Machine and Human Analogical Reasoning for a Case-Method Intelligent Tutoring System

We are building an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) that employs the case method of instruction, and a companion authoring shell for case and lesson creation by domain experts and educators. We have adopted a collaborative view of human-machine interaction in order to construct an integrated cognitive system in which analogical reasoning by the machine supplements and enhances analogical reasoning by the human. In this instance the supported forms of human reasoning are analogical encoding by students at instruction delivery time and analogical recall by experts at authoring time. The focus of this paper is the design and implementation of the case-authoring component of the authoring shell that assists domain experts in creating new cases and integrating them into the case library. The case library is for use in creating lessons that foster analogical encoding in students, a mental process shown empirically to improved acquisition, retention, and transfer of domain knowledge. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Susann Luperfoy is a Principal Scientist at Stottler Henke Associates where she builds interactive dialog agents for intelligent applications. Her experience in applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research for academia and industry has concentrated on human-machine and human-human dialog interaction, knowledge representation and knowledge acquisition, Machine Translation, Intelligent Tutoring System, and standards for software interoperability and reuse. Eric Domeshek is an AI Project Manager at Stottler Henke. His PhD from Yale University involved research on cognitive modeling and technology, with a focus on Case Based Reasoning. As Research Faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology he helped launch the EduTech Institute and directed work on educational applications of AI and CBR. He continued this work as faculty at Northwestern University’s Institute for the Learning Sciences and at Stottler Henke where he currently leads a variety of AI and ITS development projects.