enhanced Learning, Oberhausen, Germany July 2005. Talk titled: "The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center: Learning Studies and Technology in Actual Classroom Settings" (Contact: Dr. Andreas Harrer)

The Fraunhofer Institute, Berlin, Germany, February 2003. (Contact: Dr. Thomas Gordon)

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, February 2003. (Contact: Dr. John Zeleznikow)