The Role of Emotion in Propelling the SMET Process

探索情感在推动SMET学习过程中的作用拟议的研究旨在建立一个计算机化的学习伙伴，它将对学习的情感方面敏感，并将与儿童合作，促进儿童自己的学习努力。学习科学、数学、工程和技术方面的复杂概念，并发展这些领域所需的认知推理技能，往往涉及失败和一系列相关的情感反应。当学习通过人与人之间的互动进行时，通常通过交流情感提示(如挫折、困惑或兴趣)，并通过调整学习经验以适应这些提示(调整呈现速度、插入动机、提供其他观点等)来改善学习。当学习涉及人机交互时，关于何时、何地、如何以及适应的重要性的人类交流也经常涉及情感信息；然而，今天的计算机在很大程度上忽略了这些信息。通过将计算扩展到包括情感交流以及处理情感信息的适当手段，情感计算具有扩展人机交互的潜力。这项拟议的研究旨在将情感计算的新工具带入教育工作者的视野，开始改变基于计算机的学习方式，从忽视情感的方式转变为能够适当地回应学生情感的方式。最初的重点是建立一个系统，该系统(1)帮助学生提高他们对情绪在学习中所起的重要作用的认识和掌握，(2)通过偶尔提出问题或反馈，并通过观察和回应儿童的情感状态来促进儿童的学习--观察可能在退出之前可能出现的沮丧和无聊的迹象，可能表明积极探索的好奇心或兴趣的迹象，以及可能表明成功的学习经历的享受和掌握的迹象。为学习伙伴开发的工具也应该对智能教学系统有用，应该有助于洞察教学中关于动机和情感的新理论；然而，学习伙伴不是知道答案的教师或导师，而是站在学生一边的玩家。同伴将对每个学生的学习轨迹敏感，帮助他或她学习，并在这样做的过程中，学会如何更好地学习。同时，学习伙伴将作为一个互动系统，帮助研究人员在成功的科学、数学、工程和技术学习经验中识别和更好地理解情感的表达、交流和处理方式。

Exploring the Role of Emotion in Propelling the SMET Learning ProcessThe proposed research aims to build a computerized Learning Companion that will be sensitive to the affective aspects of learning and that will work with the child to facilitate the child's own efforts at learning. Learning complex ideas in science, math, engineering, and technology and developing the cognitive reasoning skills these areas demand often involves failure and a host of associated affective responses. When learning proceeds via human-human interaction, it is often improved by communication of affective cues (such as frustration, confusion, or interest), and by adaptation of the learning experience to such cues (adjusting pace of presentation, interjecting motivation, offering an additional view, etc.). When learning involves human-machine interaction, the human communication about when, where, how, and how important it is to adapt also often involves emotional information; however, today's computers largely ignore this information. Affective computing has the potential to expand human-computer interaction by extending computing to include emotional communication together with appropriate means of handling affective information. The proposed research aims to bring new tools of affective computing into the reach of educators, to begin to change computer-based learning from a style that ignores emotions to a style that can begin to respond appropriately to student emotions. The initial focus is on building a system that (1) helps students increase their awareness and mastery of the important role that emotions can play in learning and (2) facilitates the child's learning, by occasionally prompting with questions or feedback, and by watching and responding to the affective state of the child-watching for signs of frustration and boredom that may precede quitting, for signs of curiosity or interest that tend to indicate active exploration, and for signs of enjoyment and mastery, which might indicate a successful learning experience. Tools developed for the Learning Companion should also be useful for intelligent tutoring systems, and should help give insight into new theories of motivation and emotion in teaching; however, the Learning Companion is not a teacher or tutor that knows the answers, but a player on the side of the student. The companion will be sensitive to the learning trajectory of each student, helping him or her learn, and in so doing, learn how to learn better. At the same time, the Learning Companion will serve as an interactive system for helping researchers identify and better understand ways in which emotion is expressed, communicated, and handled in successful science, math, engineering, and technology learning experiences.