Guru: Designing a Conversational Expert Intelligent Tutoring System

Resolution

In this chapter we describe our ongoing research efforts using our expert human tutor data to create the expert Guru ITS using applied natural language processing (ANLP) techniques, including natural language understanding, knowledge representation, and natural language generation. These ANLP techniques allow us to fill in specific gaps in our structural dialogue models and to create a functioning system. This chapter we will primarily focus on the tools and methodologies behind creating an expert ITS, but our ultimate goal is student learning. We believe that an expert ITS will enhance learning outcomes beyond current ITS technology by using the particular tactics, actions, and dialogue of expert human tutors. Therefore, the essence of our approach is to design conversations between the Guru tutor and the student to promote learning.