Adaptive learning has become a dominant theme in settings ranging from academic laboratories to commercial education. Despite tens of millions of dollars invested by governments, universities, the private sector and companies, however, progress has been both costly and limited. No established initiative has attempted to model the processes human…

This paper summarizes key stages in development of the Structural Learning Theory (SLT) and explains how and why it is now possible to model human tutors in a highly efficient manner. The paper focuses on evolution of the SLT, a deterministic theory of teaching and learning, on which AuthorIT authoring and TutorIT delivery systems have been built.…

AuthorIT and TutorIT represent a fundamentally different approach to building and delivering adaptive learning systems. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) guide students as they solve problems. BIG DATA systems make pedagogical decisions based on average student performance. Decision making in AuthorIT and TutorIT is designed to model the human…

Although providing open learner models to teachers and learners has proven effective, building accurate learner models remains a very complex task, partly due to the large amount of data that must be analyzed. We propose a method for specifying an open learner model at the conceptual level. This model re-uses constraints or indicators already…

This paper describes educational systems built by members of the Human-Centred Technology Research Group at the University of Sussex that address different aspects of motivation. These systems have been described elsewhere, so this paper is essentially a drawing together of existing work. In particular, we have recently set out a view of…

This article analyses educational modelling with the IMS-LD specification from the perspective of knowledge-based learning environments. An extension of the MOT visual language covers a wider variety of rule formats to provide control of the flow of activities in a multi-actor process-based scenario. The visual scenarios are executed by an…

The Ideational Knowledge Map is an individual's representation of her or his ideational (propositional, declarative, or conceptual) knowledge, and it includes 4 kinds of graphic components: concepts, concept clusters, multi-component links, and texts. The Map has visual and abstract dimensions, whose local, intermediate and global values are…

More and more things that humans used to do can be automated on computer. In each case, complex tasks have been automated -- not to the extent that they can be done as well as humans, but better. I will draw and develop parallels to education -- showing how and why advances in the Structural Learning Theory (SLT) and the AuthorIT development and…