9720359 Kurt Van Lehn University of Pittsburgh CIRCLE: Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Constructive Learning Environments The Center has three main goals. First, the Center seeks to understand an extremely effective pedagogy, human tutoring. This will be achieved by using protocol analysis, eye tracking and controlled experiments to study human tutors and contrast them to existing computer tutors. The overarching hypothesis is that students learn best when they construct knowledge for themselves. The second goal of the Center is to build and test new generation of computer tutoring systems that encourage students to construct the target knowledge instead of telling it to them. The student's self-construction may need to be delicately guided via prompting, Socratic questioning or other means, This goal will be achieved by adding advanced planning and natural language components to existing intelligent tutoring systems and testing the new tutors in collaborating schools. The Center's third goal is to help integrate this new technology into existing educational practices. This goal will be achieved by working with practitioners and schools throughout the development process, by upgrading tutors that are already in use by thousands of students, and by forming partnerships with other projects, centers and industries. Achieving the three Center goals will impact multiple disciplines. Understanding why human tutors are so effective should have a significant impact on the psychology of learning. Computer science will be advanced by developing systems that can reactively plan natural language hints and questions that get a student to learn. Education will be improved as the Center's constructivist technology and instructional methods prove to be effective in actual use and become widely available.
