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ALE-1 Unit 2:

 Updated February 27th, 2018

1. Student Seminar Series 2 (SSS2)

Designing an ALE for a specific task, using existing research literature

Seminar work officially assigned February 27th 2018. Groups will be those already determined by doodle poll. 
Presentations are on Tuesday 13th and Friday 16th February, 2018 - UPDATE.

Summary: you will work as a design team to develop, and present, a design for a new ALE/ITS for teaching a specific task. All aspects of the design should be based on either existing systems (e.g. those covered in the course), or on published research. The research might come from a number of disciplines, such as AIED/ALE/ITS, HCI, Education, Interaction Design, Affective Computing, etc. Your design may use any technology you consider suitable for the approach chosen (i.e. it does not have to be restricted to a desktop or laptop computer).

THE TASK:
You have been asked to design an adaptive intelligent tool to teach one of the following tasks:
A.  Teaching learners  how to write an essay
B.  Teaching learners some aspect of history

The focus of the system may be on any aspect of the task (i.e. it should not try and do everything!).
For the task chosen, be clear on what the task entails, and the aspects of the task focused on.

THE DESIGN:
Address the following questions in your group's design:

1.    What are the goals of the learning environment?  What is the context in which the teaching is intended to take place?

2.    Who are the intended learners? How does the environment adapt, or customise its teaching, to the learners? Are both cognitive and affective aspects adapted to?

4.     What approach does it take to teaching? Why is this approach suitable for this task?

5.     How does the system interact with the user? Describe an example interaction.

In answering each question, all design decisions should be informed by the design of the systems mentioned in the ALE course (cite the relevant research papers from the group developing and investigating these); or by citations of other published research literature. Be clear on methods and techniques used (and cite the sources for these).





Assignment: - update below....

1.    What are the goals of the system? What is the context in which the teaching is intended to take place?

2.    Who are the intended learners?
       2a. In what ways is the system customised to the learner?
       2b. In what ways does the system adapt to the learner during interaction?

3.    What subject or domain is the system intended to teach?
       3a. How is the system customised to the specific domain?
       3b. In what ways does the system adapt to the domain during interaction?
       3c. In what ways does the domain presentation adapt to the learner during interaction?

4.     What approach to teaching does the system take?
        4a. What specific approach to teaching does the system take? What is the theoretical basis of this?
        4b. How does the teaching strategy relate to the domain?
        4c. How is the system customised to the teaching strategy?
        4d. In what ways does the teaching adapt to the learner during interaction?
        4e. Does the teaching adapt to both the cognitive and affective (emotional and motivational) state of the learner?

5.     How does the system interact with the user?
        5a. In what ways does the system communicate with the learner?
        5b. In what ways is the interface or interaction environment customised to the physical, cognitive and affective requirements of the learner?

Assignment 2: Design a new ALE, using existing research

due to be submitted by

Feedback due to be returned by Friday, 7th April 2017

Updated 17th March 2017

In this assignment you will: choose ONE task from the list below and design an ALE to teach this task. This will be based on one of the systems that have been covered in the course.  You will evaluate the appropriateness of  the system chosen as the basis for the design.

You have been asked to design an adaptive intelligent tool to teach one of the following tasks:
    T1. teaching computer programming (any aspect);
    T2. teaching music performance;
    T3. teaching essay writing (any aspect).

Choose one of these tasks. The focus of the system may be on any aspect of the task (i.e. it does not have to try and do everything!).

1. For the task chosen, specify the requirements for the ALE in relation to this task:

1. What does the task entail?
2. What aspect of the task will be focused on?
3. How will we know when the task is completed (what are the criteria for this)?
4. Who will the learner group be? What can we assume about their skills, knowledge, literacy, background knowledge, etc.
5. Specify the system requirements that arise from a. to d., (i.e. in relation to the task and the learners).
   

2. Choose one of the systems discussed in the course, and outline a design for the proposed new ALE,  based on the existing system. Note: it does not have to be one of the core systems.

1. Specify the requirements for this ALE in relation to the approach to teaching, the interface, the student model and the domain model.
2. Sketch a design for an ALE based on this system, to do this task.
3. Briefly describe the differences between the new ALE and the existing system on which it is based. How would they be similar? How would they differ?

3. Describe how the ALE you propose will be customised to support the particular task, and the target users?

4. Give examples of how the might interact with the learners. Show how would it adapt to the individual learners. You might include sample                 dialogues, graphics or anything else that might help illustrate the interaction between the system and learner.

References to existing systems should refer to published papers, and cited references should be included in the list of references at the end of the assignment.

Assignment length: You should not spend more than ~20 hours on this assignment (ideally a lot less - nearer 10 hours). Your report should be 3 to 4 pages long (c. 1,500 - 2,000 words). It would be helpful to include figures to illustrate the design, including hypothetical screen shots, and any other useful figures. 

Submission instructions:
1. Submit the assignment using the submit program:

    submit ale1 cw2 assign2_surname_matricnumber_task.pdf

Please include your surname, matriculation number and task (history/essay) in the title of the pdf file.

2. Your submission should be a .pdf file; this is the ONLY acceptable format for this course. If you do not know how to convert your assignment to a PDF or how to use the submit command, please ask a classmate!

3. Please also make sure that somewhere, ideally on the front page of the submission itself, there is an indication of who has submitted it (i.e. please write you name and/or matric number on your work --  this is so that it appears in the pdf file when it is printed out!) Also include a title....

Marking and feedback: This assignment is worth 15% of your course mark. It will be marked out of 100. The feedback you will receive will indicate how well your design has achieved various objectives.  You will also receive a short list of things that you do well and suggested priorities for improvement (~3 items each).

a.  your design should not be directly based on a system that already teaches the task chosen (i.e. do not base the design for an ALE to teach programming on one that already teaches programming); it can inform it
b. your design can be based on more than one system - just be clear what aspects are based on which;
c. you can choose any aspects of the existing system to base your design on - just be clear in what ways your design and the existing system(s) are the same and in which ways they differ;
d. structure it as you best feel to suit the material;
e. you can choose any aspect of the task to teach - just be clear to state what is expected to be learned;
f. you must cite references, e.g. how to teach in the particular domain, to justify your design, and include the full citations for these in the list of references.

The better you justify your design - either from previous system(s) (citing sources that describe them), or from other relevant research - the better...

Also it does not matter if your design is based on the same design that your group presented for the seminar.