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Why/AutoTutor is a tutoring system that helps students construct answers to qualitative physics problems by holding a conversation in natural language. Why/AutoTutor provides feedback to the student on what the student types in (positive,... more
Why/AutoTutor is a tutoring system that helps students construct answers to qualitative physics problems by holding a conversation in natural language. Why/AutoTutor provides feedback to the student on what the student types in (positive, neutral, negative feedback), pumps the student for more information, prompts the student to fill in missing words, gives hints, fills in missing information with assertions, identifies and corrects bad answers and misconceptions, answers students' questions, and summarizes answers. In essence, constructivist learning is implemented in a mixed-initiative dialog. Why/AutoTutor delivers its dialog moves with an animated conversational agent whereas students type in their answers via keyboard. We conducted an experiment that compared Why/AutoTutor with two control conditions (Read textbook, nothing) in assessments of learning gains. The tutoring system performed significantly better than the two control conditions on a test similar to the Force Con...
Recent advances in the development of intelligent tutoring systems include the addition of animated conversational agents that play the role of tutors (Person and Graesser 2002). These pedagogical agents can be programmed to
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This purpose of this paper is to show how prevalent features of successful human tutoring interactions can be integrated into a pedagogical agent, AutoTutor. AutoTutor is a fully automated computer tutor that responds to learner input by... more
This purpose of this paper is to show how prevalent features of successful human tutoring interactions can be integrated into a pedagogical agent, AutoTutor. AutoTutor is a fully automated computer tutor that responds to learner input by simulating the dialog moves of effective, normal human tutors. AutoTutor’s delivery of dialog moves is organized within a 5step framework that is unique to normal human tutoring interactions. We assessed AutoTutor’s performance as an effective tutor and conversational partner during tutoring sessions with virtual students of varying ability levels. Results from three evaluation cycles indicate the following: (1) AutoTutor is capable of delivering pedagogically effective dialog moves that mimic the dialog move choices of human tutors, and (2) AutoTutor is a reasonably effective conversational partner.
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A multiplexing circuit including a plurality of amplifying stages connected in parallel between an output terminal and a common terminal with each stage including an isolating diode, an amplifying transistor, and a switching transistor... more
A multiplexing circuit including a plurality of amplifying stages connected in parallel between an output terminal and a common terminal with each stage including an isolating diode, an amplifying transistor, and a switching transistor connected in series, the isolating diodes serving to isolate each stage from disturbances created by the other stages.
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La reforma energetica en Mexico es uno de los cambios mas importantes que ha ocurrido en el pais en los ultimos 70 anos, por las fuertes implicaciones en los ambitos economico, politico y social. El curso masivo abierto en linea: «La... more
La reforma energetica en Mexico es uno de los cambios mas importantes que ha ocurrido en el pais en los ultimos 70 anos, por las fuertes implicaciones en los ambitos economico, politico y social. El curso masivo abierto en linea: «La reforma energetica en Mexico y sus oportunidades», representa una gran oportunidad para democratizar el conocimiento de estos temas y generar oportunidades de negocio. Al mismo tiempo, la tematica del curso ha facilitado la incorporacion de la estrategia de gamificacion basada en retos, cuyo proposito ha sido el de motivar a los participantes a aplicar los conocimientos del curso a partir de un reto cuyo logro se ve reflejado en un tablero de liderazgo, el cual, es visible para todos los participantes. En este capitulo se explican los aspectos mas importantes de la Reforma Energetica en Mexico y las oportunidades de negocio mas evidentes. Tambien se muestra un analisis descriptivo de los resultados del reto, su relacion con la evaluacion final y la tasa...
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We explored the affective states that students experienced during effortful problem solving activities. We conducted a study where 41 students solved difficult analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Students... more
We explored the affective states that students experienced during effortful problem solving activities. We conducted a study where 41 students solved difficult analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Students viewed videos of their faces and screen captures and judged their emotions from a set of 14 states (basic emotions, learning-centered emotions, and neutral) at relevant points in the problem solving process (after new problem is displayed, in the midst of problem solving, after feedback is received). The results indicated that curiosity, frustration, boredom, confusion, happiness, and anxiety were the major emotions that students experienced, while contempt, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, eureka, and surprise were rare. Follow-up analyses on the temporal dynamics of the emotions, their contextual underpinnings, and relationships to problem solving outcomes supported a general characterization of the affective dimension of problem solving. Affective sta...
