Cognitive Prosthetics for Fostering Learning: A View from the Learning Sciences

My observations are based on learning sciences research of the past several decades, the possibilities of new technologies of the past few years, and my experience as program officer for the National Science Foundation's Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies program. My thesis is that new technologies have potential to transform possibilities for fostering learning in both formal and informal learning environments by making it possible and manageable for learners to engage in the kinds of project work that professionals engage in and learn important content, skills, practices, habits, and dispositions from those experiences. The expertise of AI researchers and practitioners is critical to that vision, but it will require teaming up with others -- for example, technology imagineers, educators, and learning scientists. The articles report on the newest in intelligent tutoring systems and resources (Bredeweg et al. 2013, Rus et al. 2013; Chaudhri et al. 2013), virtual humans and conversational agents (Swartout et al. 2013), assessment and student modeling for personalization (Conati and Kardan 2013, Koedinger et al. 2013), and intelligently controlled virtual environments (Lester et al. 2013). The final article in the set (Woolf et al. 2013), of which I am a coauthor, suggests needs and challenges facing STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) that artificial intelligence might address -- mentors for every learner, fostering learning of 21st-century skills, automating assessment in ways that support learning, universal access, and lifelong and life-wide learning.