Since the 1960s, researchers have been trying to optimize the sequencing of instructional activities using the tools of reinforcement learning (RL) and sequential decision making under uncertainty. Many researchers have realized that reinforcement learning provides a natural framework for optimal instructional sequencing given a particular model…

As part of a perennial project, our team is actively engaged in developing new synthetic assistant (SA) technologies to assist in training combat medics and medical first responders. It is critical that medical first responders are well trained to deal with emergencies more effectively. This would require real-time monitoring and feedback for each…

This paper describes an embodied conversational agent enhanced with specific conversational strategies aiming to foster learners' readiness towards communication in a second language (L2). Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language is believed to have a direct and sustained influence on learners' actual usage frequency of the target…

Students experience mathematics in their day-to-day lives as they pursue their individual interests in areas like sports or video games. The present study explores how connecting to students' individual interests can be used to personalize learning using an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) for algebra. We examine the idea that the effects of…

This study examines the effects of teachable agents' expressed self-efficacy on students. A total of 166 students, 10- to 11-years-old, used a teachable agent-based math game focusing on the base-ten number system. By means of data logging and questionnaires, the study compared the effects of high vs. low agent self-efficacy on the students'…

The goal of this study was to use eye-tracking and log-file data to investigate the impact of prior knowledge on college students' (N = 194, with a subset of n = 30 for eye tracking and sequence mining analyses) fixations on (i.e., looking at) self-regulated learning-related areas of interest (i.e., specific locations on the interface) and on the…

A successful instructional method is to engage learners with exploratory problem-solving before providing explanations of the canonical solutions and foundational concepts. A key question is whether and what type of guidance will lead learners to explore more productively and how this guidance will affect subsequent learning and transfer. We…

Reflective writing is an important educational practice to train reflective thinking. Currently, researchers must manually analyze these writings, limiting practice and research because the analysis is time and resource consuming. This study evaluates whether machine learning can be used to automate this manual analysis. The study investigates…

A large-scale simulation study of the assessment effectiveness of a particular instantiation of knowledge space theory is described. In this study, data from more than 700,000 actual assessments in mathematics using the ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) software were used to determine response probabilities for the same number of…

Designing good multiple choice questions (MCQs) for education and assessment is time consuming and error-prone. An abundance of structured and semi-structured data has led to the development of automatic MCQ generation methods. Recently, ontologies have emerged as powerful tools to enable the automatic generation of MCQs. However, current question…

Communication tools have been popular in web-based learning systems because of their ability to promote the interaction and potentially alleviate the high dropout issue. In recent years, with the increased awareness among researchers about the individual difference of the students, more and more personalized learning supports have been developed.…

In large-scale assessments such as the ones encountered in MOOCs, a lot of usage data is available because of the number of learners involved. Newcomers, that just arrive on a MOOC, have various backgrounds in terms of knowledge, but the platform hardly knows anything about them. Therefore, it is crucial to elicit their knowledge fast, in order to…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education policy and American government. We collect measures of…

No thesis -- no graduation. Academic writing poses manifold challenges to students, instructors and institutions alike. High labor costs, increasing student numbers, and the Bologna Process (which has reduced the period after which undergraduates in Europe submit their first thesis and thus the time available to focus on writing skills) all pose a…

Learning at Scale is a fast growing field that affects formal, informal, and workplace education. Highly interdisciplinary, it builds on solid foundations in the learning sciences, computer science, education, and the social sciences. We define learning at scale as the study of the technologies, pedagogies, analyses, and theories of learning and…