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We present a method to automatically detect collaborative patterns of student and tutor dialogue moves. The method identifies significant two-step excitatory transitions between dialogue moves, integrates the transitions into a directed... more
We present a method to automatically detect collaborative patterns of student and tutor dialogue moves. The method identifies significant two-step excitatory transitions between dialogue moves, integrates the transitions into a directed graph representation, and generates and tests data-driven hypotheses from the directed graph. The method was applied to a large corpus of student-tutor dialogue moves from expert tutoring sessions. An examination of the subset of the corpus consisting of tutor lectures revealed collaborative patterns consistent with information-transmission, information-elicitation, off topic-conversation, and student initiated questions. Sequences of dialogue moves within each of these patterns were also identified. Comparisons of the method to other approaches and applications towards the computational modeling of expert human tutors are discussed.
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In this paper we present a question generation approach suitable for tutorial dialogues. The approach is based on previous psychological theories that hypothesize questions are generated from a knowledge representation modeled as a... more
In this paper we present a question generation approach suitable for tutorial dialogues. The approach is based on previous psychological theories that hypothesize questions are generated from a knowledge representation modeled as a concept map. Our model semi-automatically extracts concept maps from a textbook and uses them to generate questions. The purpose of the study is to generate and evaluate pedagogically-appropriate questions at varying levels of specificity across one or more sentences. The evaluation metrics include scales from the Question Generation Shared Task and Evaluation Challenge and a new scale specific to the pedagogical nature of questions in tutoring 1.
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... Natalie Person1, Arthur C. Graesser2, & The Tutoring Research Group2 ... A series of independent samples t-tests were performed to determine whether the human and computer means differed for the three six-point scale... more
... Natalie Person1, Arthur C. Graesser2, & The Tutoring Research Group2 ... A series of independent samples t-tests were performed to determine whether the human and computer means differed for the three six-point scale assessment questions used in Study 1 and 2. The means ...
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... Toward Socially Intelligent Interviewing Systems Natalie K. Person Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee ... There have been a few studies that have documented the importance of posture in expressing affect (Coulson, 2004; Schouwstra and... more
... Toward Socially Intelligent Interviewing Systems Natalie K. Person Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee ... There have been a few studies that have documented the importance of posture in expressing affect (Coulson, 2004; Schouwstra and Hoogstraten, 1995; Wallbott, 1998). ...
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... AutoTutor pumps the student for more information during the early stages of answering a particular question (or solving a problem ... signals the student to keep talking, for example using positivefeedback (eg, right, yeah, dramatic... more
... AutoTutor pumps the student for more information during the early stages of answering a particular question (or solving a problem ... signals the student to keep talking, for example using positivefeedback (eg, right, yeah, dramatic head nod), neutral back channel feedback (uh-huh ...
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ABSTRACT Expert human tutors are widely considered to be the gold standard for increasing student learning. While not every student has access to an expert tutor, it is possible to model intelligent tutoring systems after expert tutors.... more
ABSTRACT Expert human tutors are widely considered to be the gold standard for increasing student learning. While not every student has access to an expert tutor, it is possible to model intelligent tutoring systems after expert tutors. In an effort to achieve this goal, we have analyzed a corpus of 50 hours of one-to-one expert human tutoring sessions. This corpus was coded for speech acts (dialogue moves) and larger pedagogical strategies (dialogue modes). Using mixed-effects modeling, we found that expert tutors differentially used dialogue moves depending on the dialogue mode. Specifically, tutor posed questions, explanations, and motivational statements were predictive of different dialogue modes (e.g., Lecture, Scaffolding).
