STTR Phase I: An Intelligent Infinitely Explorable Online Learning Environment

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将开发一个智能的、可无限探索的在线学习环境。在线学习在高等教育中的使用已经显著增加，并有望降低课程成本，改善教育结果。目前的大规模开放在线课程(MOOC)可以以最低的成本向数十万或数百万的学生提供在线课程。这些系统以简单直接的问题的形式向学生提供视频讲座、文本和录音等内容，并对学生进行评估。虽然在某些领域，这些目前的在线系统是足够的，但在工程专业，在线系统失败了，必须训练学生对复杂系统进行创造性思维。工程教育是一个对国民经济至关重要的领域。创造更灵活的系统，更适合于工程等需要综合学习的复杂学科，将使学生和国家都受益。这个SBIR第一阶段项目将专注于开发一个原型系统，该系统能够在解决复杂问题的同时识别特定的学生计算错误和概念性错误。该系统将快速、自动地识别这些错误，然后为学生提供所需的资源，以纠正他们的错误并提高他们对主题的基本理解。该系统还将提供一个基于技能的认证平台，全国各地的许多工程项目都在探索这一点。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop an intelligent infinitely explorable online learning environment. The use of online learning has grown significantly in higher education and promises to reduce program cost and improve educational outcomes. Current massively open online courses (MOOCS) can deliver an online course to hundreds of thousands or millions of students at minimal cost. These systems deliver content such as video lectures, text, and audio recordings to students with student assessment in the form of simple and directed questions. While in some fields, these current online systems are adequate, online systems fail in Engineering where students must be trained to think creatively about complex systems. Engineering education is an area of vital national economic importance. Creating more flexible systems, which are better suited for complex subjects requiring integrated learning such as engineering, will benefit both students and the nation. This SBIR Phase I project will focus on developing a prototype system capable of identifying specific student computational mistakes and conceptual errors while solving complex problems. The system will quickly and automatically identify these mistakes, then provide students with the resources they need to correct their mistake and to improve their fundamental understanding of the topic. The system will also provide a platform for skill-based credentialing, which is being explored in many engineering programs across the country.