An Approach of Learning by Demonstrating

and Tutoring a Virtual Character

Shan-Chun Chi and Chih-Yueh Chou

Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering,

Yuan Ze University, Chung-Li, Taiwan, ROC
s946052@mail.yzu.edu.tw

Abstract. This study purposes an approach of computer-supported learning by

teaching. The learning activities of learning by teaching a virtual character are
usually involving demonstrating and tutoring. Here we combine demonstrating
and tutoring into a teaching virtual apprentice activity. First, student
demonstrates solving problems to the apprentice. Then student will monitor and
tutor apprentice when the apprentice solves problems. We will try to explore
effects of different teaching activities that are demonstrating, tutoring, and
demonstrating combine with tutoring.

1 Introduction

The idea of learning by teaching has been proposed by many researchers; for
example, in 1531 Valentine Trotzendorf argued that the best way to learn was to teach
(Briggs, 1998). Whiteman (1988) also said “To teach is to learn twice”. In
addition, many studies have shown that learning by teaching is a helpful learning
activity (Biswas & Leelawong, 2005). Furthermore, the study showed that the
tutee’s deep questions will benefit tutor (Roscoe & Chi, 2004). In general, peer
tutoring is a common way to realize the idea of learning by teaching, that is, a student
plays the role of a tutor to tutor another student which plays the role of a tutee.
However, in peer tutoring, the responses of the tutee are various and may not be
beneficial to the tutor. Instead of a real student tutee, a tutee which is played by a
computer simulated virtual character can be designed to respond to be beneficial to
the tutor.
There are several computer supported learning by teaching systems which use
virtual characters to play the role of a tutee. For examples: RTS system (Chan & Chou,
1997; Wong et al. 2003), DENISE (Nichols, 1994), PALs (Scott & Reif, 1999),
LECOBA (Ramírez Uresti, 1999; Ramírez Uresti & du Boulay, 2004), STEPS (Ur &
Vanlehn, 1995) and Betty’s Brain (Biswas & Leelawong, 2005). In these systems
teaching activities are various and probably can be divided into two classifications:
demonstrating and tutoring (Table 1). Some systems enable students to teach a virtual
tutee by demonstrating some examples or knowledge. In other systems, students teach a
virtual tutee by tutoring, that is, the students monitor, correct and guide the virtual
tutee’s problem solving.

M. Ikeda, K. Ashley, and T.-W. Chan (Eds.): ITS 2006, LNCS 4053, pp. 692 – 694, 2006.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006
 An Approach of Learning by Demonstrating and Tutoring a Virtual Character 693

Table 1. Two classifications of virtual character enhanced learning by teaching systems

Demonstrating Tutoring
Betty’s Brain, DENISE LECOBA, PALs, RTS, STEPS

2 Using Apprenticeship Approach to Combine Demonstration and

Tutoring
Existed virtual character enhanced learning by teaching systems enable students either
to learn by demonstrating or to learn by tutoring. Demonstration forces students to
practice or present the knowledge. Tutoring makes students observe, analyze, and
guide the tutee’s problem solving. Although RTS and PALs systems engage students
in practicing knowledge and tutoring by playing the role of a tutee and a tutor in turns,
students practice and tutor in different problems. We try to let students learn by both
demonstrating and tutoring in the same learning task or problem. Thus we adopt
apprenticeship, which involves demonstration and tutoring, as teaching activity
(Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989). First, master demonstrates or presents knowledge
to apprentices (Collins et al. term this activity as modeling), that is, master executes
process repeatedly and apprentices observe. Then apprentices will try to execute the
same process and master will tutor apprentices, such as giving some helps or advices
when apprentices meet some problems (Collins et al. term this activity as coaching).
So, we use apprenticeship to naturally combine demonstration and tutoring to engage
students in learning by preparing, learning by doing, and learning by tutoring. At
beginning, students need to study the material. While they were told that they need to
teach someone, they could learn better by preparing to teach (Bargh & Schul, 1980).
Then students will demonstrate to apprentice thus students do the learning task at last
once. If students found that they can not demonstrate correctly, they need to study the
material again. After demonstrating, apprentices will practice themselves and students
tutor them to solve problems or to present knowledge.

