This article describes an advanced learning technology used to investigate hypotheses about learning by teaching. The proposed technology is an instance of a teachable agent, called SimStudent, that learns skills (e.g., for solving linear equations) from examples and from feedback on performance. SimStudent has been integrated into an online,…

This dissertation presents the design, development and short-term evaluation of an embodied conversational agent designed to mentor human users. An embodied conversational agent (ECA) was created and programmed to mentor African American computer science majors on their decision to pursue graduate study in computing. Before constructing the ECA,…

Collaborative and individual instruction may support different types of knowledge. Optimal instruction for a subject domain may therefore need to combine these two modes of instruction. There has not been much research, however, on combining individual and collaborative learning with Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). A first step is to expand…

Enthymemes are a manner of presenting a deductive argument. A deductive argument consists of three elements: A major premise (e.g., All men are mortal.), a minor premise (e.g., Aristotle is a man.), and a conclusion (i.e., Therefore, Aristotle is mortal.). An enthymeme is a truncated deductive argument; one of the members is left unstated. From a…

The authors explored the impact of an online tutoring program, Math Whizz (Whizz Education, 2014), on student mathematics achievement at 15 elementary schools. Students participated in the use of the Math Whizz program for the duration of the school year as a supplement to mathematics instruction. The Math Whizz program recorded such information…

The article addresses the question of how the assessment process with large-scale data derived from online learning environments will be different from the assessment process without it. Following an explanation of big data and how it is different from previously available learner data, we describe three notable features that characterize…

Post-problem reflective tutorial dialogues between human tutors and students are examined to predict when the tutor changed the level of abstraction from the student's preceding turn (i.e., used more general terms or more specific terms); such changes correlate with learning. Prior work examined lexical changes in abstraction. In this work, we…

Reform-based math instruction calls for students' construction of conceptual understanding, solving challenging problems and explanation of reasoning. However, existing literature shows that students with learning disabilities (LD) easily get lost in reform-based instruction. As an outcome of collaborative work between math education and special…

This paper introduces a Dialog-Based Computer-Assisted second-Language Learning (DB-CALL) system using semantic and grammar correctness evaluations and the results of its experiment. While the system dialogues with English learners about a given topic, it automatically evaluates the grammar and content properness of their English utterances, then…

In recent years, the demand for computer programming professionals has increased rapidly. These computer engineers not only play a key role in the national development of the computing and software industries, they also have a significant influence on the broader national knowledge industry. Therefore, one of the objectives of information…

Free-form spoken input would be the easiest and most natural way for young children to communicate to an intelligent tutoring system. However, achieving such a capability poses a challenge both to instruction design and to automatic speech recognition. To address the difficulties of accepting such input, we adopt the framework of predictable…

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) have been used as virtual conversational partners in interpersonal skills training applications such as medical interviews, military decision making, and cultural training. Ideally, in interpersonal skills training users will perceive and treat the ECAs the same as they would real people. The perception and…

Construction Grammar (CxG) is a well-established linguistic theory that takes the notion of a construction as the basic unit of language. Yet, because the potential of this theory for language teaching or SLA has largely remained ignored, this paper demonstrates the benefits of adopting the CxG approach for modelling a student's linguistic…

Compared to boys, many girls are more aware of a social context in the learning process and perform better when the environment supports frequent interactions and social relationships. For these girls, embodied agents (animated on-screen characters acting as tutors) could afford simulated social interactions in computer-based learning and thereby…

This study examines McGraw-Hill Higher Education's LearnSmart online textbook supplement and its effect on student exam performance in an interpersonal communication course. Students (N = 62) in two sections were either enrolled in a control group with no required LearnSmart usage or a treatment group with requisite LearnSmart assignments.…