What are the strengths and weaknesses of the lecture, the case study, self-directed learning, and simulations?
Lecture -
Strengths: least expensive, less time consuming, easily employed with a large group. Weaknesses: No active participation, feedback, and lack connection to the work environment. These inhibit transfer of training.
Case Study -
Strengths: help trainees develop willingness to take risks given uncertain outcomes.
Weaknesses: The trainees must be willing to prepare and discuss analysis.
Self-Directed Learning –
Strengths: Allows trainees to learn at their own pace. They also receive feedback. Requires fewer trainers and reduces costs with travel and meeting rooms.
Weaknesses: Trainees must be willing to train and be motivated.
Simulations –
Strengths: Represents real-life situations. Provides feedback about errors
Weaknesses: Very expensive, and require frequent updating as information about the environment changes.
What are the components of effective team performance? How might training strengthen these components?
There are three main components in an effective team performance; they are Behavior, Knowledge, and Attitude.
Training might strengthen these components because training will increase the knowledge of the trainees; if the trainees have good knowledge of what they are doing their attitudes will be better, if their attitudes are better their behavior will be better.
Discuss the steps of an action learning program. Which aspects of action learning do you think is most beneficial for learning? Which is most beneficial for transfer of training? Explain why.
Steps: 1) Identification of sponsors of action learning, including CEO’s and top managers 2) Identification of the problem or issue 3) Identification and selection of group who can address the problem 4) Identification of coaches who can help the group reframe the problem and improve its problem solving by listening, giving feedback, offering assumption, and so on 5) Presentation of the problem to the group 6) Group discussion that includes reframing the problem and agreement on what the problem is, what the group should do to solve the problem, and how the group should proceed 7) Data gathering and analysis relevant to solving the problem, done by the group as a whole as well as individual members 8) Group presentation on how to solve the problem, with the goal of securing a commitment from the sponsors to act on the group’s recommendations 9) Self-reflection and debriefing.
The most beneficial aspect for learning is probably the identification of the coaches; it is difficult to learn if it is being taught by trainees because the trainees do not fully understand what they are trying to learn.
The most beneficial for transfer of training will probably be the debriefing, where the trainees discuss what they have learned; group participation makes it easier to learn.
Chapter 8 Questions
Explain how technology has changed the learning environment.
Noe says, "The internet is primarily responsible for creating our revolution in learning. Internet technology has permitted the development of electronic networks that integrate voice, video, and data connections among learners, instructors, and experts.”
What are some advantages and disadvantages of multimedia training?
Advantages: Costs can be recouped by reductions in Travel and instruction costs. Motivates trainees to learn, provides immediate feedback, employees learn at their own pace, tests employees mastery.
Disadvantages: Initial cost, difficult to use for training interpersonal skills
Why would a company use a combination of face-to-face instruction and Web-based training?
Noe says, "Because of the limitations of online learning related to technology, because of trainee preference for face-to-face contact with instructors and other learners, and because of employees' inability to find unscheduled time during their workday to devote to learning from their desktops, many companies are moving to a hybrid, or blended, learning approach...Blended learning courses provide learners with the positive features of both face-to-face instruction and technology-based delivery and instructional methods while minimizing the negative features of each."
Using the Web, further investigate any new technology discussed in Chapter 8. Find information describing the technology, hints for developing and purchasing the technology, and examples of companies marketing and/or using the technology. Include Web addresses in your summary.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Intelligent tutoring systems are instructional systems that use artificial intelligence.
Tell me and I forget.
Show me and I remember.
Involve me and I understand.
