Knowledge RepresentationSubmitted to: Dr. Bruce Porter

Teaching from Concept Maps: A Progress Report

Patrick Christmas, Karen Fullam, Ted Gaubert

Teaching with Concept Maps

Learning through Concept Maps• Teachers can clarify lesson plans• Student learning is reinforced by seeing and

building concept maps Betty’s Brain

• Student builds concept map from text• Program answers questions based on map

construction• Student evaluates correctness of map from

program responses Our Problem

• How to teach from a concept map?

How to teach from a concept map?

What ontology of teaching concepts can be defined and integrated into a concept map to • define teaching strategy?• embed “supplemental” information?

How can the concept map enable student navigation?

How can student comprehension be assessed and modeled to assist navigation?

Approach

Define Teaching Ontology• Allow teacher to create meta-concept map to

describe teaching relationships between concepts

Create Student Interface• Use concept map structure to enable student

navigation

Assess Student Comprehension• Construct activities and questions to obtain

student feedback• Model student understanding to guide user toward

topics not yet mastered

Teaching Ontology

Teacher must be able to specify:• Supplemental information

– Equations– Figures– Questions for Evaluation

• Information about how to teach the material

– Sequencing– Importance– Level of Detail

Information Concepts

Information Description TextualDescription AudioDescription Figure Diagram Flowchart ConceptMap Chart BarChart ScatterPlot PieChart Table Drawing Photograph Equation Code Assertion Definition Postulate Theorem Lemma

Evaluation Exercise ConceptExercise ComputationExercise

Slot Descriptions

ContentLocation: Gives location of this informationRange: UrlCardinality: 1-to-1

Importance: Determines learning importance relative to other conceptsRange: IntegerCardinality: N-to-1

Detail: Determines hiding hierarchyRange: IntegerCardinality: N-to-1

Sequence: Determines order in which different concepts are presented when interface-directed

Range: IntegerCardinality: 1-to-1

Reinforcement: Determines order and extent to which material about same concept is presented

Range: IntegerCardinality: 1-to-1

User Interface MockupExpand and

contract nodes to vary level of detail shown

Node color coding

estimates student

comprehension

Detail pane communicates

node information and quiz questions

Supports varied media types

“Web browser” navigation

Assessing Student Comprehension

Dynamically Create User Profile• Maximize learning efficiency and retention

– Learning Style– Individual concepts tagged with ‘mastery index’

• Check for retention at later date• Schedule and plan future material

Model student understanding to guide user toward topics not yet mastered

Assess Student Comprehension

Methods of obtaining profile data:• Comparing organization of CMAP to a

predefined expert CMAP• Interactive questioning

– Questions generated due to errors or differences found between expert CMAP

– User answers predefined questions and ranks their subjective level of understanding

– Question previously learned material to check level of retention

Future Progress

Teaching ontology• Final definition of concepts and slots• Integration of “teaching concept map” with

“subject concept map”

Student Interface• Define algorithm for navigation and display based

on teaching ontology

Assessing Student Comprehension• Develop model of student comprehension• Relate comprehension to reinforcement navigation