Alan M. Lesgold

Learning issues for intelligent tutoring systems

1. The Computer as a Tool for Learning Through Reflection.- 2. Toward a Theory of Impasse-Driven Learning.- 3. Psychological Evaluation of Path Hypotheses in Cognitive Diagnosis.- 4. Modeling the Knowledge Base of Mathematics Learners: Situation-Specific and Situation-Nonspecific Knowledge.- 5. The Knowledge Engineer as Student: Metacognitive Bases for Asking Good Questions.- 6. Toward a Theory of Curriculum for Use in Designing Intelligent Instructional Systems.- 7. Enhancing Incremental Learning Processes with Knowledge-Based Systems.- 8. Mental Models and Metaphors: Implications for the Design of Adaptive User-System Interfaces.- 9. Improvement of the Acquisition of Knowledge by Informing Feedback.- 10. Socializing the Intelligent Tutor: Bringing Empathy to Computer Tutors.- 11. Cognitive Economy in Physics Reasoning: Implications for Designing Instructional Materials.- 12. Experimental Data for the Design of a Microworld-Based System for Algebra.- 13. Computer-Aided Model Building.

Foregrounding effects in discourse comprehension

Five experiments are presented which illustrate microprocesses of discourse comprehension related to foregrounding. It is argued that when a sentence of a discourse is comprehended, its given portion must be matched to prior text memories by one of three processes. If the antecedent memory structure is in a short-term memory, matching is rapid; if no direct antecedent is found, bridging inferences, which take time to make, are performed. The present studies explore in detail an intermediate case in which prior memories exist but must be reinstated to active memory.

On pictures in prose

For some time now, researchers and educators have questioned the value of pictures for prose-learning. However, there is abundant empirical evidence to document the positive value of pictures. Consistent learning gains are associated with the use of pictures when experiments adhere to these five ground rules: (1) prose passages are presented orally; (2) the subjects are children; (3) the passages are fictional narratives; (4) the pictures overlap the story content; and (5) learning is demonstrated by factual recall.

Cognitive psychology and instruction

1. Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. PART ONE: INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY. 2. Sensory, Short-Term, and Working Memory. 3. Long-Term Memory: Structures and Models. 4. Encoding Processes. 5. Retrieval Processes. PART TWO: BELIEFS AND COGNITION. 6. Beliefs about Self. 7. Beliefs about Intelligence and Knowledge. PART THREE: FOSTERING COGNITIVE GROWTH. 8. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking. 9. Classroom Contexts for Cognitive Growth. 10. Technological Contexts for Cognitive Growth. PART FOUR: COGNITION IN THE CLASSROOM. 11. Learning to Read. 12. Reading to Learn. 13. Writing. 14. Cognitive Approaches to Mathematics. 15. Cognitive Approaches to Science. Glossary. References. Name Index. Subject Index.I. Learning.- A Building Block Model of Cognitive Learning.- Cognition and Instruction: Toward a Cognitive Theory of Learning.- Learning by Example.- Notes Toward a Theory of Complex Learning.- II. Comprehension and Information Structure.- Memory Processes and Instruction.- Schema-Directed Processes in Language Comprehension.- Structurally Integrated Versus Structurally Segregated Memory Representations: Implications for the Design of Instructional Materials.- Knowledge Transfer in Learning from Texts.- On Remembering How to Get There: How We Might Want Something Like a Map.- Some Reflections Concerning the Role of Imagery in Memory and Learning Ill.- III. Perceptual and Memory Processes in Reading.- Speech Processes During Reading.- Assessment of Perceptual, Decoding, and Lexical Skills and Their Relation to Reading Proficiency.- A Functional Analysis of Reading Disability: The Utilization of Intraword Redundancy by Good and Poor Readers.- Learning to Read: Visual Cues to Word Recognition.- Studying Individual Differences in Reading.- Memory for On-Going Spoken Discourse.- Precursors of Reading: Pattern Drawing and Picture Comprehension.- Developmental Changes in Hemispheric Processing for Cognitive Skills and the Relationship to Reading Ability.- IV. Problem Solving and Components of Intelligence.- Theoretical Advances of Cognitive Psychology Relevant to Instruction.- Progress Towards a Taxonomy of Strategy Transformations.- Teaching Problem Solving: The Effect of Algorithmic and Heuristic Problem-Solving Training in Relation to Task Complexity and Relevant Aptitudes.- Componential Investigations of Human Intelligence.- Eye Fixation and Strategy Analyses of Individual Differences in Cognitive Aptitudes.- Hypothesis Testing Strategies and Instruction.- The Characteristic Demands of Intellectual Problems.- Mental Arithmetic: Short-Term Storage and Information Processing in a Cognitive Skill.- Cognitive Styles and Differential Learning Capacities in Paired-Associate Learning.- V. Cognitive Development.- Development of Cognitive Skills.- The Influence of Environmental Structure on Cognitive Development During Adolescence: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Testing.- Cognition, Instruction, Development, and Individual Differences.- On the Meaning of Nonconservation.- Childrens Understanding of Measurement.- Teaching Strategies and Conservation Training.- Imagery and Childrens Associative Learning.- VI. Approaches to Instruction.- Implications of Developmental Psychology for the Design of Effective Instruction.- On the Reciprocal Relationship Between Previous Experience and Processing in Determining Learning Outcomes.- Cognitive Research Applied to Literacy Training.- Some Directions for a Cognitive Psychology of Instruction.

