Noboru Matsuda 1/12 C:¥Home¥mazda¥Doc¥Pitt¥ISP¥comp¥ITS¥ITS-Answer-01.doc as of March 14, 2003 8:45:42 PM Intelligent Systems Program Comprehensive Examination Intelligent Tutoring Systems Noboru Matsuda March 14, 2003 Question from Kevin Ashley: Write a short essay (no more than 6 pages) on teaching with examples in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Address the following points. What uses have intelligent tutoring systems made (or could they reasonably make) of teaching with examples? List as many different uses as you can think of and provide some brief but specific illustrations. From a pedagogical or cognitive viewpoint, discuss what roles the examples appear to play in the interaction between the ITS and student. For instance, discuss what cognitive or pedagogical roles examples play in the ITS’s process of teaching the abstract rules or principles of a domain. Do the students reason by analogy from the examples? If so, what kinds of analogies do/should they draw and how do the analogies relate to the pedagogical goals? Give an example or two. In your opinion, are there any connections between an ITS’s teaching with examples and self-explanation? Explain why or why not. What challenges are presented in designing and implementing ITSs to teach with examples in the various ways you described in your initial list? How could one design an ITS that uses examples to teach students how to apply abstract principles in solving problems? Discuss if and how one could design an ITS that uses examples to encourage students to “discover” some principles (say, of geometry or physics) on their own?