The mathematics test is the most difficult test in the GED (General Education Development) Test battery, largely due to the presence of story problems. Raising performance levels of story problem-solving would have a significant effect on GED Test passage rates. The subject of this formative research study is Ms. Stephens' Categorization Practice…

Similar content has tremendous utility in classroom and online learning environments. For example, similar content can be used to combat cheating, track students' learning over time, and model students' latent knowledge. These different use cases for similar content all rely on different notions of similarity, which make it difficult to determine…

Computer technology has been used for over 50 years to tailor learning experiences to the needs and interests of individual learners at all levels of instruction. It provides adaptation and individualization that is difficult, if not impossible to apply in a classroom of 20-30 students. This article provides a brief background and discussion about…

Accurately modeling individual students' knowledge growth is important in many applications of learning analytics. A key step is to decompose the knowledge targeted in the instruction into detailed knowledge components (KCs). We search for an accurate KC model for basic equation solving skills, using data from an intelligent tutoring system (ITS),…

In honor of Jim Greer, we share our recent work--a design and development study of various learning supports embedded within the game "Physics Playground." This 2-dimensional computer game is designed to help students learn Newtonian physics and uses stealth assessment to measure, in real-time, their physics understanding. The game…

How to support students in programming learning has been a great research challenge in the last years. To address this challenge, prior works have mainly focused on proposing solutions based on syntactic analysis to provide students with personalized feedback about their grammatical programming errors and misconceptions. However, syntactic…

Design tasks are difficult to teach, due to large, unstructured solution spaces, underspecified problems, non-existent problem solving algorithms and stopping criteria. In this paper, we comment on our approach to develop KERMIT, a constraint-based tutor that taught database design. In later work, we re-implemented KERMIT as EER-Tutor, and…

Although the Andes project produced many results over its 18 years of activity, this commentary focuses on its contributions to understanding how a goal-free user interface impacts the overall design and performance of a step-based tutoring system. Whereas a goal-aligned user interface displays relevant goals as blank boxes or empty locations that…

Prior research shows that self-explanation promotes understanding by helping learners connect new knowledge with prior knowledge. However, despite ample evidence supporting the effectiveness of self-explanation, an instructional design challenge emerges in how best to scaffold self-explanation. In particular, it is an open challenge to design…

Ontologies play an important role as knowledge domain representations in technology-enhanced learning and instruction. Represented in form of concept maps they are commonly used as teaching and learning material and have the potential to enhance positive educational outcomes. To ensure the effective use of an ontology representing a knowledge…

Despite a growing need for educational tools that support students at the earliest phases of undergraduate Computer Science (CS) curricula, relatively few such tools exist--the majority being Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Since peer interactions more readily give rise to challenges and negotiations, another way in which students can become more…

Students learn scientific concepts and mathematical calculations relating to scientific principles by repetition and reinforcement. Teachers and instructors cannot practically spend the long time required during tutorials to patiently teach students the calculations. Usually, teachers assign homework to provide practice to students, hoping that…

Many studies have shown that visual representations can enhance student understanding of STEM concepts. However, prior research suggests that visual representations alone are not necessarily effective across a broad range of students. To address this problem, we created a novel, scaffolded form of diagrammatic self-explanation in which students…

Help seeking is an important process in self-regulated learning (SRL). It may influence learning with intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), because many ITSs provide help, often at the student's request. The Help Tutor was a tutor agent that gave in-context, real-time feedback on students' help-seeking behavior, as they were learning with an ITS.…

We have been incrementally adding data-driven methods into the Deep Thought logic tutor for the purpose of creating a fully data-driven intelligent tutoring system. Our previous research has shown that the addition of data-driven hints, worked examples, and problem assignment can improve student performance and retention in the tutor. In this…