Understanding Simple Picture Programs
Understanding Simple Picture Programs
Human Problem Solving
| Hi-index | 0.00 |
AI-CAI, the application of artificial intelligence techniques to the design of personal learning environments, is an enterprise encompassing both theoretical and practical concerns. In the short term, the process of developing and testing intelligent tutoring programs serves as a new experimental vehicle for exploring alternative cognitive and pedagogical theories. In the long term, such programs will supplement the educational supervision and guidance provided by human teachers. The lesson of AI-CAI to date has been that the critical component for a successful system is a model of the expertise to be conveyed which is modular, comprehensible, and articulate. Hence, as a step toward an AI-CAI tutor for elementary graphics programming, a rule-based theory of the planning and debugging of programs is explored. The rules are formalized as a context free grammar. This grammar is used to reveal the constituent structure of problem solving episodes, by parsing protocols in which programs are written, tested and debugged. This is illustrated by the analysis of a session with a beginning student. The virtues of the approach for constructing models of individual students' skills are discussed; limitations and extensions of the approach are also considered.