Personal Assistant for Learning

Cognitive analyses

• Cognitive analyses are used to identify, and then teach explicitly, the thought processes required to apply important concepts or principles.
• Systematic thinking is fostered by repeatedly asking students to decide what to do, to implement their decisions, and to assess their resulting performance.

Instructional strategies

• Provision of well-designed practice with individual guidance and feedback.
• Reciprocal teaching so that the student and PAL alternately reverse roles. (Thus one of them decides and assesses while the other implements.)
• Systematic reduction of learning assistance so that students develop the ability to perform independently.

Computer (PAL) playing the role of tutor

• This provides a practically realizable way of providing every student with good individual guidance and feedback.