This paper describes an adaptive system called VL-PATSy, an extension to an existing system (PATS... more This paper describes an adaptive system called VL-PATSy, an extension to an existing system (PATSy) that adds a mechanism for serving vicarious learn- ing (VL) resources. Vicarious learning is the notion that people can and will learn through being given access to the learning experiences of others. The VL resources represent an innovative form of learner support for a complex
Aaron Kalb, Dave Barker-Plummer1, Deonne Castaneda, Christopher Potts2 Stanford University, Stanf... more Aaron Kalb, Dave Barker-Plummer1, Deonne Castaneda, Christopher Potts2 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 USA {kalb,dbp,deonne,cgpotts}@stanford.edu ... Richard Cox School of Informatics, University of Sussex Falmer, E. Sussex, BN1 9QJ, UK ...
This chapter introduces PATSy (www.patsy.ac.uk): a web-based multimedia database shell that has b... more This chapter introduces PATSy (www.patsy.ac.uk): a web-based multimedia database shell that has been designed to accept data from any discipline that has cases. PATSy makes `virtual patients' available to trainees, educators and researchers in various clinical professions and cognate academic disciplines. The systems contains 61 data-rich and extensively described cases of adults and children with disorders that can be accessed under 4 domain headings - speech and language, dyslexia, medical rehabilitation and neuropsychology. PATSy functions as both an archive for research and clinical cases and a community resource. A brief history on the development of PATSy is provided, together with a description of a typical student user session. The roles that PATSy can play in speech and language therapy education are also discussed. Different methods of teaching with PATSy and examples of how PATSy supports didactic, case-based and problem-based methods of teaching and learning in speech and language therapy are provided. The use of PATSy as a research tool for studying clinical reasoning and problem-solving is described and illustrated with examples from an investigation of student reasoning. It is argued that PATSy can act as bridges between research and education and between research and clinical practise.
To investigate effective methods for communicating the personalized risks of alcohol consumption,... more To investigate effective methods for communicating the personalized risks of alcohol consumption, particularly to young people. An interactive computerized blood alcohol content calculator was implemented in Flash based on literature findings for effectively communicating risk. Young people were consulted on attitudes to the animation features and visualization techniques used to display personalized risk based on disclosed alcohol consumption. Preliminary findings reveal the calculator is relatively enjoyable to use for its genre. However, the primary aims of the visualization tool to effectively communicate personalized risk were undermined for some users by technical language. Transparency of risk calculations might further enhance the tool for others. Worryingly, user feedback revealed a tension between accurate presentation of risk and its consequent lack of sensationalism in terms of personal risk to the individual. Initial findings suggest the tool may provide a relatively engaging vehicle for exploring the link between action choices and risk outcomes. Suggestions for enhancing risk communication include using intelligent techniques for selecting data presentation formats and for demonstrating the effects of sustained risky behavior. Effective communication of risk contributes only partially to effecting behavior change; the role of the tool in influencing contributing attitudinal factors is also discussed.
This paper outlines the principles and functionalities of an authoring tool to support the develo... more This paper outlines the principles and functionalities of an authoring tool to support the development of intelligent tutoring systems to teach literacy, as part of a research on adult basic education. Considerations are made,about the main lines of the project: the basic system ontology, the organisation of the domain knowledge, the implementation of teaching activities, the declaration of the teaching strategies and the questions related to the student model. Many important aspects of the system ontology are detailed, as well as the particular subject domain ontology. Some of the issues on the integration of both ontologies are discussed. Keywords
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2007
Difficulties experienced by novices in clinical reasoning have been well documented in many profe... more Difficulties experienced by novices in clinical reasoning have been well documented in many professions, especially medicine (Boshuizen and Schmidt 1992, 2000; Elstein, Shulman and Sprafka 1978; Patel and Groen 1986; Rikers, Loyens and Schmidt 2004). These studies have shown that novice clinicians have difficulties with both knowledge and strategy in clinical reasoning tasks. Speech and language therapy students must also learn to reason clinically, yet to date there is little evidence of how they learn to do so. In this paper, we report the clinical reasoning difficulties of a group of speech and language therapy students. We make a comparison of a subgroup of these with experienced speech and language therapists' reasoning and proposes some methods and materials to aid the development of clinical reasoning in speech and language therapy students. Student diagnostic reasoning difficulties were analysed during the assessment of unseen cases on an electronic patient database, the Patient Assessment and Training System (PATSy http://www.patsy.ac.uk) (Lum et al. 2006). Pairs of students were videoed as they completed a one hour assessment of one of three 'virtual patients'. One pair of experienced speech and language therapists, who were not part of the project team, also completed an assessment of one of these cases under the same conditions. Screen capture was used to record all on screen activity within PATSy web pages (i.e. mouse pointer position, hyperlink and button presses, page scrolling, browser navigation interactions and data entered); Verbal comments made by participants were analysed via a seven-level coding scheme that aimed to describe the events that occur in the process of diagnostic reasoning. Students displayed a range of competence in making an accurate diagnosis. Diagnostically accurate students showed use of specific professional vocabulary, and a greater use of firm diagnostic statements. For the diagnostically inaccurate students, typical difficulties were a failure to interpret test results and video observations, difficulty in carrying out a sequence of tests consistent with a diagnostic reasoning path, and problems in recalling and using theoretical knowledge. We discuss how identification of student diagnostic reasoning difficulties can inform the design of learning materials intended to address these problems.
This Commentary has been written to provide key evidence-informed principles, based on our analys... more This Commentary has been written to provide key evidence-informed principles, based on our analysis of our research evidence, for pedagogies, policies and practices in the diverse range of higher education encountered in the UK today. It is intended as a ...