- Chinese proverb
Broadly defined, an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is any computer system that provides direct - i.e. without the intervention of human beings - customized instruction or feedback to students. ITS systems may employ a host of different technologies. However, usually such systems are more narrowly conceived of as artificial intelligence systems, more specifically expert systems used for tutoring. ITS systems have been around since the late 1970s, but increased in popularity in the 1990s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_tutoring_system
How does it work?
| A student learns from an ITS by solving problems. The system selects a problem and compares its solution with that of the student and then it performs a diagnosis based on the differences. After giving feedback, the system reassesses and updates the student skills model and the entire cycle is repeated. As the system is assessing what the student knows, it is also considering what the student needs to know, which part of the curriculum is to be taught next, and how to present the material. It then selects the problems accordingly. 
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http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/tutoringsystem/start.htm
How ITS works
Many traditional instructional methods present learners with facts and concepts followed by test questions. These methods are effective in exposing people to large amounts of information and testing their recall. However, they often instill "inert knowledge" that learners can recall but may not apply correctly when needed. By contrast, ITS systems use simulations and other highly interactive learning environments that require people to apply their knowledge and skills. These active, situated learning environments help them retain and apply knowledge and skills more effectively in operational settings.
In order to provide hints, guidance, and instructional feedback to learners, ITS systems typically rely on three types of knowledge, organized into separate software modules (as shown in Figure 1). The "expert model" represents subject matter expertise and provides the ITS with knowledge of what it's teaching. The "student model" represents what the user does and doesn't know, and what he or she does and doesn't have. This knowledge lets the ITS know who it's teaching. The "instructor model" enables the ITS to know how to teach, by encoding instructional strategies used via the tutoring system user interface.
Here's how each of these components works. An expert model is a computer representation of a domain expert's subject matter knowledge and problem-solving ability. This knowledge enables the ITS to compare the learner's actions and selections with those of an expert in order to evaluate what the user does and doesn't know.
A variety of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are used to capture how a problem can be solved. For example, some ITS systems capture subject matter expertise in rules. That enables the tutoring system to generate problems on the fly, combine and apply rules to solve the problems, assess each learner's understanding by comparing the software's reasoning with theirs, and demonstrate the software's solutions to the participant's. Though this approach yields a powerful tutoring system, developing an expert system that provides comprehensive coverage of the subject material is difficult and expensive.
A common alternative to embedding expert rules is to supply much of the knowledge needed to support training scenarios in the scenario definition. For example, procedural task tutoring systems enable the course developer to create templates that specify an allowable sequence of correct actions. This method avoids encoding the ability to solve all possible problems in an expert system. Instead, it requires only the ability to specify how the learner should respond in a scenario. Which technique is appropriate depends on the nature of the domain and the complexity of the underlying knowledge.
The student model evaluates each learner's performance to determine his or her knowledge, perceptual abilities, and reasoning skills. Valerie Shute at the Air Force Research Laboratory presents the following simple example of a hypothetical arithmetic tutoring system. Imagine that three learners are presented with addition problems that they answer as follows:
Figure 2: ITS Student Modeling Example
| Student A | 22 | 46 |
| Student B | 22 | 46 |
| Student C | 22 | 46 |
Though all three participants answered incorrectly, different underlying misconceptions caused each person's errors. Student A fails to carry, Student B always carries (sometimes unnecessarily), and Student C has trouble with single-digit addition. In this example, the student supplies an answer to the problem, and the tutoring system infers the student's misconceptions from this answer. By maintaining and referring to a detailed model of each user's strengths and weaknesses, the ITS can provide highly specific, relevant instruction.
In more complex domains, the tutoring system can monitor a learner's sequence of actions to infer his or her understanding. For example, the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) ITS, developed for the U.S. Navy by SHAI, teaches tactical rules of engagement to officers who direct the sensors and weapons aboard cruisers. This system applies pattern-matching rules to detect sequences of actions that indicate whether the student does or doesn't understand. Figure 3 shows a report card produced by applying such rules to a student's simulation. The dark bullets describe actions the learner performed incorrectly, and the light bullets describe correct actions. The report card also provides the times at which the learner performed incorrect actions and a list of principles that he or she passed or failed in the simulation.
