Reasoning mind genie 2: An intelligent tutoring system as a vehicle for international transfer of instructional methods in mathematics

Abstract

Effective mathematics teachers have a large body of professional knowledge, which is largely undocumented and shared by teachers working in a given country's education system. The volume and cultural nature of this knowledge make it particularly challenging to share curricula and instructional methods between countries. Thus, approaches based on knowledge engineering - designing a software system by interviewing human experts to extract their knowledge and heuristics - are particularly promising for cross-cultural curriculum implementations. Reasoning Mind's Genie 2 system demonstrates the viability of such an approach, bringing elements of Russian mathematics education (known for its effectiveness) to the United States. Genie 2 has been adopted on a large scale, with around 67,000 United States students participating in the 2012-2013 school year. Previously published work (some of it in peer reviewed articles and some in non-peer-reviewed independent evaluations) has associated Genie 2 with high student and teacher acceptance, increases in test scores relative to "business as usual" conditions, high time on task, and a positive affective profile. Here, we describe for the first time the design, function, and use of the Genie 2 system. Based on this work, we suggest general principles - which collectively represent a proposed methodology - for the design of intelligent tutoring systems intended for cross-cultural transfer of curriculum and instructional methods. © 2014 International Artificial Intelligence in Education Society.