Tutor module authoring component for Ndlauthor to support multiple scaffolding Techniques (T-0733) (MFN 6880)

Abstract

An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is any computer system or software application that tries to replicate the performance of a human tutor by supporting the theory of "learning by doing". ITS provide direct customized instructions while performing a task without human intervention within a problem domain such as mathematics, medical diagnosis and distance learning. ITSs have been shown to induce enhancement in student performance in broad range of domains. Despite their benefits in wide range of domains, ITSs have not seen widespread use due to the complexity and complication involved in their development. Authoring an ITS from scratch requires technical expertise in several fields including computer science, cognitive psychology, interface designing and artificial intelligence. To decrease the expertise threshold, several authoring tools have been developed in order to build ITSs. Research community in Artificial Intelligence Education (AIED) has been working on the development of efficient and reliable ITS. Authoring tools are used to develop ITS more easily and efficiently. Authoring an ITS is not an easy task as it requires highly technical expertise and domain knowledge. While many ITS and authoring tools exist, building an efficient authoring tool to allow novice authors to build their own tutoring systems is a big challenge. NDLtutor (Negotiation-driven learning . tutor) was introduced as an ITS which uses negotiations as a platform for providing instructions to the students. In order to help novice authors NDLauthor was introduced to author NDLtutor with minimum technical expertise. NDLauthor is an ongoing project, which is being developed as a Component-Based Authoring Tool (ComBAT) for NDLtutor. Currently NDLauthor only provides support to the authors to build the domain model. The target of this study is to develop a Tutor Model Authoring component for NDLauthor to facilitate teachers/domain experts to construct a Tutor Module that provides them with the options to choose and implement different scaffolding techniques to handle student learning. Scaffolding refers to a wide variety of instructions applied by tutor to enhance students learning ability. Scaffolding bridges gap between students and learning. Scaffolding helps students to understand and learn something quickly due to the support provided. Scaffolding techniques need to change according to the student's learning ability, performance and interaction. This research aims at providing a component for NDLauthor that will allow novice authors to author the Tutor Module to handle such tasks.