Adaptive Educational Environments for Cognitive Skills Acquisition

Ashok Patel Director of CAL Research

School of Business, De Monvort University Leicester LEI 9BH, United Kingdom

Email: apatel @dmu.ac.uk

Abstract

This tiitorial deals with the cognitive skills based adaptive educatiorial envirotinierits - an approach to designing tutoring systenis that has beeri very effective, especially within applied doniairis where the learnirig is predoniinnntly corlcerried with acquiring opercrtional knowledge. Since such envirotinierits can acconiniodate both the ‘itistriictioti arid ‘cotistri~tioii ‘ of knowledge arid actively engage the learner, they have beeti siiccessfid. This is eviderit f rom the popularity arid wide acceptarice of simulation based tutoring systenis. This tictorial aims to denioristrate arid discirss various aspects of actirall\ implemented systems, with a view to provide intelligent educational system developers atid irnplenienters with the kriowledge they need in order to make informed decisions about siich envirorirtients.

1. Introduction

Competence in any domain requires both the subject specific knowledge and skills, besides the general skills that apply across all the domains. The skill based competence, in turn, consists of physical skills - which refer to physical expertise needed to perform the procedural tasks efficiently; and cognitive skills - which refer to cognitive expertise to successfully perform the procedural tasks, involving situational analysis, interpretation of information, orderly execution of sub- tasks and decision making. The acquisition of physical skills is greatly facilitated by the visibility of the processes and tasks involved in a procedural task, as these can be observed and imitated. The cognitive skills, however, require a much more sophisticated learning process as the cognitive processes run inside a human mind, invisible to an observer. For example, learning to enter data for computer processing requires physical skills that may be obtained by observing and imitating an experienced operator’s eye-hand co-ordination and other physical movements, but the consistency verification of

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Kin shu k Information Systems Department

Mussey University, Private Bag 11 -222 Palmerston North, New Zealand Email: kinshuk @ mussey. ac. nz

the data being entered for the purpose of isolating invalid data requires cognitive skills and very experienced operators would frcquently spot the invalid data before consciously rationalising about its invalidity. This tutorial is mainly concerned with applied domains where cognitive skills assume perhaps greater significance for the practitioners than the conceptual knowledge.

2. Cognitive Skills Acquisition in Academy

A major aspect of learning in applied domains is the acquisition of subject specific knowledge and skills to add to the general knowledge and skills. The subject specific skills include cognitive skills required i n applying the domain’s conceptual knowledge to solve problems. The learners need to acquire a sense of judgement and decision-making ability within different current and foreseen contexts and to be successful, they require skills pertaining to analysis. methodical approach and

identification and solution of intermediate steps. In case of some applied domains such as those within

science and engineering, academic learning does providc practical ‘hands-on’ leaming sessions where the learners can obtain physical skills and also cognitive skills surrounding the practical work. However, academic learning of some other applied domains, for instance accounting, is quite deficient in terms of opportunities for acquiring cognitive skills. Such skills are regarded so important by the professional bodies that they require adequate work experience before granting membership to those who pass their examinations and thus emphasise the apprenticeship mode of learning.

For academic institutions, the only feasible way of providing a similar learning experience is through cognitive apprenticeship [ 11 based adaptive educational environments. The tutorial aims to demonstrate an entry level practical application of these ideas in the form of intelligent tutoring software developed under the Byzantium project (for more details please see [ 2 ] ) with substantial funding from thc Higher Education Funding

systematic build up o f the full solution through

Councils of the United Kingdom under their Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP). Many institutions of Further and Higher Education in U.K. and abroad have used the software in teaching more than 10,000 students till-date. It has been tested independently and the researchers found statistically significant improvement in student performance [3].

The Byzantium intelligent tutoring environment (ITE) is primarily aimed at numeric disciplines, which are task oriented and require the learners to achieve cognitive skills [4] as a major constituent of domain competence besides the domain concepts. The tutorial will discuss current implementation and plans for further development, including the need for redesign to achieve a web-based open and flexible learning environment that is increasingly being favoured by many authors (for instance, see [ 5 ] ) .

To contrast with Byzantium, the tutorial will also look at the InterSim project, which provides an educational multimedia system that can be used in and outside educational institutions. The system facilitates acquisition of competence not only in domain knowledge but also in related cognitive skills. The system is activity oriented and supports acquisition of competence in both knowledge and task oriented performances. The InterSim system provides a r isk free s imulated envi ronment for explorat ions by a learner without t h e fear of harming a fel low h u m a n a n d includes real world scenarios based o n actual patients. S u c h systems are appl icable t o a wide geographic area, s ince mult imedia techniques facilitate the adopt ion of multilingual support with little effort.

3. Conclusion

The tutorial is intended for all those who are engaged either in research, development or implementation of adaptive and intelligent educational environments. While discussing the two implementations of cognitive apprenticeship based educational environments, it aims to consider five questions that can be asked about any such cognitive skills based adaptive educational environments: 1. What are the various aspects of learning facilitated by such environments; 2 . What are the theoretical issues that underlie development of such environments; 3.What functions is served by adaptation and how they are twinned with assessment issues; 4. What pedagogical issues are important in the development of such environments; and 5 . How one can go about practically developing such environments. The purpose is to provide intelligent educational system developers and implementers the knowledge for assessing and making informed decisions about such environments.

4. References

[ I ] Collins A., Brown J . S. & Newman S. E. (1989). Cognitive Apprenticeship : Teaching the crafts of reading, writing and mathematics. In Lauren B. Resnick (Ed.) Knowing, Learning and Instriiction, Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 4s 3 -494.

[2] Patel A. & Kinshuk (1997). Intelligent Tutoring Tools in a Computer Integrated Learning Environment for introductory numeric disciplines. Innovations in Education nnd Training International Journal, 34 (3), 200-207.

[3] Stoner G. & Harvey J., (1999) Integrating learning technology in a foundation level management accounting course: an e(in)volving evaluation. CTI-AFM Annual Conference, Brighton, U.K., April.

[4] Patel A., Kinshuk & Russell D.. (2000) Intelligent Tutoring Tools for Cognitive Skill Acquisition in Life Long learning, Educational Technology & Society, (Ed. Sinitsa K. ), Joumal of

Available: http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/ IFETS and IEEE-LTTF,

[5] Khan B. & Ealy D. (2001). A Framework for a Comprehensive Web-based Authoring System (Ed Khan B.). Educational Technology Publications Inc.. New Jersey (ISBN 0- 87776-303-9) pp.355-364

5. Biography

Ashok Patel is the Director of CAL Research, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom. He has been designing educational software for more than ten years. By profession, he is an accountant and teaches Management Accounting and Business Systems. He is a co-initiator of the Intemational Forum of Educational Technology & Society, and co-editor of the Educational Technology & Society journal. He is also an Executive Committee Member of IEEE Learning Technology Task Force.

Kinshuk is a Senior Lecturer at the Massey University. New Zealand. He has been involved i n large scale research and development projects for cognitive skills based adaptive educational environments and has published over 30 research papers in international refereed joumals, conferences and book chapters. He is an active researcher in leaming technologies and human computer interactions. He is currently chairing IEEE Learning Technology Task Force, New Zealand chapter of ACM SIGCHI, and the International Forum of Educational Technology & Society. He is also editor of 'Educational Technology & Society' journal (ISSN 1436- 4522) and 'Learning Technology Newsletter (ISSN 1438- 0625).

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