Marian Beard

The Computer as a Tutorial Laboratory: The Stanford BIP Project.

The B asic Instructional Program (BIP) was developed to investigate tutorial modes of interaction in computer-assisted instruction. BIP is an interactive problem-solving laboratory that offers tutorial assistance to students solving introductory programming problems in the B asic language. This paper describes how the problem presentation sequence is individualized based on a representation of the structure of the curriculum and a model of the students state of knowledge. The nature of the student-BIP interaction is captured in an annotated student dialogue illustrating a typical session.

University-level Computer-assisted Instruction at Stanford: 1975

This article provides an overview of current work on university-level computer-assisted instruction at Stanford University. Brief descriptions are given of the main areas of current interest. The main emphasis is on the courses now being used: Introduction to Logic, Axiomatic Set Theory, Old Church Slavonic, History of the Russian Literary Language, Introduction to Bulgarian, Introduction to BASIC, Introduction to LISP, and various courses in music.

Knowledge-based adaptive curriculum sequencing for CAI: Application of a network representation

One aspect of tutoring skill for technical subjects is individualized, adaptive sequencing of the problems given to students as learning exercises. A Curriculum Information Network (CIN) describes the relationships between the problems in a CAI curriculum and the concepts and skills that they are intended to teach. It is a basis for selecting problems for each student with respect to his evolving knowledge of those concepts and skills. This paper describes the application of a semantic network to represent the complex interrelationships among the skills in a CIN for the BASIC Instructional Program, a CAI problem-solving laboratory for introductory programming in the BASIC language. The semantic network is used in drawing complex inferences about the students state of knowledge and the problems that are appropriate to present to him. Such inferences enable more skillful problem sequencing by the CAI system.

A RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION OF A CAI PROGRAM TO TEACH THE BASIC PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

A BASIC Instructional Program is being developed as a vehicle for research in tutorial modes of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Several design features will be appropriate to training in other technical areas and applicable in other instructional settings where the development of analytic and problem-solving skills is a goal.Methods are incorporated for monitoring and aiding the student as he works on programming problems in the BASIC language. The instructional program developed can be used to investigate schemes for optimizing problem presentation and giving assistance during problem-solving based on a model of the students abilities and difficulties. Previous experience in the instructional and technical aspects of teaching a programming language indicates that a course in computer programming can be designed to help the student acquire programming concepts in a personalized and efficient manner as he develops skills at increasingly advanced levels.This article reports on work currently in progress and briefly summarizes observations and conclusions based on operation during the pilot year.A major goal of the research project is to increase the sophistication with which the instructional program monitors the students work and responds to it with appropriate hints and prompts. One aspect of such work is the utilization of algorithms for checking the correctness of a student procedure. Limited but sufficient program verification is possible through simulated execution of the program on test data stored with each problem. Within the controllable context of instruction, where the problems to be solved are predetermined and their solutions known, simulated execution of the students program can effectively determine its closeness to a stored model solution.The BASIC Instructional Program (BIP) is written in SAIL (VanLehn, 1973; Swinehart and Sproull, 1971), a versatile, ALGOL-like language, implemented exclusively at present on the DEC PDP-10 computer. SAIL includes a flexible associative sublanguage called LEAP (Feldman et al., 1972), which was used extensively to build BIPs information network. The course is now running on the PDP-10 TENEX timesharing system at the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences. It was offered during the pilot year as an introductory programming course at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, and at the University of San Francisco in San Francisco, California. The collected data are being used to modify the problems and the “help” sequences in preparation for a more controlled experimental situation planned for the next academic year.

An instructional interpreter for basic

The BASIC Instructional Program (BIP) was developed to investigate tutorial modes of interaction in computer-assisted instruction (CAI). BIP is a problem-solving laboratory that helps students while they are solving introductory programming problems in the BASIC language. The problems are presented in an individualized sequence based on a representation of the structure of the curriculum and a model of the students state of knowledge. This paper describes the BIP system, with emphasis on recently developed features. The goal of the tutorial laboratory is informative interaction with the student, which is provided by an instructional BASIC interpreter, information on BASIC syntax cross-referenced with the BIP student manual, and debugging aids. The system also has access through the curriculum representation to features that the student may use to help her solve her current problem. These features include hints, easier “subtasks,” a stored solution that can itself be executed, and an interactive flow chart representation of the solution. The nature of the student-BIP interaction is captured in an annotated student dialogue of a typical session.

A College-Level CAI Course in BASIC

An introductory course in computer programming is being developed at Stanford University as a vehicle for research in tutorial modes of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Several design features will be appropriate to training in other technical areas and applicable in other instructional settings where the development of analytic and problem-solving skills is a goal. This paper describes the course and discusses its integration into college curriculums.