EXP: Collaborative Research: Gesture Enhancement of Virtual Agent Mathematics Tutors

在这个网络学习中：在转变教育EXP项目中，来自计算机科学和数学教育的PI正在合作调查教师（人类和虚拟）和学习者使用手势来支持数学学习。 他们正在研究教师的手势如何影响数学概念的学习，以及如何设计计算机化身在与学习者交流时可能使用的手势支持。他们的概念基础来自具身认知，他们的目标是理解两种类型的手势的整合：用于促进对内容的理解的手势和用于社会目的的手势。该项目的重点是学习比例，该项目的技术创新是创建一个手势教学代理/化身，该代理/化身具有丰富的两种类型的手势，它在与学习者互动时使用，并帮助学习者加深他或她对比例数学的理解。在一系列设计研究中，PI正在设计软件并提取原则，以增强具有新的手势丰富功能的教学代理，并收集对手势在教育交互中的性质，类型和角色的见解。尽管不断进行改革，但美国学生在数学理解和能力方面仍落后于全球同龄人。智能辅导系统可用于为学习数学时遇到困难的学生提供一对一的帮助，但这种互动缺乏社交线索，无法帮助学习者保持注意力并知道自己被理解，也缺乏以学习者可能需要的方式表达概念的完整手段。 优秀的教师使用手势来达到这些目的，这个项目的重点是设计教学代理（化身），也将能够使用这些手势。注入交互式教学系统的能力，手势在自然和领域适当的方式可能会提供一个缺失的环节，使教学互动有效的更多的学习者。与此同时，关于手势的教学作用的见解可以在教育未来的教师中得到利用。

In this Cyberlearning: Transforming Education EXP project, PIs from computer science and mathematics education are collaborating to investigate the use of gestures by teachers (both human and virtual) and learners in support of mathematics learning. They are investigating the ways teachers' gestures influence learning of mathematics concepts and how to design gestural supports for learning that a computer avatar might use in communicating with a learner. Their conceptual foundations come from embodied cognition, and they are aiming towards understanding the integration of two types of gestures: those that are used to promote understanding of content and those used for social purposes. The project focuses on learning of proportion, and the technological innovation in this project is creation of a gesturing pedagogical agent/avatar that has a rich repertoire of both types of gestures that it uses while interacting with a learner and helping the learner to deepen his or her understanding of the mathematics of proportion. In a series of design studies, the PIs are designing software and extracting principles for augmenting pedagogical agents with new gesture-enriched capabilities and gleaning insights into the nature, types, and roles of gesture in educational interaction. Despite consistent reform efforts, U.S. students still lag behind their global peers in mathematics understanding and capabilities. Intelligent tutoring systems can be used to provide one-on-one help to students who are struggling as they learn mathematics, but such interactions lack the social cues that help learners maintain their attention and know they are being understood and lack, as well, full means of expressing concepts in ways that learners might need for understanding. Good teachers use gestures for these purposes, and this project focuses on design of pedagogical agents (avatars) that will also be able to use such gestures. Infusing interactive tutoring systems with the ability to gesture in naturalistic and domain-appropriate ways may provide a missing link in making tutorial interactions effective for more learners. At the same time, insights gleaned about the pedagogical roles of gesturing can be leveraged in educating teachers of the future.