Layman's description

In our research, we investigate how techniques from Software Technology (ST) and Programming Languages (PL) can be used for designing and building tools for education. More specifically, we investigate how to automatically generate hints and feedback for such tools. An Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) helps students with learning a particular topic. It typically does this by offering learning material to study, tasks to solve, and by providing various kinds of help. The help provided by an ITS may take several forms: it might be through sequencing the tasks in a way that suits the student, providing scaffolding at the level of the student, giving elaborated feedback on the steps a student takes towards a solution for a task, helping a student take a next step towards a solution, etc. In our research, we focus on two topics.

• Generic ITS framework: We work on the generic framework IDEAS (Interactive Domain-specific Exercise Assistants) for constructing expert-knowledge modules, also called domain reasoners.
• Specific ITS problem domains: We use the IDEAS framework for specific problem domains to build Intelligent Tutoring Systems. By studying specific problem domains, we discover new opportunities and challenges, which typically leads to general solutions that can also be applied in other problem domains. The tools we develop are tested in a classroom setting, after which logfiles are analyzed and effects are measured.