Longkai Wu

Use of Agent Prompts to Support Reflective Interaction in a Learning-by-Teaching Environment

A learning-by-teaching environment (Biswas, Schwarz, Bransford et al., 2001), can be used to create a context in which student can play the role of tutor through teaching the agent tutee. Without meaningful feedback from the agent, there is no reason to expect students engagement with the teaching interaction and growth in learning. This study tries to investigate the design of student-agent reflective interaction triggered by the agent prompts in a learning-by-teaching agent environment, Bettys Brain. A pilot study in using the prompts within the agent environment is undertaken. The result gives us some preliminary evidence that the agent prompt support on reflective interaction can be positive in enhancing students learning when pursuing learning-by-teaching activities.

A Synthesis: Expanding the Reach of Education Research and Reforms

Stemming from the wide-ranging discussions in this book of issues, strategies, approaches, and trajectories for achieving scalability and sustainability, this closing chapter presents a synthesis of various crosscutting themes that have emerged or serve as rise-above for a higher and deeper level of understanding of the happenings and trends in educational reforms. We look into the themes related to framing the challenges of scaling, models of scaling from other disciplines, alternative approaches of scaling in different settings and the challenges that ensued, learnability of scaling and diffusion concepts, macro vs micro perspectives, and top-down vs bottom-up approaches. We envisage such a synopsis will lead to a systemic picture that is informative in creating a new scholarship of understanding the complexity of educational scaling matters.

Seeding a Curricular Innovation from One School to Five Schools: A Case Study from Singapore

Scaling up curricular innovations is inherently complex. The scaling complexity comes from not only the influences arising from policy imperatives, government, or other top-level support but also the uptake of the practitioners. In the literature, factors that affect the degree of uptake and scale-up of innovations have been frequently discussed. However, evidence is lacking from scaling practices in specific contexts. Few studies have discussed the relationship between the application of scaling strategies and patterns, and the transformation of teaching and learning. This chapter presents a 6-year innovation scaling in one school and the continuous scaling to another five schools in order to paint a picture on how scaling practitioners design and implement the scaling strategies to promote teacher adoption and adaption of the innovation (the Mobilized 5E Science Curriculum, M5ESC). We first review literature that addresses mobile learning in science education, scale-up challenges and perspectives, and evidence-based scaling for framing the scale-up strategies of the innovation. Then we describe the scaling progression of the M5ESC innovation that encompasses intraschool and interschool scaling phases. Finally we draw some implications from the outcomes of the scaling progression at the interschool level.

A reflective tutoring framework using question prompts for scaffolding of reflection

In the context of tutoring, question prompts can be important in enhancing a learners reflection in learning. This paper describes the design and implementation of a reflective tutoring framework within an inquisitive simulated tutee environment that seeks to scaffold learners reflection in pursuing tutoring activities. The results of an empirical study suggest that such a framework could afford the investigation of incorporating question prompts in a simulated tutee system to foster reflection and learning.

Immersive Environments for Learning: Towards Holistic Curricula

The design and implementation of innovative pedagogical practices is an echo to the social needs for educational change in the twenty-first century. It has emerged to meet the request for unlocking the inventiveness of the learner’s potential, and the need to take into account new possibilities for learning in a highly technology-mediated world. With the goal of illustrating the value of holistic curricula embodied with immersion technology, we propose a holistic pedagogical model and elaborate on the design of a curriculum to establish engaging scenarios where learners could experience three holistic learning dimensions in classroom: virtual reality immersion, agent mediation, and teacher moderation. Finally, we describe a vision of how immersive environments could offer a possible solution to the requirement of holistic curricula that schools are seeking for.

Incorporation of Agent Prompts as Scaffolding of Reflection in an Intelligent Learning Environment

Recent research has emphasized the importance of reflection for students in an intelligent learning environment. But, researchers have not reached a consensus on the most effective ways to design scaffolding to prompt reflection, nor have they accepted a common mechanism that can explain the effects of scaffolding on reflection. Two types of agent prompts to foster reflection are contrasted in this chapter, both from the perspective of a tutee, differing in their specificity. Generic prompts are content-independent tutee questions, aiming at fostering students’ reflection on metacognitive strategies and beliefs regarding their learning-by-teaching activities. Specific prompts, on the other hand, are content-dependent tutee questions that encourage students’ reflection on domain-related and task-specific skills, and articulation of their explanatory responses. This chapter describes the design and effect of these two types of agent prompts, adapted to students’ learning-by-teaching activities, on the learning outcomes, the elicited levels of reflection, and the self-efficacy of the secondary school students.