Pedagogical Negotiation and Solidarity Assimilation Groups in Action: The Combined Efforts of E-M@T and Leibniz to Aid Calculus Students

Abstract

This chapter shows how new concepts, derived from recent studies in pedagogy and intelligent tutoring systems research areas, can be applied to the calculus learning domain. These concepts were incorporated in two computational tools: the E-M@T Web-based learning environment and the Leibniz pedagogical agent. Leibniz was integrated to E-M@T, serving as an educational assistant for calculus introductory classes. Pedagogical and didactical strategies used in these tools were built under the perspective of Solidarity Assimilation Group ideas, and the interaction processes between students and teachers in the classroom were analyzed under the perspective of pedagogical negotiation concepts. The chapter presents the theoretical foundations of Leibniz and E-M@T, showing the architecture of these tools, the structure of their knowledge base, and the organization of the prototype. Initial results obtained from the application of the prototype to real classrooms and future perspectives of this work are presented at the end of the chapter.