9720363 Stillings This project is being funded through the Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) Initiative. to study tutorial interaction and learning outcomes in a feasible model of college-level inquiry-oriented instruction, as it is implemented in the Hampshire College science curriculum. This research will occur during the first two years. It will be conducted by Neil Stillings, Lawrence Winship, and a post-doctoral fellow in cognition and education, with the assistance of undergraduate research assistants and an outside educational research consultant. We will extend current intelligent multimedia tutoring technology to support college-level inquiry-oriented instruction. This research will involve the development of new software architectures to support inquiry in simulation environments and in integrated, computer-controlled laboratory environments. It will be conducted by Lee Spector, Beverly Woolf, Steven Weisler, and a post-doctoral fellow in computer science, with some additional involvement from Neil Stillings and Lawrence Winship. We will demonstrate our extensions of educational software technology by developing three college-level inquiry-oriented software packages in the biological and cognitive sciences. Our plan is to produce one application in the language sciences, one in the environmental sciences, and one in human biology. These applications will be classroom-ready and suitable for use outside the research context. The primary developers will be Lee Spector, Steven Weisler, a post-doctoral fellow in computer science, a professional programmer, and graduate assistants in computer science. They will work with faculty members in the appropriate disciplines. The original plan was to develop six applications rather than three. The budget has been reduced accordingly. At least two of the software applications will be tested at Hampshire, and at least one of them will be revised to reflect the testing results. The classroom testing involves an important feature of the proposed software architectures, which will have built-in educational and psychological measurement capabilities. The primary researchers for the software testing phase of the project are Neil Stillings, Beverly Woolf, the post- doctoral fellow in cognition and education, and an outside educational consultant. The original proposal also involved the introduction and testing of software at the University of Massachusetts. That aspect of the proposal has been dropped and the budget reduced accordingly.
