Calculategy: Exploring the Impact of Tutorial Dialogue Strategy in Shaping Student Behavior in Effective Tutorial Dialogue for Calculus

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract This award supports a component of the dialogue portion of LeActiveMath which is an innovative third-generation eLearning system for high school and college or university level classrooms that can also be used in informal contexts for self-learning. LeActiveMath adapts to the learner and learning context and comprises personalization, tutorial dialogues, open student modeling, and interactivity that is tool-supported for active and exploratory learning. The value added to previous systems is due to: o intelligent feedback and tutorial dialogues o integrated interactive tools that understand the semantics of learning objects o pedagogically grounded elements, contexts, and strategies that employ tools beneficially o reaction to the student's motivational and emotional state o advanced personalization o opportunity and scaffolding of self-guidance and learner-initiative o open, inspectable student model o accessible exercise repository o free non-commercial usage From a more specific technological point of view there is more added value because of a truly open and distributed architecture with one student model, the reusability of single components and tools, the integration in one configurable system and the innovative semantic knowledge representation and integrated tools using it. The tools and components are motivated by pedagogical and cognitive results. In particular, the system will be learner-centered and support the learner's initiative. The main technologies will be employed beneficially for learning at different levels of mastery and in different organizational contexts. The content and some tools are specific for mathematics, but the technology is not restricted to mathematics. Dr. Rose's contribution will be in the development of a Calculus corpus and in the analysis of student-tutor dialogs.