Technology promises individualized teaching
Woolf addresses a growing need in education
Education is no longer perceived as a “one size fits all” proposition. Rather, the focus is on tailoring activities to meet the individual needs of an increasingly heterogeneous student population. This seems obvious, yet is nearly impossible to implement in a traditional classroom.
Even though teachers are responsible for more students in the classroom and online, a real possibility exists to produce a private computer tutor for each student, augmenting the teacher’s ability to respond to each individual.
Research Professor Beverly Park Woolf is building Web-based intelligent tutors that understand a student’s learning needs, optimize teaching materials and use effective tutoring strategies. “These tutors, when used in traditional classrooms with caring teachers, provide the advantages of individualized instruction at an affordable cost,” says Woolf.
Machine tutors operate like a trusted mentor, speeding through topics that the student grasps easily, concentrating on topics that cause trouble, and never losing patience. Some research challenges include:
- How does a computer tutor learn to adapt to each student’s learning style and cognitive skills?
- How does a computer track student collaboration and identify each student’s contribution?
- How does a tutor help unmotivated students to focus on learning?
NOTE:
This is a excerpt from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Computer Science Department. The rest of the article is available here.