Foundational Principles and Design of a Hybrid Tutor

This paper describes the concept of a hybrid tutor as a type of adaptive instructional system (AIS). A hybrid tutor is a confederation of several digital learning resources and human interactions so that the right resource is available to the learner at the right time. We discuss a method for combining several existing educational technologies into a unified platform that tracks progress on learning a subject matter across several constituent parts and offers recommendations on what to do next. There is a learning record store that keeps track of progress and enables intelligent recommendations at several levels: broad topics, specific knowledge components, material difficulty, and mode of instruction. The fine-grain adaptability allows the incorporation of several cognitive learning principles, such as multiple representations and modalities, mental model construction, item spacing, and support for self-regulated learning. The proposed web-based learning environment can function as a stand-alone instructional platform that is integrated into classrooms with topics assigned according a curriculum-based calendar or an adaptive learning environment that suggests learning activities that are generated by an intelligent recommender system. As a proof of concept, we developed ElectronixTutor, a hybrid tutor designed for introductory and intermediate electrical engineering education. This paper describes the rationale for its design and preliminary results.