ONT Re: Inquiry Driven Learning Environments (IDLE's)
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| Document History
|
| Subject: Extensions Of Mind
| Subhead: Essays And Reports On Intelligent Systems
| Contact: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
| Version: Draft 3.02
| Created: 10 Sep 1993
| Revised: 08 Mar 1995
| Updated: 08 Feb 2002
| Advisor: C.C. Wagner
| Setting: Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
| Excerpt: Division 3 (Affective Computability)
| Excerpt: Subdivision 3.3 (Inquiry Driven Learning)
| Excerpt: Subdivision 3.4 (Epode & Coda)
3.3 Inquiry Driven Learning
A. General Features of Inquiry Driven Learning.
1. Can be regarded as a dialogue:
a. Person with Person (any groups of people).
b. Person with Nature (any natural system).
c. Person with Machine (any artificial system).
2. Because inquiry driven learning is motivated by the questions
and the purposes of interest to the learner and is frequently
carried on in a medium of interactive dialogue, it tends to be
more learner-centered and less autocratic or authority-directed.
3. Driven by differential features of the interacting systems'
combined state, that is, the differences, the discrepancies,
or the mis-matches that occur in any of the following regions:
a. Among Conceptual Elements, Including Conflicts and Contradictions Among:
i. Associations and assumptions,
index keys and indices,
signs and symbols.
ii. Definitions and axioms,
inferences and identifications,
terms and postulates.
iii. Concepts and constraints,
generators and relations,
primitives and principles.
iv. Propositions and judgments,
hypotheses and rules,
predications and predictions.
v. As generic categories:
expectations and intentions.
b. Among Data Elements:
Conflicting Observations.
c. Between Concepts and Data:
Expectations and Intentions against Observations.
i. A "Problem" situation, that is, a disparity
between what's intended and what's observed,
calls for a Plan of Action.
ii. A "Surprise" situation, that is, a disparity
between what's expected and what's observed,
calls for an Explanation.
B. Cases and Causes of Misunderstanding:
1. Misunderstandings Due to the Tutor's Model:
a. Of the Student.
b. Of the Content.
2. Misunderstandings Due to the Student's Model.
a. The Student misunderstands the character and the conduct of
the Tutor, as accountable to the following types of deficits:
i. Insufficient Rule Base for Describing the Tutor.
ii. Insufficient Case Base for Describing the Tutor.
b. The Student misunderstands the properties and processes
that are pertinent to the Object domain, as accountable
to the following types of deficiencies:
i. Insufficient Rule Base for the Object Domain.
ii. Insufficient Case Base for the Object Domain.
C. The Nature of "Surprise", Dismay, Expectation Failure, or Misunderstanding:
1. Positive Senses or Aspects:
a. Interest, Novelty, Salience.
b. Aptness, Relevance, Pertinence.
c. Attention, Engagement, Wonder.
2. Mediate, Neutral, or Ambiguous Aspects:
a. Informativeness, Non-redundancy.
b. Non-monotony, Signal >= Noise.
c. Strangeness, Attractiveness, Complexity.
3. Negative Senses or Aspects:
a. Disappointment, Frustration, Discontent, Discouragement.
b. Dissatisfaction, Displeasure, Annoyance, Disconnection.
c. Hesitancy, Confusion, Irritation, Anxiety, Burn-out.
4. As a Generic Category: Information Overload.
D. The Drive to Find an Explanation of the "Surprise", that is,
any failure of expectation, predication, or prediction that
the Student experiences while interacting with and responding
to the instruction process.
This is an effort of the Student to reduce the threatening
aspects of uncertainty in the surprise situation, that is,
to convert the initially doubt-filled experience into a
pleasing phenomenon or an adaptive performance that lies
within the coping skills or the increasing competence of
the Student. It is the job of the learner interface of
the tutoring system to assist and to catalyze, to mediate
and to re-mediate, this process for the Student. In order
to achieve this, the learner interface must be sensitive to
the events that signal expectation failures on the part of
the Student. It is the Student's model of the world that
generates these expectations, and it is the Student's
model of the content domain that the Tutor is trying
to affect.
As focused on the target domain through the medium of the
tutoring system, the Student's model generates two kinds
of expectations: those concerning properties of objects
and processes in the content area, and those concerning
the attributes and behaviors of the particular tutoring
system currently engaged.
E. The Nature of Explanation: Essential Features and Limiting Factors
1. A sine qua non ability of an intelligent system is
the facility of quickly detecting an explanatory
Middle Term between a Subject (an Object) and
a Predicate (an expected or observed property).
This Middle Term forges a common link between
a Case (Subj => Mid) and a Rule (Mid => Pred).
2. An insufficiency in the requisite ability to come up
with plausible explanations of expectation failures
can be due to insufficient measures of completeness,
for example, sample size, in the Rule and Case bases,
or a lack of commonality, say, degree of overlap, in
the Middle Terms that are in fact shared between them.
F. Resources for Growth and Change in the Student's Conceptual Model.
1. The Rule Base can be supplied by:
a. Direct Instruction: "Being told".
b. Following Advice: "Taking hints".
c. Inductive Reasoning: Guessing Rules from Facts and Cases.
2. The Case Base can be supplied by:
a. Direct Experience: "Hard knocks".
b. Indirect Information: "On faith".
c. Abductive Reasoning: Guessing Cases from Facts and Rules.
3.4 Epode & Coda: Odometer In Dedication To The Auto-Motive Metaphor
For an inquiry driven system, friction at the interface
can contribute to traction, but needs to be reduced at
the central bearings of instruction and at the springs
of learner motivation.
Jon Awbrey
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