Summer School on Smart Tutoring Software using CTAT

Monday, August 05 to Friday, August 09, 2024

A one-week workshop on how to build your own intelligent tutors

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) aid learning by guiding students through problem-solving with personalized feedback. In this Summer School, you learn the concepts behind such tutors and build, mentored by experts, your own ITS. We are offering tracks for both non-programmers and programmers.

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are an educational technology that has proven to be very effective in helping students learn. They guide students during problem-solving practice, enabling them to follow their own path while solving a given problem and providing individualized stepwise feedback. Many tutoring systems also support individualized mastery learning, in which each student gets assigned their own, individualized set of problems sufficient to master targeted skills.

ITS are associated with the field of  ‹AI in Education›. A popular kind of tutors are Cognitive Tutors. These tutors are based on a cognitive model that reproduces the mental processes involved in solving a task. A cognitive model does justice to the fact that students can successfully solve one and the same task in different ways. They are thus very useful for many students, including low-performing students, who are known to have difficulties in adapting to different ways of solving problems.

In this Summer School, you will learn concepts of ITS and you will learn to build them. You will develop a prototype of a computer-based intelligent tutor. To do this, you will use the CTAT (Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tool) developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

CTAT was developed for both non-programmers and programmers, which is why we offer two tracks during the Summer School. In track one, using behavior graphs requires no programming experience. If you can already program, you can dive into using Nools.js to build so-called rule-based tutors in track two.

During the Summer School, you will work on your own project in your area of interest. CTAT tutors usually focus on solving multi-step problems, such as those often found in mathematics, physics, or chemistry, but they are also used in language learning. Over the course of the week, you will first conduct a cognitive task analysis to understand the types of problems for which your tutor may be used and to understand students’ processes for solving them. Subsequently, you will use CTAT to implement an intelligent tutor. By the end of the week, you will have a running prototype of your tutor. During the Summer School, you will be mentored by experts from CMU (who developed CTAT) and PHZH. The Summer School will primarily take place in a stunning setting at Schloss Au on the Au peninsula in Lake Zurich.

This Summer School is organized in cooperation between the Zurich University of Teacher Education, ETH Zurich, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Registration and more information:
  • Registration page: Link (As the university has a new website, the registration process is currently only available in German. Please use the translation function of your browser. Apologies for the inconvenience.)
  • Registration deadline: June 12, 2024
  • Summer School participant numbers are limited
Date:

Monday, August 05 to Friday, August 09, 2023

Times and venues:
Mentors:
  • Vincent Aleven, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Jonathan Sewall, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Octav Popescu, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Martina Rau, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  • Thomas Schmalfeldt, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
  • Tobias Berner, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
Guest lectures:
  • Sascha Schneider, Zurich University, Switzerland
Cost:
  • Students and doctoral students: CHF 390.- (discount can be applied during the registration process)
  • Regular: CHF 630.-
Language:

The inputs and coaching will be in English. If required, the coaching sessions can also be in German.

Meals:
  • Monday: Snacks included
  • Tuesday – Friday: Lunch and snacks included
Accommodation:

Since accommodation requirements vary widely, we ask participants to arrange their own accommodation.

Contact:

Thomas Schmalfeldt (thomas.schmalfeldt@phzh.ch)

Summer School 2023 participants