| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| Oct 4, 2005 | Dr. Kenneth R. Koedinger, Professor of Human Computer Interaction and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon | "Cognitive Tutors: Moving from Effective Instructional Delivery to a Platform for Educational Research" |
We have been applying cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence to improving mathematics education in the United States. Many years of research on "Cognitive Tutors" have culminated in the formation of a spin-off company that is currently delivering technology-enhanced mathematics courses to more than 200 schools in the US. Controlled field studies have demonstrated that these courses significantly increase student achievement. In addition to these applied results, Cognitive Tutor research has contributed to basic research in the cognitive psychology of human learning, artificial intelligence and principles of human-computer interaction (HCI). I will illustrate current Cognitive Tutor research directions. One line of research is creating tutors that employ features of human tutorial dialog to help students acquire meta-cognitive skills for better transfer of learning. A second line of research is using HCI principles and methods to design an end-user programming environment to make Cognitive Tutor development faster for current programmers and accessible to non-programmers. I will also discuss how Cognitive Tutor research fits within the broader context of our new Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, a 5 year, $25 million center funded by the National Science Foundation.