Learning theories and their supporting learning technologies fall into two broad categories: those that support individual learning and those that support communal knowledge building. This research in progress describes a hybrid framework that integrates these two categories and proposes the development of a comprehensive learning technology that encompasses both models. The system would suppor...

Complex learning aims at the integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes; the coordination of qualitatively different constituent skills; and the transfer of what is learned to daily life or work settings. Recent instructional theories stress authentic learning tasks as the driving force for learning; but due to the complexity of those tasks, learning may be hampered by the limited processi...

Discourse, a form of collaborative learning, is fundamentally a communications process. This in-progress study adapts Clark and Brennan’s grounding in communications principles to investigate how to “scaffold” asynchronous discourse. Scaffolding is defined as providing support for the learner at his or her level until the support is no longer needed. This paper presents early results from an ex...

Extended interactions with a pedagogical agent (PA) assisting students to enact cognitive and metacognitive self-regulated processes requires the system to adapt the types and frequency of scaffolding. We compared learners’ perception of PAs’ prompts with MetaTutor, a hypermedia adaptive learning environment, with 40 undergraduates randomly assigned to one of three conditions: non-adaptive prom...

Concept mapping is a tool to represent interrelationships among concepts. Relevant research has consistently shown the positive impacts of concept mapping on students’ meaningful learning. However, concerns have been raised that concept mapping can be time consuming and may impose a high cognitive load on students. To alleviate these concerns, research has explored facilitating concept map cons...

Embodied agents use bodily actions and environmental interventions to make the world a better place to think in. Where does language fit into this emerging picture of the embodied, ecologically efficient agent? One useful way to approach this question is to consider language itself as a cognition-enhancing animal-built structure. To take this perspective is to view language as a kind of self-co...