Although problem solving is regarded by most educators as among the most important learning outcomes, few instructional design prescriptions are available for designing problem-solving instruction and engaging learners. This paper distinguishes between well-structured problems and ill-structured problems. Well-structured problems are constrained problems with convergent solutions that engage th...

This paper consists of a review of current trends in web-based instruction and a review of a representative sample of web-based instruction efficacy research. The review of the current state of web-based instruction yields two principle themes: a) The prevalence of web-based instruction is growing exponentially, particularly in lifelong learning and corporate training; and b) The line between a...

Learning as a function of task complexity was examined in human learning and two connectionist simulations. An example task involved learning to map basic input/output digital logic functions for six digital gates (AND OR, XOR and negated versions) with 2or 6-inputs. Humans given instruction learned the task in about 300 trials and showed no effect of the number of inputs. Backpropagation learn...

This paper 1 presents AutoLearn’s authoring tool: AutoTutor, a software solution that enables teachers (content creators) to develop language learning activities including automatic feedback generation without the need of being a programmer. The software has been designed and implemented on the basis of processing pipelines developed in previous work. A group of teachers has been trained to use...

We present an overview of recent work in which eye movements are monitored as people follow spoken instructions to move objects or pictures in a visual workspace. Subjects naturally make saccadic eye-movements to objects that are closely time-locked to relevant information in the instruction. Thus the eye-movements provide a window into the rapid mental processes that underlie spoken language c...

Over the past four years, we have used evolving versions of IRI (Interactive Remote Instruction), a computer-based system to support distance education, to teach a variety of semester-long regularly scheduled for-credit classes. These classes are at sites up to 320 km apart. In this paper we give a brief description of IRI, some initial evaluations of its use, and describe the architecture used...

of thesis High order skills instruction such as thinking and learning skills, inquiry and problem solving skills, are considered as an integral part of a good science education. In this thesis, we review different approaches to the teaching of skills and present our model for the instruction of high order skills in relation to these approaches. The model emphasizes explicit and spiral instructi...

Channels as an essential part of a processor's instruction set were rst launched with the Transputer. We have made two major alterations: the semantics of the input and output instruction are changed in order to overlap communication, and channels are allowed to be communicated over channels (higher order communications). All operations can be easily implemented in hardware.