Education and demonstration – Question or problem eliciting response – Electrical means for recording examinee's response
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-22
2001-04-03
Cheng, Joe H. (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Question or problem eliciting response
Electrical means for recording examinee's response
C434S118000, C434S350000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06212358
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to education, and more particularly to using reviews to enrich the learning process in a computer-aided educational system and method.
Review is very important in any educational or training systems. Most of us have encountered situations where we have forgotten what we have learnt, and would appreciate some forms of review to refresh our memory. As subject matter becomes more complicated, our need for review increases, especially when we are learning an inter-disciplinary subject, or solving inter-disciplinary problems. For example, when we encounter the problem of performance degradation due to temperature increase in an integrated circuit, probably some of us would like to design a heat-sink with fins on the integrated circuit, and would like to have a review on the subject of heat-flow on a heat-sink with different types of fins.
In a typical computer-aided educational system, there is no review. Those systems assume the students remember everything they have learnt, and just keep on teaching new areas. If a student wants to review certain subject matter, she can always go back and search for it. However, most students generally do not go back; they typically proceed forward and believe that once they have learnt a subject, they will never forget. As forgetfulness and lack in understanding start to build up, not for long a typical student will be totally lost, with his interest in learning the subject significantly diminished.
There is one exception to the typical educational system; it provides students with reviews. However, those reviews are not dynamic—they are just fixed reviews, which are not personalized. Such a system provides a student a set of study-plan. After the system has presented the study-plan to the student, the system automatically provides a summary of what the student has just learnt. Such an approach is not useful. Since the student has just studied the material, the probability of the student to forget is quite low. Also, the student might understand fully what she has just studied. The system does not know, and does not care. The reviews are fixed. Under no condition would the system not present the review to the student. Such fixed reviews not catered to the needs of individual students are not very helpful to the students.
It should be obvious from the foregoing that there is still a need for a computer-aided educational system and method that is catered specifically to the needs of individual students, or the characteristics of the subject, through dynamic review so as to reinforce each student's learning in a subject.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invented computer-aided educational system and method provide dynamic reviews for individual students. After a student has learnt certain areas in a subject, summarized learning materials on those areas are selectively generated for the student so as to reinforce the student's learning in the subject through reviews. Unlike prior systems, the reviews in the present invention are dynamic; they are specifically tailored to the needs of individual students, or the characteristics of the subject.
The present invention is applicable to any subject that can be taught by a computer. A subject in the present invention is divided into areas that the student has learnt and those that the student has not learnt; they are referred to as learnt line-items and un-learnt line-items respectively. The line-items are stored in a line-item storage-medium.
In one embodiment, the present invention selects an un-learnt line-item, and generates detailed learning materials for the un-learnt line-item. Then a learnt line-item is selected based on one or more learnt-line-item-selection rules, depending on factors such as the time elapsed from the time when the student learnt that line-item, the level achieved by the student in learning that line-item, its difficulty level, whether that learnt line-item is related to the selected un-learnt line-item, and whether that learnt line-item has been selected before. Then, the invention generates summarized-learning materials on the selected learnt line-item for the student to review.
Different materials are applicable for learning. The summarized-learning materials include study-plans. The detailed learning materials may further include questions, in addition to study-plans.
For an un-learnt line-item, after presenting the generated learning material to the student, the present invention assesses the student's understanding in the line-item. If the assessment is satisfactory, the un-learnt line-item is re-classified as a learnt line-item.
In another embodiment, the present invention accesses a line-item probability value, which is used to select a line-item. If the line-item is an un-learnt line-item, the invention generates detailed learning materials for the student; and if the student is successful in learning the materials, the invention re-classifies the line-item to a learnt line-item. If the line-item is a learnt line-item, the invention generates summarized learning materials for the student. The invention then repeats and selects another line-item.
Other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, which, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrates by way of example the principles of the invention.
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Ho Chi Fai
Tong Peter P.
Cheng Joe H.
Tong Peter
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