Adaptation of problem presentation and feedback in an intelligent mathematics tutor

Abstract

We have developed an intelligent tutor for teaching remedial mathematics to community college students. This domain is fairly narrow in scope and is an important component of the college curriculum. The target audience often retains fragments of knowledge from previous courses which can aid them in learning; alternately, misconceptions can present conceptual stumbling blocks if students have misremembered what they learned previously. Thus, a system built with a strong student model can greatly benefit the teaching process. The tutor described in this paper tracks student skills along with a general acquisition factor, and uses this information for topic selection, problem generation, problem presentation, and dynamic feedback.