Kurt VanLehn, Reva
Freedman,
Pamela Jordan, Charles Murray, Remus Osan,
Michael Ringenberg, Carolyn
Rose, Kay Schulze, Robert Shelby, Donald Treacy,
Anders Weinstein, and Mary
Wintersgill.
Model tracing tutors have
been quite successful in teaching cognitive skills; however, they
still are not as competent
as expert human tutors. We propose two ways to improve
model tracing tutors and in particular
the Andes physics tutor. First, tutors should fade their
caffolding.
Although most model tracing
tutors have scaffolding that needs to be gradually removed
(faded), Andes' scaffolding is already
"faded", and that causes student modeling difficulties that
adversely impact its tutoring.
A proposed solution to this problem is presented. Second, tutors
should
integrate the knowledge
they currently teach with other important knowledge in the task
domain in order to promote deeper
learning. Several types of deep learning are discussed, and it
is argued that natural language
processing is necessary for encouraging such learning. A new
project,
Atlas, is developing natural language
based enhancements to model tracing tutors that are intended to
encourage deeper learning.