Vincent Aleven is a professor of
human-computer interaction and director of the undergraduate program at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...
's
Human–Computer Interaction Institute.
In 1998, he co-founded
Carnegie Learning, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company that markets Cognitive Tutor math courses that include intelligent tutoring software. Aleven is also a co-founder of Mathtutor, a free website for middle-school math intelligent tutoring systems.
At Carnegie Mellon University, Aleven's research focuses on
intelligent tutoring systems
An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is a computer system that imitates human tutors and aims to provide immediate and customized instruction or feedback to learners, usually without requiring intervention from a human teacher. ITSs have the comm ...
and
educational game
Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are design ...
s. His group developed Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT) which allows educators to create intelligent tutoring systems without programming. Aleven's group has also been awarded several best paper awards, including a best paper award at EDM2013, a best student paper award at AIED2009, and the cognition and student learning prize at the Cognitive Science conference 2008. Aleven has mentored many prestigious postdocs and PhD students, including
Amy Ogan,
Ryan S. Baker,
Matthew Easterday,
Martina Rau, and
Ido Roll.
Aleven was named a top author in Computer Education by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
.
Education
Vincent Aleven attended the
Delft University of Technology
The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...
(TU Delft) from 1980 to 1988, graduating in 1988 with a Master of Science degree in
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
. He then attended the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
from 1989 to 1997, where he earned a PhD in Intelligent Systems. In 1997, he joined
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...
as a postdoctoral fellow. Since then, he has been conducting research, specializing in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
, intelligent educational systems, cognitive modeling, learning and metacognitive skills, and
case-based reasoning
Case-based reasoning (CBR), broadly construed, is the process of solving new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems.
In everyday life, an auto mechanic who fixes an engine by recalling another car that exhibited similar sympto ...
. He now serves as a professor and director of the undergraduate program at Carnegie Mellon University's
Human–Computer Interaction Institute.
Research
Cognitive Tutor
Aleven, along with his colleague Kenneth Koedinger, assisted in creating Cognitive Tutor, an intelligent tutoring software that supports guided tutoring for math courses. His research investigated whether self-explanation through Cognitive Tutor could improve student performance in school more than conventional methods. Aleven and his fellow researchers found that students who explained their problems on practice problems with Cognitive Tutor regularly performed significantly better than those who did not use the software. These results highlight the benefits of self-explanation and learning software that can scale for classroom use to assist all students.
Enhancing MOOCs with ITS
Aleven, along with his colleagues Jonathan Sewall, Ryan Baker, Yuan Wang, and Octav Popescu introduced intelligent tutoring systems(ITS) into massive open online courses (MOOCs) to enhance learning-by-doing and overall student performance. The ITSs support learning-by-doing to assist students by guiding them through complex practice problems and having them explain their work. The researchers also embedded their Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools(CTAT), a toolkit to create intelligent computer tutors, into MOOCs. Their research demonstrated the technical feasibility of embedding CTAT or similar ITSs into MOOCs. This works also shows the effectiveness of learning-by-doing through one-to-one coaching in online courses combined with ITS.
Adaptivity Grids and Learning Technology
In 2016, Aleven, along with his colleagues McLaughlin, Glenn, and Koedinger, examined how the effectiveness of digital tutors can be increased by adapting to the unique differences between learners, as well as to the similarities between them, such as common hurdles to solving a problem. In this paper, Aleven and colleagues introduce a tool called the Adaptivity Grid, which organizes research results in adaptivity, making it easier for developers to decide which forms of adaptivity would be best to build into their tutoring systems.
"The Adaptivity Grid shows three columns, which capture three ways in which digital tutoring systems can be adaptive to learners, namely, in their design loop, task loop, and step loop. In the design loop, the system designers use data about the targeted learners in the given task domain to create a new version of the system that is better adapted to these learners. In the task loop, the digital tutor picks problems for the student. In the step loop, the digital tutor provides assistance during steps within the problem. The Adaptivity Grid's horizontal rows show what a digital tutor can adapt to, related to the learner's traits, states, or actions."
References
External links
Aleven's personal page at Carnegie MellonAleven's official faculty website at Carnegie MellonAleven's profile on Microsoft's academic searchAuthoring tool for intelligent tutoring systemsMathtutor
See also
*
Kenneth Koedinger
*
Bruce McLaren
Bruce Leslie McLaren (30 August 1937 – 2 June 1970) was a New Zealand racing driver, automotive designer, engineer and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from to . McLaren was runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Champ ...
*
Ryan Baker
Nikol RummelKevin Ashley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleven, Vincent
American computer scientists
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Living people
Human–computer interaction researchers
Human-Computer Interaction Institute faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)