SGER: Multicultural Story Listening Systems

SGER：多元文化故事聆听系统

• 批准号: 0538610
• 负责人: Justine Cassell
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-15 至 2006-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0538610&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Multicultural; Story; Listening; Systems

From mathematics word problems to great literature to science texts, being able to read and write is of paramount importance to academic success. In addition, with the Federal mandate of "no child left behind" an increasing national priority is learning objectives that prepare students to do well on national standardized tests, and many of these learning objectives rely on literacy skills. Yet literacy remains a critical unsolved issue in our educational system, with national test scores showing that non-white children (e.g., African Americans and Hispanics) still score well below their Caucasian counterparts. Increasingly, approaches to this problem derive from the recognition that primary school education is based on a set of mainstream oral practices and literacy-preparation skills. Because many children do not share the same cultural experiences typical of mainstream culture, educational practitioners have applied a cultural-historical approach to identify common characteristics of ethnic groups, and then designed cultural supports for literacy learning by children of diverse backgrounds. But while classroom practice has been influenced by this approach, and training programs for parents have been instituted along these lines, it has been rare to see technological learning environments that leverage diversity in any but the most superficial ways (for example identical content characters with different skin color, or content based on traditional associations such as the Anancy myths). The PI believes she can do much better. To this end, in the current project she will first conduct an in-depth investigation into African-American peer-oriented oral language and literacy practices, in order to understand how cultural practices support individual learning and development in this population. Using these findings, she will then design a virtual peer that engages in authentic cultural practices with African-American children as a bridge to school-based literacy. As the technology is developed, the PI will bring it into classrooms and community centers, formatively evaluating and iteratively redesigning as necessary until the virtual peer is capable of being like African-American children in important ways, can exploit that affinity to establish rapport, and can leverage this rapport and linguistic interaction to help the child acquire literacy skills. Project outcomes will include a rich comparative description of the language and nonverbal practices of African-American and Caucasian children in peer-emergent literacy interaction, a set of behaviors that allow a virtual human to establish rapport with users (including local-level moment-by-moment interactional behaviors and larger scale culturally specific practices), and a Flash virtual peer and set of virtual peer behaviors that have been shown to improve literacy in the children interacting with the virtual peer, both for Standard American English (SAE) speakers and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speakers. A summative evaluation will address transfer from interaction with the virtual peer to other standard literacy contexts and tests. Broader Impacts: This project addresses fundamental issues relating to acquisition of literacy skills by young children who are members of an underserved population, and will lead to new technology for improving their literacy readiness. The PI will pursue an innovative program of dissemination of results and research practices that involves undergraduates from HBCUs, local schools with high populations of African Americans, and local churches and community centers, in order to broaden in the short term participation by African-American undergraduates in the engineering research behind this project and in the longer term participation in STEM by young African-American school children.

从数学应用题到伟大的文学作品再到科学文本，阅读和写作的能力对于学业成功至关重要。 此外，随着联邦“不让一个孩子掉队”的任务，国家日益优先考虑的学习目标是让学生在国家标准化考试中取得好成绩，而这些学习目标中有许多依赖于识字技能。 然而，识字率仍然是我们教育系统中一个尚未解决的关键问题，全国测试分数显示非白人儿童（例如非裔美国人和西班牙裔儿童）的得分仍然远低于白人儿童。 解决这个问题的方法越来越多地源于这样的认识：小学教育是以一套主流口语练习和识字准备技能为基础的。 由于许多儿童不具有主流文化的相同文化体验，教育从业者采用文化历史方法来识别族群的共同特征，然后为不同背景的儿童的识字学习设计文化支持。 但是，尽管课堂实践受到了这种方法的影响，并且针对家长的培训计划也已按照这些思路制定，但很少看到技术学习环境以最肤浅的方式利用多样性（例如具有不同肤色的相同内容角色，或基于阿南西神话等传统联想的内容）。 PI 相信她可以做得更好。 为此，在当前的项目中，她将首先对非裔美国人以同伴为导向的口语和识字实践进行深入调查，以了解文化实践如何支持该人群的个体学习和发展。 利用这些发现，她将设计一个虚拟同伴，与非裔美国儿童进行真实的文化实践，作为通向学校扫盲的桥梁。 随着技术的发展，PI将把它带入教室和社区中心，根据需要进行形成性评估和迭代重新设计，直到虚拟同伴能够在重要方面像非裔美国儿童一样，能够利用这种亲和力建立融洽关系，并能够利用这种融洽关系和语言互动来帮助孩子获得识字技能。 项目成果将包括对非裔美国人和白种人儿童在同伴涌现识字互动中的语言和非语言实践的丰富比较描述​​，一组允许虚拟人与用户建立融洽关系的行为（包括本地级别的即时互动行为和更大规模的文化特定实践），以及 Flash 虚拟同伴和一组已被证明可以提高读写能力的虚拟同伴行为。 孩子们与虚拟同伴互动，无论是标准美式英语 (SAE) 使用者还是非裔美国白话英语 (AAVE) 使用者。 总结性评估将解决从与虚拟同伴的互动到其他标准读写环境和测试的转移。 更广泛的影响：该项目解决了与服务不足人群中的幼儿获得识字技能相关的基本问题，并将带来提高他们识字准备程度的新技术。 PI 将推行一项传播成果和研究实践的创新计划，让来自 HBCU、非裔美国人人口较多的当地学校以及当地教堂和社区中心的本科生参与进来，以便在短期内扩大非裔美国本科生对本项目背后工程研究的参与，并在长期扩大非裔美国学童对 STEM 的参与。