Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools Research Articles

Intelligent Tutoring System: Learning Math for 6th-Grade Primary School Students

This paper proposes a web-based application designed to help elementary school students who have difficulty learning online independently and also their parents who are currently having difficulty teaching their children to study at home online, especially at this time of difficulty with a pandemic outbreak like COVID-19; this time does not allow for physical meetings for the learning process in primary schools. In this paper, we only focus on mathematics because based on several other studies, it is very difficult and important to learn mathematics at the beginning of educational activities such as at the elementary school level. In this paper, the system is modeled using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) tool in the form of a use case diagram which is used to describe the proposed business process and uses class diagrams to describe the database model diagram. In this case, the class diagram is used to describe the data in the class diagram where each class refers to a table in the database. The web-based application user interface is shown at the end to show the communication between users and applications, where this web-based application is implemented using Personal Home Pages (PHP) as server programming and using MySQL to store database model designs. Moreover, for the Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), content was created using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT) which is an authoring tool for learning mathematics created by Carnegie Mellon University. In the end, this web-based application is expected to be used and support teachers as a complement to online mathematics learning, especially during difficult times such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

PACA-ITS: A Multi-Agent System for Intelligent Virtual Laboratory Courses

This paper describes an intensive design leading to the implementation of an intelligent lab companion (ILC) agent for an intelligent virtual laboratory (IVL) platform. An IVL enables virtual labs (VL) to be used as online research laboratories, thereby facilitating and improving the analytical skills of students using agent technology. A multi-agent system enhances the capability of the learning system and solves students’ problems automatically. To ensure an exhaustive Agent Unified Modeling Language (AUML) design, identification of the agents’ types and responsibilities on well-organized AUML strategies is carried out. This work also traces the design challenge of IVL modeling and the ILC agent functionality of six basic agents: the practical coaching agent (PCA), practical dispatcher agent (PDA), practical interaction and coordination agent (PICA), practical expert agent (PEA), practical knowledge management agent (PKMA), and practical inspection agent (PIA). Furthermore, this modeling technique is compatible with ontology mapping based on an enabling technology using the Java Agent Development Framework (JADE), Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT), and Protégé platform integration. The potential Java Expert System Shell (Jess) programming implements the cognitive model algorithm criteria that are applied to measure progress through the CTAT for C++ programming concept task on IVL and successfully deployed on the TutorShop web server for evaluation. The results are estimated through the learning curve to assess the preceding knowledge, error rate, and performance profiler to engage cognitive Jess agent efficiency as well as practicable and active decisions to improve student learning.

The Effect of Assistance on Learning and Affect in an Algebra Tutor

We investigated the impact of assistance on learning and affect during problem-solving activities with a computer tutor we built using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools framework. The tutor delivered its primary form of assistance in the form of worked-out examples. We manipulated the level of assistance the examples in the tutor provided, by having similar problem-example pairs in one version of the tutor (high-assistance condition) and reduced similarity problem-example pairs in the other version (reduced-assistance condition). The reduced-assistance condition resulted in significantly higher learning, without increasing negative affect like frustration.

A computer-based tutor for learning energy and power

Educating our future citizens in science and engineering is vitally important to ensure future advancement. Presently, in the light of environmental sustainability, it is critical that students learn concepts relating to energy, its consumption and future demands. In this article, we harness the state of the educational technology, namely Intelligent Tutoring System to teach concepts relating to energy and power. We describe the design and implementation of our computer-based tutor to bridge this knowledge and skills gap. We built a responsive tutoring system with Carnegie Mellon University’s Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools that challenges the students with quantitative problems based on energy, provides immediate feedback to student answers and provides need-based, timely help that supports student learning. We explain our research-based design that provides a friendly and welcoming user interface, displays astute and anticipatory software behaviour, and scaffolds student learning through appropriate clues and hints.

Example-Tracing Tutors: Intelligent Tutor Development for Non-programmers

In 2009, we reported on a new Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) technology, example-tracing tutors, that can be built without programming using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT). Creating example-tracing tutors was shown to be 4–8 times as cost-effective as estimates for ITS development from the literature. Since 2009, CTAT and its associated learning management system, the Tutorshop, have been extended and have been used for both research and real-world instruction. As evidence that example-tracing tutors are an effective and mature ITS paradigm, CTAT-built tutors have been used by approximately 44,000 students and account for 40 % of the data sets in DataShop, a large open repository for educational technology data sets. We review 18 example-tracing tutors built since 2009, which have been shown to be effective in helping students learn in real educational settings, often with large pre/post effect sizes. These tutors support a variety of pedagogical approaches, beyond step-based problem solving, including collaborative learning, educational games, and guided invention activities. CTAT and other ITS authoring tools illustrate that non-programmer approaches to building ITS are viable and useful and will likely play a key role in making ITS widespread.

Teaching the Teacher: Tutoring SimStudent Leads to More Effective Cognitive Tutor Authoring

SimStudent is a machine-learning agent initially developed to help novice authors to create cognitive tutors without heavy programming. Integrated into an existing suite of software tools called Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT), SimStudent helps authors to create an expert model for a cognitive tutor by tutoring SimStudent on how to solve problems. There are two different ways to author an expert model with SimStudent. In the context of Authoring by Tutoring, the author interactively tutors SimStudent by posing problems to SimStudent, providing feedback on the steps performed by SimStudent, and also demonstrating steps as a response to SimStudent’s hint requests when SimStudent cannot perform steps correctly. In the context of Authoring by Demonstration, the author demonstrates solution steps, and SimStudent attempts to induce underlying domain principles by generalizing those worked-out examples. We conducted evaluation studies to investigate which authoring strategy better facilitates authoring and found two key results. First, the expert model generated with Authoring by Tutoring is better and has higher accuracy while maintaining the same level of completeness than the one generated with Authoring by Demonstration. The reason for this better accuracy is that the expert model generated by tutoring benefits from negative feedback provided for SimStudent’s incorrect production applications. Second, authoring by Tutoring requires less time than Authoring by Demonstration. This enhanced authoring efficiency is partially because (a) when Authoring by Demonstration, the author needs to test the quality of the expert model, whereas the formative assessment of the expert model is done naturally by observing SimStudent’s performance when Authoring by Tutoring, and (b) the number of steps that need to be demonstrated during tutoring decreases as learning progresses.

Scaling Up Programming by Demonstration for Intelligent Tutoring Systems Development: An Open-Access Web Site for Middle School Mathematics Learning

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), which provide step-by-step guidance to students in complex problem-solving activities, have been shown to enhance student learning in a range of domains. However, they tend to be difficult to build. Our project investigates whether the process of authoring an ITS can be simplified, while at the same time maintaining the characteristics that make ITS effective, and also maintaining the ability to support large-scale tutor development. Specifically, our project tests whether authoring tools based on programming-by-demonstration techniques (developed in prior research) can support the development of a large-scale, real-world tutor. We are creating an open-access Web site, called Mathtutor (http://webmathtutor.org), where middle school students can solve math problems with step-by-step guidance from ITS. The Mathtutor site fields example-tracing tutors, a novel type of ITS that are built "by demonstration," without programming, using the cognitive tutor authoring tools (CTATs). The project's main contribution will be that it represents a stringent test of large-scale tutor authoring through programming by demonstration. A secondary contribution will be that it tests whether an open-access site (i.e., a site that is widely and freely available) with software tutors for math learning can attract and sustain user interest and learning on a large scale.