Collaborative Research: A Collaborative Dialogue Architecture for Peer Learning Interactions

项目名称：协作研究：同伴学习互动的协作对话代理本项目正在开发一个同伴学习对话中有效情节的计算模型，并将该模型体现在KSC-PaL中，KSC-PaL是一个可以通过自然语言对话与人类伙伴合作的人工智能代理。（KSC代表“知识共享和构建”。）KSC-PaL是一个灵活的代理，因为它可以承担各种角色，特别是新手同伴和专家同伴或“教练”。因此，它可以将教育应用程序从计算机作为教师的范式转变为计算机作为同伴的范式，后者动态地从新手转变为专家，这在人类互动中很自然地发生。尽管开发KSC-PaL是为了帮助计算机科学（CS）学生发展有关数据结构和算法的抽象、可概括的知识，但仍有可能将对话代理体系结构扩展到其他领域。通过首次使用KSC-PaL作为计算机科学教育的同伴，研究人员希望提高计算机科学本科课程的保留率，特别是在女学生中。在课堂和实验室环境中进行编程任务的同伴合作已被证明对男女学生都有好处。项目期间的实验重点是建立同伴代理对学习的积极影响，超越模拟教练或非交互式控制，并隔离同伴-学生互动的特定特征的有效性，例如不同的谈判策略。这些实验的结果将在会议论文和期刊文章中传播，并通过网络提供。

Award AbstractProject Title: Collaborative Research: A Collaborative Dialogue Agent for Peer Learning InteractionsThis project is developing a computational model of effective episodes within peer learning dialogues and embodying that model in KSC-PaL, an artificial agent that can collaborate with a human partner via natural-language dialogues. (KSC stands for "Knowledge Sharing and Construction.") KSC-PaL is a flexible agent, insofar as it can assume various roles-in particular, novice peer and expert peer or "coach." As such, it could move educational applications from the paradigm of the computer as teacher to the computer as a peer who dynamically shifts from novice to expert, as occurs naturally during human interactions. Although KSC-PaL is being developed to help Computer Science (CS) students develop abstract, generalizable knowledge about data structures and algorithms, there is the potential to scale up the dialogue agent architecture for other domains. By first using KSC-PaL as a peer in CS education, the investigators hope to increase retention in undergraduate CS programs, especially among female students. Peer collaboration on programming tasks in classroom and laboratory settings has been shown to benefit both male and female students. Experimentation during the project is focused on establishing that the peer agent impacts learning positively, above and beyond a simulated coach or non-interactive control, and on isolating the effectiveness of particular features of peer-student interactions, such as different negotiation strategies. Results of these experiments will be disseminated in conference papers and journal articles and made available via the web.