A machine learning approach to assessing knowledge sharing during collaborative learning activities

Students bring to a collaborative learning situation a great deal of specialized knowledge and experiences that undoubtedly shape the collaboration and learning processes. How effectively this unique knowledge is shared and assimilated by the group affects both the process and the product of the collaboration. In this paper, we describe a machine learning approach, Hidden Markov Modeling, to analyzing and assessing on-line knowledge sharing conversations. We show that this approach can determine the effectiveness of knowledge sharing episodes with 93% accuracy, performing 43% over the baseline. Understanding how members of collaborative learning groups share, assimilate, and build knowledge together may help us identify situations in which facilitation may increase the effectiveness of the group interaction.

Toward a theory of curriculum for use in designing intelligent instructional systems

Implicit in the approaches being taken by current efforts to create intelligent computer-based instruction is the notion that curriculum is almost an epiphenomenon of knowledge-driven instruction. Early computer-based instruction had little control structure other than an absolutely rigid curriculum and was insensitive to the subtleties of different students’ partial knowledge. As a result there was a reaction in the direction of representing the students’ knowledge as a subset of the target or goal knowledge to be taught and simply deciding de novo after each piece of instruction what piece of missing knowledge to teach the student. I am convinced that goal knowledge is as important to intelligent machine activity as it is to human activity and that it also must be well understood and explicitly represented in an instructional system if that system is to be successful in fostering learning.1 This chapter presents an architecture for representing curriculum or goal knowledge in intelligent tutors and is thus a first step toward a theory of curriculum that can inform the design of such systems. To illustrate one way in which such a theory can sharpen our ideas about learning and instruction, the later part of the chapter focuses on the concept of prerequisite that is the basis for existing computer-assisted instruction and shows how that concept has been inadequate in the past.

How Reading Difficulties Develop: Perspectives from a Longitudinal Study

Despite the great current concern with the nature and treatment of reading disabilities, we know surprisingly lttle about how and when these disabilities first become apparent. We are also singularly ignorant of how reading processes change in the course of development. This chapter attempts to respond to these important gaps in our knowledge by reporting on part of an extensive body of longitudinal data collected on several cohorts of children as they progressed through their primary grade reading programs.

A Proposal for the Reengineering of the Educational System

We propose a reengineering of the educational system that focuses on mastery and on more substantial learning activities and eliminates the constraints on learning that arise from the current insistence on grouping children by age. Our basic argument is that eliminating the age-based approach to education has striking advantages that outweigh any social disadvantage. Age-based grouping is, in historical terms, a recent reaction, driven initially by social trends that grew partly out of the realization that children pass through developmental stages and even more out of a wave of superficial approaches to efficiency that attended the beginning of mass production in industry. Through most of history, age grouping has been minimal. We think there are good reasons for this, which we discuss below. The most powerful reason is the extremely large variance found in any index of learning achievement, even in relatively homogeneous populations. We further argue that modern information systems allow richer educational activities, research-based methods, and multiage schooling to proceed efficiently and effectively. This creates a moral imperative to provide real learning opportunities to the whole of the student population.

Pictures, repetition, and young children’s oral prose learning1

A question of contemporary interest to educational researchers-and one of potential practical significance to educators-is whether pictures can be used to facilitate childrens learning. Although the answer to this question has been overwhelmingly affirmative in laboratory tasks designed by psychologists to measure childrens simple associative learning and recall (cf. Levin, 1976; Reese, 1970), evidence pertaining to the efficacy of pictures has been less con-

Pronominalization: A Device for Unifying Sentences in Memory.

Memory representations (interword probe recall probabilities) were examined for sentences whose propositions were or were not related by pronominal reference. Sentences were compared that had similar syntactic structures (Experiment 1) or similar semantic structures (Experiment 2). In both types, pronominal reference resulted in completely integrated memory representations. Substitution of another noun (Experiment 1) or repeating the same noun (Experiment 2) resulted in incomplete integration. Integration is defined as an equal likelihood of recall for lexical items in the same versus other underlying sentence propositions. Pronominal reference is proposed to function as a flag to mark portions of linguistic input that can be stored as a single memory unit.