Bruce M. McLaren

Huy A. Nguyen, Hayden Stec, Xinying Hou et al.

While open-ended self-explanations have been shown to promote robust learning in multiple studies, they pose significant challenges to automated grading and feedback in technology-enhanced learning, due to the unconstrained nature of the students' input. Our work investigates whether recent advances in Large Language Models, and in particular ChatGPT, can address this issue. Using decimal exercises and student data from a prior study of the learning game Decimal Point, with more than 5,000 open-ended self-explanation responses, we investigate ChatGPT's capability in (1) solving the in-game exercises, (2) determining the correctness of students' answers, and (3) providing meaningful feedback to incorrect answers. Our results showed that ChatGPT can respond well to conceptual questions, but struggled with decimal place values and number line problems. In addition, it was able to accurately assess the correctness of 75% of the students' answers and generated generally high-quality feedback, similar to human instructors. We conclude with a discussion of ChatGPT's strengths and weaknesses and suggest several venues for extending its use cases in digital teaching and learning.

Vincent Aleven, Conrad Borchers, Yun Huang et al.

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) are effective in helping students learn; further research could make them even more effective. Particularly desirable is research into how students learn with these systems, how these systems best support student learning, and what learning sciences principles are key in ITSs. CTAT+Tutorshop provides a full stack integrated platform that facilitates a complete research lifecycle with ITSs, which includes using ITS data to discover learner challenges, to identify opportunities for system improvements, and to conduct experimental studies. The platform includes authoring tools to support and accelerate development of ITS, which provide automatic data logging in a format compatible with DataShop, an independent site that supports the analysis of ed tech log data to study student learnings. Among the many technology platforms that exist to support learning sciences research, CTAT+Tutorshop may be the only one that offers researchers the possibility to author elements of ITSs, or whole ITSs, as part of designing studies. This platform has been used to develop and conduct an estimated 147 research studies which have run in a wide variety of laboratory and real-world educational settings, including K-12 and higher education, and have addressed a wide range of research questions. This paper presents five case studies of research conducted on the CTAT+Tutorshop platform, and summarizes what has been accomplished and what is possible for future researchers. We reflect on the distinctive elements of this platform that have made it so effective in facilitating a wide range of ITS research.

Richard Scruggs, Ryan S. Baker, Bruce M. McLaren

Recent student knowledge modeling algorithms such as Deep Knowledge Tracing (DKT) and Dynamic Key-Value Memory Networks (DKVMN) have been shown to produce accurate predictions of problem correctness within the same learning system. However, these algorithms do not attempt to directly infer student knowledge. In this paper we present an extension to these algorithms to also infer knowledge. We apply this extension to DKT and DKVMN, resulting in knowledge estimates that correlate better with a posttest than knowledge estimates from Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT), an algorithm designed to infer knowledge, and another classic algorithm, Performance Factors Analysis (PFA). We also apply our extension to correctness predictions from BKT and PFA, finding that knowledge estimates produced with it correlate better with the posttest than BKT and PFA's standard knowledge estimates. These findings are significant since the primary aim of education is to prepare students for later experiences outside of the immediate learning activity.