Adaptive Tutoring:

Any time you wish to receive artificially intelligent adaptive tutoring services, they are available through the User Mode button which appears on every screen:

Selecting Tutor from the User Mode button for the very first time brings you a one-time help message briefly explaining how the Adaptive Tutor works. Clicking anywhere on this message, or on its close box, will hide it permanently. The message this help-field provides gives the essential details of how adaptive tutoring works. A more detailed explanation may be helpful for users who do not fully understand the pedagogical principles behind this adaptive system.

One of the most pervasive concepts in the psychology of learning is the idea of "successive approximations." Successive approximation processes define the means for reaching learning objectives in the shortest period of time and with the fewest number of frustrations. Rather than relying on "trial and error" processes which let you make many mistakes or frustrate you by requiring too large a change from what you already know how to do, successive approximation techniques move you in small and gradual steps which assure the greatest likelihood of success. Such small approximations may be used in gradually changing 1) how much prompting you get to help show you what to do, 2) how difficult a task you will have to perform relative to what you already know how to do, and 3) how frequently feedback is offered and how much information it contains. Similar "successive approximation" processes may also be used in the alteration of anxiety and phobias, but that is another story for another time... Nevertheless, you may find your increasing success at studying and mastering the material in your Psychology: Exploring Behavior text confidence building if you work at using the tutorial services provided in this adaptive instructional system.

Master learners are able to easily determine the most important information embedded within large amounts of text with no outside cues to help at all; and they may require only one or two tests per term to confirm that they are studying correctly and know the material as required by an instructor. They typically "ace" such tests easily. Unfortunately, only about 3-5% of the student population qualifies as master learners. Of course, they are the ones who always "set the curve" on tests in a class, in that their performance defines upper-limit standard for the remainder of a typically "normal" distribution of performances by the remainder of the students in a given class. Adaptive instruction can change all of that if you are willing to work at it! That is, it can help make you a master learner too. Let's explore how.

First, note that selecting Tutor mode for the first time, and only the first time, launches tutoring with an assumption that you are a student in need of a significant amount of tutorial help. This is called "Level-1." Fully developed adaptive instructional tutors may have as many as five or six such "levels" of service. But if you really don't need all the help initially assumed, the system will quickly discover that fact based on your successes and will move you to more sophisticated and challenging levels of study. For now, let's explore the types of services delivered at Level-1.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Some instructors may artificially limit tutorial and testing services to 3 levels of adaptive service. In this mode, only Multiple Choice and Fill-in-the-Blank questions will appear. Other instructors may choose to use any or all of the additional levels and their associated forms of questions within their course. See your instructor for details on how many tutoring and testing levels are in use for your course!

You will first note that the amount of text presented has been broken into "segments" which contain a limited amount of information to be learned. Level-1 segments are typically only a paragraph or two in length, and thus focus on small "chunks," or collections, of information. Further, the most important terms or phrases in each segment appear in red to help you distinguish the relevant items to be learned. This "prompting" is a type of instruction offered by the system as to the material likely to appear in questions. To receive a question on this segment, merely click on the "Continue Tutor" button which appears in the upper-left corner of each "Open Page" screen:

All questions, of any type and throughout the entire system, are designed to help you learn to "concept map" the material, as explained further in our available essay on knowledge generation strategies. Level-1 questions accomplish this by offering you multiple choice type questions especially designed to facilitate the development of what cognitive psychologists refer to as concept maps:

These multiple choice questions offer a great deal of prompting within the question itself as to the major concept being assessed, and typically asks you to identify, merely by recognizing the correct associated term or phrase from several alternatives. It is your task to recognize associated dimensions, explanations, elaborations, or extended associations of the concept implied within the question and/or answer. Each question answered offers detailed feedback as to your accuracy and required time to answer:

If you get the answer wrong, you will remain with the segment being studied and clicking again on "Continue Tutor" will offer you an alternative question on this same segment. If you wish to review the material prior to answering a question, you may do this as well by using the Review button.

