Guided Exploratory Learning in a Simulation Environment for Thermodynamics

Speaker
Carolyn P. Rosé
Research Scientist, Human-Computer Interaction Institute / Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

While the evidence in support of guided exploratory learning over pure exploratory learning has been thoroughly substantiated, what is lacking is a set of guidelines that specify precisely how much and what type of guidance is ideal for student learning. The goal of the CycleTalk project is to address these questions in the domain of thermodynamics, in connection with a graphical simulation tool called CyclePad that offers students a rich, exploratory learning environment in which they apply their theoretical thermodynamic knowledge by constructing and optimizing thermodynamic cycles. A particular focus of the project is exploring ways in which tutorial dialogue may offer particularly effective forms of instructional support within this exploratory learning environment that are not possible with previously investigated types of exploration help. CyclePad has been in active use in a range of thermodynamics courses at the US Naval Academy since 1996. Active, hands-on learning with CyclePad stands in stark contrast to traditional engineering instruction in thermodynamics, which emphasizes analysis rather than design. In my talk I will present the results from two classroom studies that lay the foundation for our work. The first study investigates problems encountered during unguided CyclePad use in a Naval Academy thermodynamics course. The second study explores the interaction between student goal orientation and tutoring style on student learning in a Carnegie Mellon thermodynamics course.

The ONR funded CycleTalk project is joint work with Vincent Aleven (CMU HCII), Allen Robinson (CMU Mechanical Engineering), and Chih Wu (USNA Mechanical Engineering)

Speaker's Bio

Dr. Carolyn Rosé is a Research Scientist with a joint appointment between the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 1997 from the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Her dissertation research focused on robust interpretation of natural language in the context of a multi-lingual speech-to-speech machine translation project. Her research focus since then has been in the area of tutorial dialogue, with a continued emphasis on robust language understanding, analysis of human tutoring corpora, and evaluation of implemented tutorial dialogue systems. A major thrust of her current research is to explore issues related to eliciting and responding to productive student explanation behavior. However, many of the underlying HCI issues related to her work, such as influencing student expectations, motivation, and learning orientation, transcend the specific input modality.

Speaker's Website
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cprose/