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High-fidelity, AI-based simulated classroom systems enable teachers to rehearse effective teaching strategies. However, dialogue-oriented open-ended conversations such as teaching a student about scale factors can be difficult to model. This paper builds a text-based interactive conversational agent to help teachers practice mathematical questioning skills based on the well-known Instructional Quality Assessment. We take a human-centered approach to designing our system, relying on advances in deep learning, uncertainty quantification, and natural language processing while acknowledging the limitations of conversational agents for specific pedagogical needs. Using experts' input directly during the simulation, we demonstrate how conversation success rate and high user satisfaction can be achieved., Comment: Accepted to appear at the NeurIPS 2021 Human Centered AI Workshop (HCAI). Data collection process for this data is described here arXiv:2112.00985

A large body of research demonstrates how teachers' questioning strategies can improve student learning outcomes. However, developing new scenarios is challenging because of the lack of training data for a specific scenario and the costs associated with labeling. This paper presents a high-fidelity, AI-based classroom simulator to help teachers rehearse research-based mathematical questioning skills. Using a human-in-the-loop approach, we collected a high-quality training dataset for a mathematical questioning scenario. Using recent advances in uncertainty quantification, we evaluated our conversational agent for usability and analyzed the practicality of incorporating a human-in-the-loop approach for data collection and system evaluation for a mathematical questioning scenario., Comment: Accepted to appear at the NeurIPS 2021 Workshop on Math AI for Education (MATHAI4ED)

Machine learning techniques applied to the Natural Language Processing (NLP) component of conversational agent development show promising results for improved accuracy and quality of feedback that a conversational agent can provide. The effort required to develop an educational scenario specific conversational agent is time consuming as it requires domain experts to label and annotate noisy data sources such as classroom videos. Previous approaches to modeling annotations have relied on labeling thousands of examples and calculating inter-annotator agreement and majority votes in order to model the necessary scenarios. This method, while proven successful, ignores individual annotator strengths in labeling a data point and under-utilizes examples that do not have a majority vote for labeling. We propose using a multi-task weak supervision method combined with active learning to address these concerns. This approach requires less labeling than traditional methods and shows significant improvements in precision, efficiency, and time-requirements than the majority vote method (Ratner 2019). We demonstrate the validity of this method on the Google Jigsaw data set and then propose a scenario to apply this method using the Instructional Quality Assessment(IQA) to define the categories for labeling. We propose using probabilistic modeling of annotator labeling to generate active learning examples to further label the data. Active learning is able to iteratively improve the training performance and accuracy of the original classification model. This approach combines state-of-the art labeling techniques of weak supervision and active learning to optimize results in the educational domain and could be further used to lessen the data requirements for expanded scenarios within the education domain through transfer learning., Comment: Preprint: Under Review

In this design case, a team developed a 3D interactive simulation for nursing students and professional nurses to train and practice pain assessment and management procedures. In the simulation environment, the trainees interact with three emotionally expressive animated patients. The three patients vary in their ethnicity, age, and emotion intensity. Successful completion of the scenario requires that the trainee perform of a series of pain assessment and management tasks. The trainee is evaluated on the efficiency and appropriate sequencing of the tasks. The purpose of this paper is to describe the decisions made regarding the type of virtual patients used, the clickable objects, the pain assessment interview protocol, the visual representations in the simulation and the web portal. The paper also provides insight into the processes and steps taken during the design and development phases of this 3D interactive simulation including: the tasks analyses, motion capture, validation of the animations in the simulation, programming, and other tasks.

In this design case, a team developed a 3D interactive simulation for nursing students and professional nurses to train and practice pain assessment and management procedures. In the simulation environment, the trainees interact with three emotionally expressive animated patients. The three patients vary in their ethnicity, age, and emotion intensity. Successful completion of the scenario requires that the trainee perform of a series of pain assessment and management tasks. The trainee is evaluated on the efficiency and appropriate sequencing of the tasks. The purpose of this paper is to describe the decisions made regarding the type of virtual patients used, the clickable objects, the pain assessment interview protocol, the visual representations in the simulation and the web portal. The paper also provides insight into the processes and steps taken during the design and development phases of this 3D interactive simulation including: the tasks analyses, motion capture, validation of the animations in the simulation, programming, and other tasks.