Intelligent interactive tutoring system for engineering mechanics

Engineering education has traditionally been imparted through the lecture-t utorial-laboratory paradigm. Education technology in the last few years has tried to make teaching more effective by supplementing the chalkboard teac hing with audiovisual aids Like overhead/slide projectors and videos. These are, however, passive teaching tools. Recent advancement in computer multi media has brought in a new teaching medium. Multimedia education has severa l advantages; most noticeably, the instructions can be interactive and self -paced to meet the needs of each individual student. The writers have devel oped an Intelligent Interactive Tutoring System for engineering mechanics f or the first-year engineering students at the Nanyang Technological Univers ity, Singapore. The main objective of this system was to supplement classro om teaching via intelligent interaction with the computer-based tutoring sy stem. This system is designed to be a self-paced virtual tutor with intelli gent, user-friendly interactions. It is intended to be different from the m any commercially available computerized textbooks. The prototype system was tried out with about 200 students who had earlier failed the course in the first semester and repeated it in the second semester of academic year 199 7-1998. The system received good response from the students. The full versi on was implemented on the Nanyang Technological University Intranet and the Internet for use by the regular class of more than 1,600 students in both academic years 1998-1999 and 1999-2000.