SBIR Phase I: weCompute Content Authoring System: Facilitating User-Created Content in an Intelligent Tutoring System

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目专注于为设计用于数学、科学和计算机科学教育的智能辅导系统创建教师内容创作系统。智能教学系统(ITS)正成为教育版图中越来越大的一部分。EDalytics，LLC正在开发一种内容创作系统，允许教师将他们自己的内容集成到ITS的认知建模架构中，以进行计算思维。WeCompute ITS(WITS)内容创作系统为ITS社区提供了一个新的视角，并可能改变商业公司和研究机构处理内容创作的方式。研究计划是为了征集教师而构建的吗？在整个设计阶段提供反馈，以确保满足他们的需求。这个SBIR项目的重点是教师？能够转换有意义的内容，这些内容可以轻松地与智能教学系统中预先创建的内容模型集成。包括用户研究在内的迭代开发过程将有助于将内容作者和软件设计师联系在一起，以产生一个平衡良好的产品。总体而言，WITS内容创作系统有可能使内容创作成为辅导环境中的一项分布式任务。该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是一个教育工具，将为STEM教育者建立一个有效的教学系统，该系统对不同经济领域的学校和学生来说都是负担得起的和可获得的。开发智能教学系统(ITS)的一个主要缺点是在建立完整的课程内容库所需的专家时间上进行了巨大的投资。归根结底，客户为ITS出版商支付费用以收回他们的投资，但他们无法根据自己的特定需求调整内容。我们的解决方案-weCompute内容创作系统-通过改进weCompute智能教学系统(WITS)来解决这两个障碍，该系统提供了一个教育工作者和学生可以负担和修改的工具。此外，WITS为缺乏具备21世纪技能定义的新兴内容领域知识的教师的学校提供了更多的教学支持。学生将以低成本享受有效的个性化学科教学，因为课程开发成本是通过利用已编制课程材料的教师的力量来补贴的。开发成本的降低，加上基于网络的廉价交付机制，将使提供更多内容的时间和更广泛地传播高质量的指导。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project focuses on the creation of a Teacher Content Authoring System for an Intelligent Tutoring System designed for math, science, and computer science education. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are becoming an increasingly larger part of the education landscape. EDalytics, LLC is developing a Content Authoring System that allows teachers to integrate their own content into the cognitive modeling architecture of the ITS for computational thinking. The weCompute ITS (wITS) Content Authoring System offers a new perspective to the ITS community, and potentially transform the ways that commercial companies and research institutions approach content creation. The research plan is constructed to solicit teachers? feedback throughout the design stages to ensure their needs are met. This SBIR project focuses on teachers? ability to transform meaningful content that can be easily integrated with pre-created content models in an intelligent tutoring system. An iterative development process including user studies will help tie together content authors and software designers to produce a well-balanced product. Overall, the wITS Content Authoring System has the potential to make content authoring a distributed task in tutoring environments.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is an educational tool that will build an effective pedagogical system for STEM educators that is affordable and accessible to schools and students across the economic spectrum. A major drawback in developing intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) is the enormous investment in expert hours required to build a full library of curriculum content. Ultimately, the customers pay for the ITS publishers to recoup their investment, yet they have no way to adapt that content to their specific needs. Our solution - the the weCompute Content Authoring System - addresses both of these obstacles by improving the weCompute Intelligent Tutoring System (wITS) with a tool that educators and students can afford and modify. In addition, the wITS provides more pedagogical support for schools lacking teachers knowledgeable in the emerging content areas that define 21st century skills. Students will enjoy effective individualized instruction on subjects at low cost, since the curriculum development cost is subsidized by leveraging the power of teachers who already create curriculum materials. The decreased cost of development coupled with the inexpensive web-based delivery mechanism will allow for more content hours and wider dissemination of quality instruction.