Teaching Underachieving Algebra Students to Construct Models Using a Simple Intelligent Tutoring System

Kurt VanLehn, Fabio Milner, Chandrani Banerjee, Jon Wetzel

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

An algebraic model uses a set of algebraic equations to describe a situation. Constructing such models is a fundamental skill, but many students still lack the skill, even after taking several algebra courses in high school and college. For underachieving college students, we developed a tutoring system that taught students to decompose the to-be-modelled situation into schema applications, where a schema represents a simple relationship such as distance-rate-time or part-whole. However, when a model consists of multiple schema applications, it needs some connection among them, usually represented by letting the same variable appear in the slots of two or more schemas. Students in our studies seemed to have more trouble identifying connections among schemas than identifying the schema applications themselves. This paper describes a newly designed tutoring system that emphasizes such connections. An evaluation was conducted using a regression discontinuity design. It produced a marginally reliable positive effect of moderate size (d = 0.4).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationArtificial Intelligence in Education - 22nd International Conference, AIED 2021, Proceedings
EditorsIdo Roll, Danielle McNamara, Sergey Sosnovsky, Rose Luckin, Vania Dimitrova
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages367-371
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9783030782696
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Event22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2021 - Virtual, Online
Duration: Jun 14 2021Jun 18 2021

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12749 LNAI
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2021
CityVirtual, Online
Period6/14/216/18/21

Keywords

  • Algebra story problem solving
  • Algebra word problem solving
  • Algebraic model construction
  • Intelligent tutoring system

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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