An Intelligent Tutor for High-level Science Skills

This work builds on previous attempts at tutoring scientiic skills. Rather than focus on individual skills or scientiic domains, it stresses the tutoring of speciic scientists: those unfamiliar with the methods and tools of science. The tutor provides a gradual introduction to science in the context of a speciic scientiic domain | in this case, the extinction of the dinosaurs. The tutor requires a student to construct one or more arguments in support of a scientiic theory. Arguments are constructed by searching a hypertext knowledge base of scientiic facts, problems, and solutions. Students acquire basic scientiic skills through a guided learn-by-doing process. The tutor takes great care to introduce new information only when it becomes relevant to the student's experience and learning. As the student becomes proocient at certain skills, new topics are incorporated directly into the subject matter. Ideally, this tutoring environment can become a workbench in which students continue to pursue scientiic studies throughout their educational experience.