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

在这个网络学习：教育转型实验项目中，来自计算机科学和数学教育的pi正在合作调查教师（真人和虚拟）和学习者在支持数学学习中使用手势的情况。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学习手势支持。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手势的整合：一种用于促进对内容的理解，另一种用于社交目的。该项目专注于比例的学习，该项目的技术创新是创建一个手势教学代理/化身，它在与学习者互动时使用两种类型的手势，并帮助学习者加深他或她对比例数学的理解。在一系列的设计研究中，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，并收集有关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行。智能辅导系统可以用来为正在学习数学的学生提供一对一的帮助，但这种互动缺乏帮助学习者保持注意力并知道自己被理解的社会线索，也缺乏学习者可能需要理解的表达概念的完整方式。优秀的教师会使用手势来达到这些目的，而这个项目的重点是设计教学代理（avatar），它也将能够使用这些手势。在互动教学系统中注入自然和领域适当的手势能力，可能会为更多学习者提供有效的教学互动所缺失的环节。与此同时，关于手势的教学作用的见解可以用于教育未来的教师。

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.