Collaborative Research: A Collaborative Dialogue Architecture for Peer Learning Interactions

获奖摘要项目名称：合作研究：A Collaborative Dialogue Agent for Peer Learning InteractionsThis project is developing a computational model of effective episodes within peer learning dialogues and implementing that model in KSC-PaL，an artificial agent that can collaborate with a human partner via natural language dialogues. (KSC代表“知识共享和建设。）KSC-PaL是一个灵活的代理，因为它可以承担各种角色，特别是新手和专家同行或“教练”。“因此，它可以将教育应用程序从计算机作为教师的范式转移到计算机作为同行的范式，后者动态地从新手转变为专家，就像在人类互动过程中自然发生的那样。 虽然KSC-PaL正在开发，以帮助计算机科学（CS）的学生发展抽象的，概括的知识，数据结构和算法，有可能扩大其他领域的对话代理架构。 通过首先使用KSC-PaL作为CS教育的同伴，研究人员希望增加本科CS课程的保留率，特别是在女学生中。 在教室和实验室环境中进行编程任务的同行合作已被证明对男女学生都有好处。 在该项目的实验重点是建立对等代理的积极影响学习，以上和超越模拟教练或非交互式控制，并隔离的有效性，如不同的谈判策略的特定功能的同龄人与学生的互动。 这些实验的结果将在会议文件和期刊文章中传播，并通过网络提供。

Award AbstractProject Title: Collaborative Research: A Collaborative Dialogue Agent for Peer Learning InteractionsThis project is developing a computational model of effective episodes within peer learning dialogues and embodying that model in KSC-PaL, an artificial agent that can collaborate with a human partner via natural-language dialogues. (KSC stands for "Knowledge Sharing and Construction.") KSC-PaL is a flexible agent, insofar as it can assume various roles-in particular, novice peer and expert peer or "coach." As such, it could move educational applications from the paradigm of the computer as teacher to the computer as a peer who dynamically shifts from novice to expert, as occurs naturally during human interactions. Although KSC-PaL is being developed to help Computer Science (CS) students develop abstract, generalizable knowledge about data structures and algorithms, there is the potential to scale up the dialogue agent architecture for other domains. By first using KSC-PaL as a peer in CS education, the investigators hope to increase retention in undergraduate CS programs, especially among female students. Peer collaboration on programming tasks in classroom and laboratory settings has been shown to benefit both male and female students. Experimentation during the project is focused on establishing that the peer agent impacts learning positively, above and beyond a simulated coach or non-interactive control, and on isolating the effectiveness of particular features of peer-student interactions, such as different negotiation strategies. Results of these experiments will be disseminated in conference papers and journal articles and made available via the web.