WISE Tutor
(Work-centric Intelligent System for Education):
Manufacturing a New Learning Environment

This project is funded by US Dept. of Education, FIPSE grant P116B70787

WISETUTOR WINDOWS FOR STUDENT INTERACTION

The tutor window consists of  4 sections (see Figure 7):

  1. Tutor control (upper left) where the scenario is presented and where a student can take actions to diagnose and fix the problem
  2. Machine (lower left) where the student can see picture of the machine and problems
  3. Simulation view (upper right) where the machine error messages and a view of board produced by the machine can be seen.
  4. Student/Tutor Dialog --  student actions, tutor responses, and tutor suggestions are displayed.
In Figure 7, the text describing the selected scenario is shown.  The front view of the machine appears in the machine panel.  The finished board is shown in the upper right.  There is also a message from the tutor that tells that the symptom is “Paper is building up in the pickup area” of the machine.

Figure 7 – The tutor window where the user can start working on the selected scenario problem.

The students starts the diagnose and fix session by using the bottom half of the Tutor Control section.  There are four main actions that the student can take.  These actions are investigate (indicated by the detective icon), inspect (indicated by the magnifying glass icon), fix (the wrench icon), and simulate or run the machine to see whether the problem is fixed (the gear icon).

The student starts by clicking on the “detective” icon and a choice of machine parts appears (see figure 8).  Figure 8 is a detailed blowup of the Tutor control section of the window.  Since the problem is paper build up in the pickup area, the student selects to investigate the pickup area.

After the user selected to investigate the Pickup Area, a picture of the pickup area appears in the lower left of the window showing the paper buildup.  The user/tutor dialog window also shows that the action “[Student]  I want to inspect the PickupArea”  (See Figure 9).

Figure 8 – Detailed section of the Tutor Panel where the user has selected to investigate the PickupArea

Figure 9 – Tutor shows the buildup in the pickup area.

The student then proceeds to the repair action (after clicking the wrench icon)  “Remove the paper scrape from the pickup area” and the tutor responses with the confirmation “Action performed” and a picture of the clean area  (See figure 10).  The student then runs the simulation to check whether the problem is fixed.  The tutor answers that the problem has been fixed (See Figure 11).

Figure 10 – Student has clean up the pickup area.


The example so far is a simple problem.  The tutor can give some hints and point out incorrect steps.  Figure 12 shows a detail on the Dialog area.  It shows that the students selected to investigate Feeder 1 and the tutor told the student that inspecting feeder 1 is not consistent with the symptom (i.e., paper buildup in the Pickup area).  Similar response is given when the student wants to investigate the Control Panel.  After these two mistakes, the student asks the tutor for help by clicking the “What next?” button.  The tutor suggests the student to investigate the pickup area.

Figure 11 – The student checks his/her repair action by running the simulation.  He/she has fixed the problem.


 

Figure 12 – A student/tutor dialog in which the tutor told the students about his/her wrong actions and when the student asks “What Next?”, suggests the correct solution path.



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