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In this paper we present a question generation approach suitable for tutorial dialogues. The approach is based on previous psychological theories that hypothesize questions are generated from a knowledge representation modeled as a... more
In this paper we present a question generation approach suitable for tutorial dialogues. The approach is based on previous psychological theories that hypothesize questions are generated from a knowledge representation modeled as a concept map. Our model automatically extracts concept maps from a textbook and uses them to generate questions. The purpose of the study is to generate and evaluate pedagogically-appropriate questions at varying levels of specificity across one or more sentences. The evaluation metrics include scales from the Question Generation Shared Task and Evaluation Challenge and a new scale specific to the pedagogical nature of questions in tutoring.
The Human Use Regulatory Affairs Advisor (HURAA) is a web-based help facility that provides training on the ethical use of human subjects in research, and that serves as an information retrieval system on ethical policies. The content for... more
The Human Use Regulatory Affairs Advisor (HURAA) is a web-based help facility that provides training on the ethical use of human subjects in research, and that serves as an information retrieval system on ethical policies. The content for HURAA is derived from United States Federal agency documents and regulations. HURAA has a number of components that go beyond conventional page-turning or hypertext systems, including (1) an animated conversational agent that serves as a navigational guide for the web facility,( ...
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It has been long recognised in education that teaching and learning is a highly social and emotional activity. Students' cognitive progress depends on their psychological predispositions such as their interest, confidence, sense of... more
It has been long recognised in education that teaching and learning is a highly social and emotional activity. Students' cognitive progress depends on their psychological predispositions such as their interest, confidence, sense of progress and achievement as well as on social interactions with their teachers and peers who provide them (or not) with both cognitive and emotional support. Until recently the ability to recognise students' socio-affective needs constituted exclusively the realm of human tutors' social competence. ...
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Within the past decade, advances in computer technology and language-processing techniques have allowed us to develop intelligent tutoring systems that feature more natural communication with students. As these dialog-based tutoring... more
Within the past decade, advances in computer technology and language-processing techniques have allowed us to develop intelligent tutoring systems that feature more natural communication with students. As these dialog-based tutoring systems are maturing, there is increasing agreement on the fundamental methods that make them effective in producing learning gains. This workshop will have two goals. First, we will discuss current
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Abstract. It is well established that expert human tutors are signifi-cantly more effective than novice tutors [6]. Moreover, the dialogue moves of onetoone expert tutoring sessions can be systematically analyzed and used to build a... more
Abstract. It is well established that expert human tutors are signifi-cantly more effective than novice tutors [6]. Moreover, the dialogue moves of onetoone expert tutoring sessions can be systematically analyzed and used to build a computational model that incorporates effective ped- ...
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ABSTRACT In this paper we present a novel approach to the nonverbal action selection problem for an agent in an intelligent tutoring system. We use a variation of the original Maes' Behavior Net that has several improvements that... more
ABSTRACT In this paper we present a novel approach to the nonverbal action selection problem for an agent in an intelligent tutoring system. We use a variation of the original Maes' Behavior Net that has several improvements that allow modeling action selection using the content of the utterance, communicative goals, and the discourse history. This Enhanced Behavior Net can perform action selection dynamically, reprioritize actions based on all these elements, and resolve conflict situations without the use of sophisticated predefined rules.
... Whitney L. Cade1, Jessica L. Copeland1, Natalie K. Person1, and Sidney K. D'Mello2 ... Feltovich, PJ, Spiro, RJ, Coulson, RL: The nature of conceptual understanding in bio-medicine: The deep structure of complex... more
... Whitney L. Cade1, Jessica L. Copeland1, Natalie K. Person1, and Sidney K. D'Mello2 ... Feltovich, PJ, Spiro, RJ, Coulson, RL: The nature of conceptual understanding in bio-medicine: The deep structure of complex ideas and the development of misconceptions. ...
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Abstract. This paper contains 14 facts about the dialog that occurs in one-to-one human tutoring sessions. All of the facts are based on the empirical findings of our human tutoring research from the last 14 years. ITS developers are... more
Abstract. This paper contains 14 facts about the dialog that occurs in one-to-one human tutoring sessions. All of the facts are based on the empirical findings of our human tutoring research from the last 14 years. ITS developers are encouraged to consider these facts as ...
