Reports of the AAAI 2010 Fall Symposia

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence was pleased to present the 2010 Fall Symposium Series, held Thursday through Saturday, November 11-13, at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia. The titles of the eight symposia are as follows: (1) Cognitive and Metacognitive Educational Systems; (2) Commonsense Knowledge; (3) Complex Adaptive Systems: Resilience, Robustness, and Evolvability; (4) Computational Models of Narrative; (5) Dialog with Robots; (6) Manifold Learning and Its Applications; (7) Proactive Assistant Agents; and (8) Quantum Informatics for Cognitive, Social, and Semantic Processes. The highlights of each symposium are presented in this report. The Cognitive and Metacognitive Educational Systems (MCES) AAAI symposium, held in November 2010, was the second edition of this successful AAAI symposium. The idea for the symposium stemmed from several theoretical, conceptual, empirical, and applied considerations about the role of metacognition and self-regulation when learning with computer-based learning environments (CBLEs). A related goal was the design and implementation issues associated with metacognitive educational systems. MCES implemented as CBLEs are designed to interact with users and support their learning and decision-making processes. A critical component of good decision making is self-regulation. The primary aim of this symposium was to continue the discussion started in 2009 on some of the previous considerations and to enhance the discussions with some new ones: What are the theoretical foundations and how are they articulated in CBLEs? Is it possible to develop a unified framework for all metacognitive educational systems? What are the necessary characteristics of these systems to support metacognition? To what extent does the educational system itself have to exhibit metacognitive behaviors, and how are these behaviors organized and enacted to support learning? What are the main aspects of metacognition, self-regulation skills, emotions, and motivations that influence the learning process? What does it mean to be metacognitive, and how can one learn to be metacognitive? Can MCES actually foster learners to be self-regulating agents? How can an MCES be autonomous and increase its knowledge to match the learners' evolving skills and knowledge?