AutoTutor is a learning environment that tutors students by holding a conversation in natural language.
AutoTutor
has been developed for Newtonian qualitative physics and computer literacy.
Its design
was inspired by explanation-based constructivist theories of learning, intelligent tutoring systems
that
adaptively respond to student knowledge, and empirical research on dialogue patterns in tutorial
discourse.
AutoTutor
presents challenging problems (formulated as questions) from a curriculum
script
and then engages in mixed initiative dialogue that guides the student in building an answer.
It
provides
the student with positive, neutral, or negative feedback on the student’s
typed responses,
pumps
the student for more information, prompts the student to fill in missing words, gives hints, fills
in
missing information with assertions, identifies and corrects erroneous ideas, answers the student’s
questions,
and summarizes answers. AutoTutor
has produced learning gains of approximately .70 sigma
for
deep levels of comprehension.