Applying Programming by Demonstration in an Intelligent Authoring Tool for Cognitive Tutors

We are building an intelligent authoring tool for Cognitive Tutors, a highly successful form of computer-based tutoring. The primary target users (the authors) are educators who are not familiar with cognitive task analysis and AI programming, which are essential tasks in building Cognitive Tutors. Instead of asking authors to write a cognitive model by hand, a Simulated Student embedded in the authoring tool lets an author demonstrate how to perform the tasks in the subject domain, for instance, solving an algebra equation. The Simulated Student observes an author’s demonstration and induces a set of production rules that replicate the demonstrated performances. Correct production rules, as well as production rules that are incorrect but similar to those a human student might produce, can be directly embedded in the Cognitive Tutor. We give a preliminary evaluation of an implemented Simulated Students based on inductive logic programming and path-finding.