Betty's Brain
Encyclopedia
Betty's Brain is a software environment created at Vanderbilt University
by the Teachable Agents Group to help promote students' understanding of metacognitive skills and to reinforce river ecosystem knowledge as part of a science curriculum.
The system specifically focuses on reinforcing so called Self-Regulatory
skills that promote both Self monitoring
and Self assessment as one might expect of an independent learner.
The system focuses around a main character Betty, who has asked the students to teach her about river ecosystems. In this way Betty's Brain diverges from a classic intelligent tutoring system
(ITS) and adopts the learning by teaching
(LBT) paradigm where computer agent interactions are focused around completing a primary task unrelated to the acquisition of domain content knowledge.
More recently, Betty's level of artificial intelligence
has been largely modified to increase the interactivity with the students. Betty's task is to interact with students as a "good" learner, one who has self-regulatory skills, might. By incorporating feedback related to these self-regulatory skills we have shown that students are better able to perform in future learning tasks.
Current studies are focused on the 5th grade classroom with approximately 100 students. As well, as of July 2007, the system is being developed to integrate directly into classroom curriculum for the coming semester with included tools such as Front of the Class Betty, developed at Stanford University
.
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
by the Teachable Agents Group to help promote students' understanding of metacognitive skills and to reinforce river ecosystem knowledge as part of a science curriculum.
The system specifically focuses on reinforcing so called Self-Regulatory
Self-regulation
The term self-regulation can signify:*Autoregulation*Homeostasis, in systems theory*Self-control, in sociology / psychology*Self-regulated learning, in educational psychology*Self-regulation theory , a system of conscious personal health management...
skills that promote both Self monitoring
Self monitoring
Self-monitoring is a theory that deals with the phenomena of expressive controls. Human beings generally differ in substantial ways in their abilities and desires to engage in expressive controls...
and Self assessment as one might expect of an independent learner.
The system focuses around a main character Betty, who has asked the students to teach her about river ecosystems. In this way Betty's Brain diverges from a classic intelligent tutoring system
Intelligent tutoring system
An intelligent tutoring system is any computer system that provides direct customized instruction or feedback to students, i.e. without the intervention of human beings, whilst performing a task. Thus, ITS implements the theory of learning by doing. An ITS may employ a range of different...
(ITS) and adopts the learning by teaching
Learning by teaching
In professional education, learning by teaching designates currently the method by Jean-Pol Martin that allows pupils and students to prepare and to teach lessons, or parts of lessons...
(LBT) paradigm where computer agent interactions are focused around completing a primary task unrelated to the acquisition of domain content knowledge.
More recently, Betty's level of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
has been largely modified to increase the interactivity with the students. Betty's task is to interact with students as a "good" learner, one who has self-regulatory skills, might. By incorporating feedback related to these self-regulatory skills we have shown that students are better able to perform in future learning tasks.
Current studies are focused on the 5th grade classroom with approximately 100 students. As well, as of July 2007, the system is being developed to integrate directly into classroom curriculum for the coming semester with included tools such as Front of the Class Betty, developed at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.