This paper describes an adaptive system called VL-PATSy, an extension to an existing system (PATS... more This paper describes an adaptive system called VL-PATSy, an extension to an existing system (PATSy) that adds a mechanism for serving vicarious learn- ing (VL) resources. Vicarious learning is the notion that people can and will learn through being given access to the learning experiences of others. The VL resources represent an innovative form of learner support for a complex
Aaron Kalb, Dave Barker-Plummer1, Deonne Castaneda, Christopher Potts2 Stanford University, Stanf... more Aaron Kalb, Dave Barker-Plummer1, Deonne Castaneda, Christopher Potts2 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 USA {kalb,dbp,deonne,cgpotts}@stanford.edu ... Richard Cox School of Informatics, University of Sussex Falmer, E. Sussex, BN1 9QJ, UK ...
This chapter introduces PATSy (www.patsy.ac.uk): a web-based multimedia database shell that has b... more This chapter introduces PATSy (www.patsy.ac.uk): a web-based multimedia database shell that has been designed to accept data from any discipline that has cases. PATSy makes `virtual patients' available to trainees, educators and researchers in various clinical professions and cognate academic disciplines. The systems contains 61 data-rich and extensively described cases of adults and children with disorders that can be accessed under 4 domain headings - speech and language, dyslexia, medical rehabilitation and neuropsychology. PATSy functions as both an archive for research and clinical cases and a community resource. A brief history on the development of PATSy is provided, together with a description of a typical student user session. The roles that PATSy can play in speech and language therapy education are also discussed. Different methods of teaching with PATSy and examples of how PATSy supports didactic, case-based and problem-based methods of teaching and learning in speech and language therapy are provided. The use of PATSy as a research tool for studying clinical reasoning and problem-solving is described and illustrated with examples from an investigation of student reasoning. It is argued that PATSy can act as bridges between research and education and between research and clinical practise.
To investigate effective methods for communicating the personalized risks of alcohol consumption,... more To investigate effective methods for communicating the personalized risks of alcohol consumption, particularly to young people. An interactive computerized blood alcohol content calculator was implemented in Flash based on literature findings for effectively communicating risk. Young people were consulted on attitudes to the animation features and visualization techniques used to display personalized risk based on disclosed alcohol consumption. Preliminary findings reveal the calculator is relatively enjoyable to use for its genre. However, the primary aims of the visualization tool to effectively communicate personalized risk were undermined for some users by technical language. Transparency of risk calculations might further enhance the tool for others. Worryingly, user feedback revealed a tension between accurate presentation of risk and its consequent lack of sensationalism in terms of personal risk to the individual. Initial findings suggest the tool may provide a relatively engaging vehicle for exploring the link between action choices and risk outcomes. Suggestions for enhancing risk communication include using intelligent techniques for selecting data presentation formats and for demonstrating the effects of sustained risky behavior. Effective communication of risk contributes only partially to effecting behavior change; the role of the tool in influencing contributing attitudinal factors is also discussed.
This paper outlines the principles and functionalities of an authoring tool to support the develo... more This paper outlines the principles and functionalities of an authoring tool to support the development of intelligent tutoring systems to teach literacy, as part of a research on adult basic education. Considerations are made,about the main lines of the project: the basic system ontology, the organisation of the domain knowledge, the implementation of teaching activities, the declaration of the teaching strategies and the questions related to the student model. Many important aspects of the system ontology are detailed, as well as the particular subject domain ontology. Some of the issues on the integration of both ontologies are discussed. Keywords
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2007
Difficulties experienced by novices in clinical reasoning have been well documented in many profe... more Difficulties experienced by novices in clinical reasoning have been well documented in many professions, especially medicine (Boshuizen and Schmidt 1992, 2000; Elstein, Shulman and Sprafka 1978; Patel and Groen 1986; Rikers, Loyens and Schmidt 2004). These studies have shown that novice clinicians have difficulties with both knowledge and strategy in clinical reasoning tasks. Speech and language therapy students must also learn to reason clinically, yet to date there is little evidence of how they learn to do so. In this paper, we report the clinical reasoning difficulties of a group of speech and language therapy students. We make a comparison of a subgroup of these with experienced speech and language therapists' reasoning and proposes some methods and materials to aid the development of clinical reasoning in speech and language therapy students. Student diagnostic reasoning difficulties were analysed during the assessment of unseen cases on an electronic patient database, the Patient Assessment and Training System (PATSy http://www.patsy.ac.uk) (Lum et al. 2006). Pairs of students were videoed as they completed a one hour assessment of one of three 'virtual patients'. One pair of experienced speech and language therapists, who were not part of the project team, also completed an assessment of one of these cases under the same conditions. Screen capture was used to record all on screen activity within PATSy web pages (i.e. mouse pointer position, hyperlink and button presses, page scrolling, browser navigation interactions and data entered); Verbal comments made by participants were analysed via a seven-level coding scheme that aimed to describe the events that occur in the process of diagnostic reasoning. Students displayed a range of competence in making an accurate diagnosis. Diagnostically accurate students showed use of specific professional vocabulary, and a greater use of firm diagnostic statements. For the diagnostically inaccurate students, typical difficulties were a failure to interpret test results and video observations, difficulty in carrying out a sequence of tests consistent with a diagnostic reasoning path, and problems in recalling and using theoretical knowledge. We discuss how identification of student diagnostic reasoning difficulties can inform the design of learning materials intended to address these problems.
This Commentary has been written to provide key evidence-informed principles, based on our analys... more This Commentary has been written to provide key evidence-informed principles, based on our analysis of our research evidence, for pedagogies, policies and practices in the diverse range of higher education encountered in the UK today. It is intended as a ...
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