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We explored the complex interplay between students' affective states and problem solving outcomes. We conducted a study where 41 students solved 28 analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Participants viewed... more
We explored the complex interplay between students' affective states and problem solving outcomes. We conducted a study where 41 students solved 28 analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Participants viewed videos of their interaction history and judged their emotions at theoretically relevant points in the problem solving session (after new problem is displayed, in the midst of problem solving, after feedback is received). We explore excitatory and inhibitory relationships between the affective states and problem solving outcomes (i.e. success or failure, and associated positive or negative feedback). We isolate affective states that are consequences of outcomes and associated feedback as well as affective states that are antecedents of positive or negative outcomes. Follow-up analyses focused on cyclical patterns that incorporate complex relationships between the affective states and problem solving outcomes. Implications of our results for affect-s...
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A speech act in a story (eg, 'John said that Glenda is pregnant') contains content ('Glenda is pregnant') that is potentially propagated among various agents in the storyworld. Knowledge propagation may spontaneously... more
A speech act in a story (eg, 'John said that Glenda is pregnant') contains content ('Glenda is pregnant') that is potentially propagated among various agents in the storyworld. Knowledge propagation may spontaneously occur when speech acts are comprehended during ...
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Abstract We analyzed 44 one-to-one tutoring sessions in which undergraduates were tutored by graduate students on troublesome topics in research methods. The primary goal of this research was to determine the relationship between measures... more
Abstract We analyzed 44 one-to-one tutoring sessions in which undergraduates were tutored by graduate students on troublesome topics in research methods. The primary goal of this research was to determine the relationship between measures of student ...
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This paper describes our recent attempts to incorporate human-like conversational behaviors into the dialog moves delivered by an animated pedagogical agent that simulates human tutors. We first present a brief overview of the modules... more
This paper describes our recent attempts to incorporate human-like conversational behaviors into the dialog moves delivered by an animated pedagogical agent that simulates human tutors. We first present a brief overview of the modules comprising AutoTutor, an intelligent tutoring system. The second section describes a set of conversational behaviors that are being incorporated into AutoTutor. The behaviors of interest involve
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DISCOURSE PROCESSES, 32(2&3), 245 Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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... Emotions during Effortful Problem Solving Activities Blair Lehman1 , Sidney D'Mello2, andNatalie Person1 ... Graesser, A., McDaniel, B., Chipman, P., Witherspoon, A., D'Mello, S.,... more
... Emotions during Effortful Problem Solving Activities Blair Lehman1 , Sidney D'Mello2, andNatalie Person1 ... Graesser, A., McDaniel, B., Chipman, P., Witherspoon, A., D'Mello, S., & Gholson, B.: Detection of Emotions during Learning with Autotutor. ...
... The conceptual physics AutoTutor is designed to help students learn Newtonian physics. ... Studentslearn about computer literacy or physics by engaging in a conversation with an animated ... R. (1989) Self-explanations: How students... more
... The conceptual physics AutoTutor is designed to help students learn Newtonian physics. ... Studentslearn about computer literacy or physics by engaging in a conversation with an animated ... R. (1989) Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve ...
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Abstract: The pedagogical effectiveness of two versions of AutoTutor was assessed in a student learning outcome study. Sixty students enrolled in a computer literacy course received tutoring from one of the versions of AutoTutor on one of... more
Abstract: The pedagogical effectiveness of two versions of AutoTutor was assessed in a student learning outcome study. Sixty students enrolled in a computer literacy course received tutoring from one of the versions of AutoTutor on one of the following topics: ...
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SUMMARY Naturalistic one-to-one tutoring is more effective than traditional classroom teaching methods, but there have been few attempts to examine the features of normal tutoring that might explain its advantage. This project explored... more
SUMMARY Naturalistic one-to-one tutoring is more effective than traditional classroom teaching methods, but there have been few attempts to examine the features of normal tutoring that might explain its advantage. This project explored dialogue patterns in two samples of ...