Internet Problem-Solving Coaches for Physics Students

在各种情况下解决问题的能力是教育的一个主要目标。然而，通过在实践中为学生提供个性化的指导和反馈，为他们提供有效的解决问题的指导是一项困难和潜在的昂贵任务。让学生变得更像专家需要时间;因此，任何教学工具都必须在足够的时间跨度内运作，并融入现有的教学。此外，没有标准化的，易于使用的方法来评估学生的解决问题的技能存在，阻碍了改善解决问题的教学进展。该项目旨在通过创建一套网络交付的计算机教练来帮助克服这些困难，为学生提供有效的指导，同时他们练习解决跨越为期一年的入门物理课程内容的问题。为了使这些教练能够对教师有用，软件被配置为使教师可以使用图形界面轻松地更改问题，反馈和解决方案的结构，以更紧密地适应他们的教学重点。在这个项目中，学生的问题解决正在分析使用在以前的项目中开发的标题连同概念和态度变化的标准测试。计算机辅导员的结构是基于认知科学和物理教育学的研究。它们的设计是：（1）高度互动，（2）明确有效解决问题所需的思维过程，（3）让学生练习有效解决问题所需的基本认知功能，（4）根据精心的教学设计为学生提供个性化辅导，（5）适应学生可能选择的多种解决问题的途径，（6）物理教师个人应根据自己的兴趣和当地条件进行调整。以前的一个项目已经表明，有可能开发出具有这种属性的机械教练。这个项目（1）为这些教练开发了一个新的底层软件结构，使他们更容易修改，（2）使用新的软件结构来构建电和磁的教练，以跨越整个一年的入门物理学，（3）衡量学生在一整年中朝着更像专家解决问题的方向取得的进展。智力价值：问题解决是物理导论课程最重要的目标和工具之一。让学生更像专家一样解决问题，可以使这些课程的概念内容更容易理解和有用。由于可再现的，细粒度的解决问题的指导提供的教练，拟议的工作有助于知识基础上如何设计有效的教学（基于计算机或不），以帮助学生提高他们的解决问题的技能。这是实现使用网络通过提供按需辅导来补充人类指导的承诺的一步。教练还提供了一个模型，从不同领域的研究应用到生产一个实用的工具，以改善学生的学习与当前的教育系统。更广泛的影响：由于解决问题是科学和工程的核心，教练和标题不仅有可能被广泛使用，而且还可以在其他STEM领域和多个学科中产生类似的努力。该项目展示了如何利用技术来改善教育，为学生提供更具互动性和个性化的教学，并有机会将课堂外的有效教学与课堂内的教学相结合。这对于那些难以获得标准教学的学生，如远程教育学生来说尤其重要。在这个项目中开发的评估策略也有助于评估复杂和有意义的能力，如在真实的课堂环境中解决问题的知识基础。最后，由于良好的解决问题的技能，特别是一个逻辑专家般的框架，以系统的方式解决新的问题，是重要的所有公民在我们的现代，快速变化的社会，这个项目有助于公民准备面对未来的新挑战。

The ability to solve problems in a variety of contexts is a major goal of education. However, providing students with effective instruction in problem solving by making individualized guidance and feedback available to them during practice is a difficult and potentially expensive task. Moving students to be more expert-like takes time; thus any instructional tool must operate over an adequate time span and integrated into existing instruction. Furthermore, no standardized, easy-to-use method for assessing students' problem-solving skills exists, hindering progress in improving problem-solving instruction. This project aims to help overcome these difficulties by creating a set of web-delivered computer coaches to provide students with effective coaching while they practice solving problems that span the content of a yearlong introductory physics course. To make it possible for these coaches to be useful to instructors, the software is configured so that instructors can easily change the problems, the feedback, and the structure of the solution to more closely fit their instructional emphasis using a graphical interface. In this project, student problem solving is being analyzed using a rubric developed in a previous project together with standard tests of conceptual and attitudinal change. The structure of the computer coaches is based on research from cognitive science and physics education. They are designed to 1) be highly interactive, (2) make explicit the thought processes necessary for effective problem solving, (3) give students practice in the basic cognitive functions necessary for effective problem solving, (4) provide students with individualized coaching based on careful instructional design, (5) accommodate the multiple solution paths students might choose for solving a problem, and (6) be adaptable by individual physics instructors to their own tastes and local conditions. A previous project has shown that it is possible to develop coaches with such attributes for mechanics. This project (1) develops a new underlying software structure for those coaches to make them easier to modify, (2) uses the new software structure to build coaches for electricity and magnetism to span the full year of introductory physics, and (3) measures student progress toward more expert-like problem solving over a full year.Intellectual merit: Problem solving is one of the most important goals and tools of an introductory physics course. Moving students toward more expert-like problem solving can make the conceptual content of these courses more intelligible and useful. Because of the reproducible, fine-grained problem-solving instruction delivered by the coaches, the proposed work contributes to the knowledge base on how to design effective instruction (computer based or not) to help students improve their problem-solving skills. It is a step toward achieving the promise of using the web to supplement human instruction by providing on-demand coaching. The coaches also provide a model of the application of research from diverse fields to the production of a practical tool to improve student learning with the current educational system. Broader impacts: Because problem solving is central to science and engineering, the coaches and the rubric have the potential not only to become widely used, but also to spawn similar efforts in other STEM fields, and across multiple disciplines. This project demonstrates how technology can be used to improve education by providing students with a more interactive and individualized instruction and opportunities to integrate effective instruction outside with that occurring in the classroom. This can be especially important to students for whom standard instruction is difficult to obtain such as distance-education students. The assessment strategy developed in this project also contributes to the knowledge base of assessing complex and meaningful abilities such as problem solving in the authentic setting of the classroom. Finally, because good problem-solving skills, especially a logical expert-like framework for attacking novel problems in a systematic way, are important to all citizens in our modern, rapidly-changing society, this project contributes to the preparation of the citizenry to face the new challenges of the future.