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You receive much more than test scores, averages,
and
grades. Since the system keeps track of every response
from every student, you always know exactly where a student is in
terms of completing and understanding the material. When the students
complete the entire system, each going through the material on their
own individual paths, you have assured their mastery of the training
material because students have answered correctly every pertinent
question presented to them. Each student will move through the material
individually, based on previous knowledge. There is very little waste
since the system continuously assesses the student, adapting its behavior
to the student's needs.
PASCAL Tutorial System
The next year, I wrote an assessment driven tutorial
system for teaching Pascal. It integrated a Pascal
compiler and editors as well as programming for reviewing the runtime
results of each of the Pascal programs written by students during
the tutorials. This system gave the placement exam for students that
already knew Pascal and wished to test out of the course and it enabled
me to win another award from the League of Innovation.
Although I started out with multiple-choice questions
using an early expert system shell, I now use the
input facilities of a mature knowledge based system environment. This
system includes text and numeric input from both the student and databases
as well as graphical dialogues with familiar controls and fully integrated
with the Windows environment. Knowledge based systems go well beyond
multiple-choice input.
Using a Knowledge Based System to Construct Assessment
Driven Systems with Just-In-Time Tutorials
In terms of graphics, the following example may be an
oversimplification. A login process would precede this tree, and all
questions would actually be sets of questions testing the same subject
ensuring that when a student returned to that question, it would be
different. To simplify question |
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maintenannce, they are stored outside of the system,
usually in
a database. Upon completion of each question, an embedded
procedure updates the database, keeping track of where the students
are in the process as well as the path that the student took through
the system. This is valuable for later analysis. The system can branch
to an entirely different test, Test03 in this case, and return to
the current test. It is possible to shuffle the question distracters
so if the system repeats the same question, the answers appear in
a different order, providing an additional further variation. In addition,
this assures that when different students run through the same system,
they cannot share answers.
It is important to emphasize that knowledge based
systems do not require multiple-choice type of questions, but handle
any input that is assessable by a computer.
Three-Tiered Approach to Developing Assessment
Driven Systems with Just-In-Time Tutorials
The availability of the Internet, intranets, and networks in
general suggests a three-tiered approach to designing assessment driven
systems with just-in-time tutorials. Tier 1 is the Database Layer,
where the primary component may be an existing SCORM compliant Learning
Management System (LMS) with additional tables for use by the new
Logic Layer. The Logic Layer contains the rules knowledge base
defining how to present each dialog and tutorial. The Presentation
Layer, or final tier, may be HTML, MS .NET Windows Dialogs, or some
other form. All three tiers, typically maintained separately, may
run server side, the Presentation Layer serving as the client.
The design can be completely SCORM compliant. The Logic Layer knowledge
based system manages the SCO's or the knowledge bases interact with
the SCORM API as SCO's.
Automating Test Improvement
Systems automatically generate decision trees, similar to
those illustrated above, from database tables as often done in Data
Mining. For example, a database table containing |
