Adaptive Technologies for Training and Education

Description

This edited volume provides an overview of the latest advancements in adaptive training technology. Intelligent tutoring has been deployed for well-defined and relatively static educational domains such as algebra and geometry. However, this adaptive approach to computer-based training has yet to come into wider usage for domains that are less well defined or where student-system interactions are less structured, such as during scenario-based simulation and immersive serious games. In order to address how to expand the reach of adaptive training technology to these domains, leading experts in the field present their work in areas such as student modeling, pedagogical strategy, knowledge assessment, natural language processing and virtual human agents. Several approaches to designing adaptive technology are discussed for both traditional educational settings and professional training domains. This book will appeal to anyone concerned with educational and training technology at a professional level, including researchers, training systems developers and designers.

Paula Durlach is a research psychologist at the US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral Social Sciences. After receiving her PhD in Experimental Psychology from Yale University in 1983, she held Fellowship positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge. From 1987 to 1994, she was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at McMaster University and went on to lead the exploratory consumer science team at Unilever Research Colworth Laboratory in the UK. Dr Durlach has received recognition for her work in experimental psychology and cognitive science at the Army Science Conference and from the Department of Army Research and Development. She has recently published her research in the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Military Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction. Alan Lesgold is Professor and Dean of the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh and Professor of Psychology and Intelligent Systems. He received his PhD in Psychology from Stanford University, California in 1971 and holds an honorary doctorate from the Open University of the Netherlands. In 2001, he received the APA award for distinguished contributions in the application of psychology to education and training and was also awarded the Educom Medal. Dr Lesgold is a Lifetime National Associate of the National Research Council and was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell as a member of the Governor's Commission on Preparing America's Teachers. He serves on the boards of A+ Schools and Youthworks and is chair of the National Research Council committee on adolescent and adult literacy.

"The book is invaluable, interesting, and relatively easy to read. It combines ideas we have studied for decades with applications that are emerging daily. The book is highly recommended." G. Abramson, Computing Reviews "Durlach and Lesgold's informative, significant, and (you read it here) highly recommended book covers adaptive instructional technologies that adjust instruction to the needs, abilities, knowlede, skills, interests, aspirations, etc of individual learners." J.D. Fletcher, Educational Technology "This is a very good book. It should be required reading for all of us who wished that instructional psychology could effectively use the numerous affordances provided by computers and computer science. Every chapter is worth reading since it demonstrates that the gap between the affordances provided by computers and computer science and our ability to use these in instructional contexts is narrowing." Sigmund Tobias, Educational Research journal