| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| Nov 11, 2008 | Candace Thille, Director, Open Learning Initiative, Office of Technology for Education (OTE) | "Using Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Other Technologies to Foster Learning" |
Using intelligent tutoring systems, virtual laboratories, simulations, and frequent opportunities for assessment and feedback, The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is creating and evaluating a collection of web-based learning environments that are intended to enact instruction - or, more precisely, to enact the kind of dynamic, flexible, and responsive instruction that fosters learning. OLI courses offer structure, information, activities, practice, and feedback -- all arranged so that students can learn even if they do not have the benefit of an instructor or classmates. In addition, the courses are often used by instructors at a variety of institutions to support and complement face-to-face classroom instruction. Each of our courses is developed by a team composed of learning scientists, faculty content experts, human-computer interaction experts, and software engineers in order to make best use of multidisciplinary knowledge for designing effective instruction. Moreover, as students work through the OLI courses, we collect real-time, interaction-level data on how they are learning, and we use these data data on how they are learning, and we use these data to inform further course revisions and improvements. OLI courses also sever as a laboratory for fundamental research on learning. In this talk I will discuss how we make use of expertise from cognitive and learning sciences to produce high-quality learning environments and how studies of student use inform both the next iteration of the environment and the underlying learning theory. I will present examples from OLI courses and discuss results from several learning effectiveness studies.
Candace Thille has been the Director of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University since its inception in 2002. Her current focus of research and development is in applying results from the learning sciences to the design, implementation and evaluation of learning environments that produce a positive impact on learning outcomes. She also serves as a Redesign Scholar for the National Center for Academic Transformation and as a Fellow of International Society for Design and Development in Education.