3 Experiment Design
In order to explore effects of different teaching activities involving demonstrating and
tutoring, we will proceed an experiment after implementing a system supporting
learning by demonstrating and tutoring a virtual tutee. The procedure of experiment is
designed as follows. First, all the students will be asked to do a pre-test. Then they
will be informed that they will teach someone after they studied the material. This is
to make sure that every student will achieve the “learning by preparing” activity. All
participants will be divided into four groups based on different teaching activities
(Table 2). First group is control group and students continue to study the material.
The students of second group participate in learning by demonstrating to a virtual
character. The students of third group engage in learning by tutoring a virtual
character. The students of fourth group employ demonstration and tutoring to teach a
virtual character. After the teaching process, students will be asked to do a post-test.
Then we will analyze the grades of pre-test and post-test to find out if there is obvious
difference on learning performance while adopting different teaching activities.
694 S.-C. Chi and C.-Y. Chou

Table 2. Four groups of experiment

Teaching activities
No teaching Demonstrating
activity (control Demonstrating Tutoring +
group) Tutoring

In this experiment, we suppose that students in the forth group will have better
post-test grades. However, we need to explore the real effects of different teaching
activities. Besides of comparing performance, we will investigate the behaviors of
students during the teaching activities; for examples, whether students can
demonstrate the solutions correctly during demonstration and whether students find
the apprentice’s errors during tutoring. Furthermore, students will be asked to fill in a
questionnaire to investigate their feelings and cognition during these teaching
activities. The experiment will be held in May 2006 and preliminary results will be
reported on the conference.

References
Bargh, J., & Schul, Y. (1980). On the cognitive benefits of teaching. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 72 (5), 593-604.
Briggs, D. (1998) A Class of Their Own – When Children Teach Children, Bergin & Garvey.
Biswas, G., & Leelawong, K. (2005). Learning by teaching: a new agent paradigm for
educational software. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 19 (3), 363-392.
Chan, T.W. & Chou, C.Y. (1997). Exploring the design of computer supports for reciprocal
tutoring. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 8, 1-29.
Collins, J.S. Brown, & S.E. Newman, (1989). "Cognitive apprenticeship: teaching the craft of
reading, writing, and instruction," Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlabum Associates Publishers.
Nichols, D. (1994). Issues in designing learning by teaching systems, In Proceedings of the
East-West International Conference on Computer Technologies in Education (EW-ED’94),
176-181.
Ramírez Uresti, J.A. (1999). LECOBA: A LEarning COmpanion system for binary Boolean
Algebra. In Johnson, L. (Ed.), Proceedings of Workshop 1: Animated and Personified
Pedagogical Agents AI-ED'99 conference, 56-61. Le Mans, France.
Ramirez Uresti, J. and du Boulay, B. (2004). Expertise, Motivation and Teaching in Learning
Companion Systems. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 14,
193-231.
Roscoe, R.D. & Chi, M.T.H. (2004). The influence of the tutee in learning by peer tutoring. To
appear in the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Chicago, IL.
Scott, L. A. & Reif, F. (1999). Teaching Scientific Thinking Skills: Students and Computers
Coaching Each Other. The 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in
Education (AI-ED 99), Le Mans, France, 285-293
Ur, S. & VanLehn, K. (1995). STEPS: A Simulated, Tutorable Physics Student. Journal of
Artificial Intelligence in Education, 6 (4), 405-435.
Whiteman, N.A. (1988) Peer teaching: to teach is to learn twice. Washington, DC: Asscition for
the Study of Higher Education
Wong, W. K., Chan, T. W., Chou, C.Y., Heh, J. S., & Tung, S. H. (2003). Reciprocal tutoring
using cognitive tools, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 19 (4), 418-428.