Cognitive Science in Education
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
WestEd’s National Center for Cognition and Mathematics Instruction (NCCMI) is redesigning its existing mathematics curriculum using principles of cognitive science to improve student outcomes. It will use current cognitive science knowledge about how we acquire, retain and transfer knowledge for the redesign project. The project will then evaluate whether the new curriculum has indeed improved students’ mathematics achievement.
The project focus will be on the widely used Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) curriculum for middle schools. The evaluation of the revised project will be done through multiple studies.
The team that will execute the project includes experienced and accomplished experts in cognitive research, mathematics instruction specialists, assessment and measurement experts, curriculum writers, professional developers and national advisers.
WestEd will work on the project along with partners such as CMP, Carnegie Mellon University, Temple University and other universities, and Apple Computer Inc. They will also establish a diverse community of users to learn from and apply the NCCMI research.
WestEd is a research, development and service agency that works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity and improve learning. The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences is funding the research.
Read more at WestEd website.
Tags: cognitive science, education, imparting knowledge, student outcomes
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Workshop on Cognitive Tutor Development
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Cognitive Tutoring reportedly aligns student learning process to “best practices” of learning. It is particularly suitable for education delivery over the Web where the trainer and student will not have face-to-face interactions. A number of cognitive tutor authoring tools are available on the Web.
The workshop on “Hands-on introduction to creating intelligent tutoring systems without programming using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT)” is to be conducted during the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences,
at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago and is scheduled for
June 29.
The conference will provide background on cognitive tutors and how Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT) work. Participants will get an overview of the process of CTAT development and extensive hands-on use of both basic and advanced CTAT features. These will be supplemented with illustrations and examples that provide specific insights into actual applications.
The course will prove of value to learning science researchers who will learn to create cognitive tutors even if they have no programming skill. The researchers will then be able to decide whether the tool will be of use to them.
Participants are expected to bring laptops with pre-installed CTAT software, which can be downloaded free from Carnegie Mellon.
Read more about the workshop at ICLS 2010 announcement.
Tags: cognitive science, cognitive tutor, education delivery, learning research
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Is Our Pedagogy Scientific?
Friday, March 26th, 2010
Are educational institutions checking that the pedagogical practices they follow are really based on evidence-based research? Or are they just practices handed down from generation to generation or practices that look “practical and sound” as everbody with commonsense can understand?
As in every other area, fads can pop up in the educational field also. These fads, if they do work, might have undesirable “side effects” that we do not want. Or they might be pure fads with no real impact on teaching effectiveness.
According to one author, research indicates that student achievement variations depend primarily on the students themseves (50%). However, 30% of the achievement variance could be attributed to the role of teachers. Unlike conventional wisdom, it seems that the home, school, principal and peers make very little difference to student achievement.
The major factors that influence achievement include Feedback, Student’s cognitive ability, Instructional quality and Direct instruction, according the author. Three of the four fall under the role of the teacher. Even computer assisted education and individualization of teaching are ranked lower for their effect on student achievement.
However, computer-assisted education, for example, has moved much since the time of this view. What effect can modern developments like cognitive tutor can have on student achievement is to be seen. Cognitive tutors supposedly monitor how students go about their learning, and direct them towards “best practices.”
Read a blog post at Pedagogy Science.
Tags: cognitive ability, pedagogy, student achievement, teacher role, teaching
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Cognitive Tutors add Intelligence to Computer Aided Instruction
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Educational software that use Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) are numerous. However, software with the intelligence to sense and respond appropriately to the learning strategies that students use are few. Such intelligent tutors can impart not only remembered knowledge but useful procedural understanding of the domain.
In a study, students that worked with the Lisp Tutor, a cognitive tutor of the 1980-90’s, completed problems in as little as one third of the time required by students working in a programming environment without the tutor.
Developers began to use the findings of multidisciplinary cognitive science and artificial intelligence for developing cognitive tutors. Whereas earlier tutors were only half as effective as human tutors (though 2 or 3 times more effective than “unintelligent” computer aided instruction) the new range of tutors begin to outperform human tutors.
Read the history of cognitive tutors at: Cognitive Tutor Timeline
Tags: artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cognitive tutor, procedural knowledge
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