An Inquiry - based Approach to E - learning : The CHAT Digital Learning Environment

This paper describes CHAT, educational software intended for use in introductory college-level syntax or general linguistics courses. The software is motivated by two persistent pedagogical problems frequently encountered in scientific teaching: student motivation and the abstract, non-procedural character of formal theories. After describing the system's agent-based architecture and interface, we argue that inquiry-based, collaborative software best supports the teaching of linguistic theory, and consider some broader implications for general science teaching in an e-learning environment. Although the extent to which Chomskyan linguistics is a science (on a par with natural sciences, like physics, for example) has been debated on philosophical grounds [3], it is clear that the teaching of linguistics enjoys many of the same challenges as do its more traditional sister disciplines. For one thing, learning introductory linguistic theory means learning grammars–formal systems of rules and principles that determine in an algorithmic fashion the patterns of the languages of investigation. This is painstaking work both at the theoretical level (at which putative universal generalizations must be tested) and at the descriptive level (at which often-complicated sets of data must be analyzed). As a authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the author and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the second challenge, students are often surprised to discover what the work of theoretical linguists is actually like. Seduced by questions about ape language and the thought-influencing lens of linguistic determinism, students are, to say the least, not eager to accommodate to a regime of data collection, hypothesis testing, and systematic analysis. Moreover, grammars are formal systems that depend on abstract notation and require analytic precision. From many students' point of view, learning grammars feels more like learning math and science than like the excursion into the humanities they were expecting. In essence, the successful teaching of introductory linguistic theory requires solving many of the standard pedagogical problems confronting general science teaching, complicated by the student's pervasive sense that the field turns out not to be "what I thought it was." This paper describes the conception and development of CHAT, educational software that combines an inquiry-driven pedagogical framework with elements of proceduralized design in a collaborative digital learning environment. The goal of this project is to develop and assess new technologically supported teaching …