As noted earlier, if you succeed at learning with this degree of prompting, after only a few questions the system will recognize your ability and will challenge you to the next highest level of learning skill. If you have problems at this new level, say because the material just got harder to understand because of its abstractness or complexity, then the system will drop you back to the lower level for a while longer. If you don't need this extra practice, you will continue to work for a while at Level-2, which now offers larger segments of information to study and the more difficult task of recalling (as opposed to merely recognizing) the elaborative concepts by requiring you to fill-in the blanks, or missing terms:

Note the illustration above shows an example of the "aid" system built into all type-in answers to questions within the MediaMatrix software system. After you type the third letter in your word, the system provides a list a all terms, incorporating that sequence of letters, which are acceptable answers to any question in the item inventory. As you type more letters, the choices narrow. If you have typed the correct word, it automatically becomes bolded in the answer field. Of course, at any time, you may stop typing and merely click on the term in the "aid" field to move it to your answer field. If it is correct, it will also become bold.

When you are satisfied with your answer to any type of question, click on the "Done" button to receive immediate and informative feedback as to whether you were correct. Both accuracy and time are indicated, along with answer given and answer expected. Correct answers take you to the next segment of material to be learned. Wrong answers keep you with the segment still in need of review, and clicking "Continue Tutor" again will bring an alternative question on the same segment. There are several variations of question per segment, so it is unlikely you will be asked the same question twice before you are ready to advance.

If you are doing well at this second level of tutoring, and if your instructor is using the full services of five alternative levels, you will soon experience the third level of tutorial service. At this level, the amount of text you are given to read and comprehend is more substantial, and typically includes 3-6 paragraphs. In addition, the help you receive as to the main concepts and their properties described within this unit of text takes a different form. Up to this point you have seen all important concepts and properties underlined within the text your were asked to read. Now these concepts are isolated as a set of "primary terms" and their "associated properties" presented in a field just above the Topic Header near the top of each page:



 

Clicking on this field will expand it if more terms are there to be studied:



 

You should read the text, make sure you understand the concepts, and then work on recognizing which properties are associated with which major concept terms. When you select to "Continue Tutor" to receive a question, the form of this question is now what psychologists call a "paired assoicate" format wherein the top term is a major concept and the second term is (or is not) an associated property of that primary concept, as illustrated below:



Each time you select "Associated" or "Not Associated" as your choice for an answer to the pair presented, you will receive feedback either telling you that you are correct, or that you are wrong. If you are incorrect, it will offer the correct primary term that is associated with the incorrect property as a means of helping you to learn all concept/property assoications.



or



 

 

After you have completed all pairs of terms, you will also be given a composite feedback of how well you did on this series of questions. It is this composite that makes up any percentage score for the total unit question:



 

If you are progressing well at this third level of tutoring, you eventually will be moved up to the fourth level of tutoring skill. At this level you will typically have the entire topic to read with only minimal prompting as to what you are to learn. These prompts take the form of a listing of the primary concepts (but not their associated properties) introduced in the available text. It is now your task to discover and learn to recall at least four properties that help to define, qualify, or elaborate (i.e., are associated with) the concept terms given. These conceept terms then become the "question" in a verbal association format of testing which asks you to think of outlining the primary associations for the term given. As with Paired Associates formats, each time you enter an answer you are given feedback as to whether what you have typed is correct or not correct:



 

Each level of tutoring will automatically reappear if the system determines, from your progress and activity, that you need more or less help as you study each topic. Evantually, you may even see all prompting disappear and think that you are back in Browse mode, but in this highest level of tutoring (called Probe Mode) you will randomly receive questions of different formats and on various formerly read topics as you continue reading and studying your text. If you fail to maintain your previously excellent performance, the system will begin to drop back down through the levels of tutoring best suited for your progress and for the development of your reading comprehension skills.

After you finish a given topic in Tutor Mode, you may want to test yourself on that entire topic. You may also wish to emphasize one of another type of question. This is accomplished by selecting Assess.

Next Topic.....(Self-Assessing Topic Mastery)