Researchers from North Carolina State University have designed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that is better able to predict how much students are learning in educational games. The improved model, which uses an AI training concept named multi-task learning, could be used to improve both instruction and learning outcomes.
“We wanted the model to be able to predict whether a student would answer each question on a test correctly, based on the student’s behavior while playing an educational game called Crystal Island,” says Jonathan Rowe, co-author of a paper on the work.
“The standard approach for solving this problem looks only at overall test score,” Rowe says. “In our multi-task learning framework, the model has 17 tasks — because the test has 17 questions.”
The researchers collected gameplay and testing data from 181 students. The AI could look at each student’s game- play and how each student answered Question 1 on the test. By identifying common behaviors of students who answered Question 1 correctly, and those of students who got Question 1 wrong, the AI could determine how a new student would answer Question 1.
This function is performed for every question at the same time. The gameplay being reviewed for a given student is the same, but the AI looks at that behavior in Question 2, Question 3, and so on.
The researchers found that the multi-task model was about 10 percent more accurate than other models that relied on conventional AI training methods.
“We expect that this type of model could tell teachers when a student’s gameplay suggests the student may need additional instruction. It’s also expected to facilitate adaptive gameplay features in the game itself. For example, altering a storyline in order to revisit the concepts that a student is struggling with.” says Michael Geden, first author of the paper.
“Psychology has long recognized that different questions have different values,” Geden says. “Our work here takes an interdisciplinary ( 跨学科的) approach that marries this aspect of psychology with deep learning and machine learning approaches to AI.”
“This also opens the door to incorporating more complex modeling techniques into educational software.” says Andrew Emerson, co-author of the paper.
1. What makes the multi-task model different from conventional ones?| A．It involves an educational game. | B．It researches on adequate samples. |
| C．It analyzes the testing data separately. | D．It applies a new psychological theory. |
| A．Students played different games in the task. |
| B．Students should answer 17 questions after playing the game. |
| C．The multi-task model is the first to predict students’ learning performance. |
| D．The higher accuracy in prediction lies in the identification of common behaviors in every question. |
| A．Provide students with personalized guidance. |
| B．Help the game adapt itself to meet various needs. |
| C．Combine deep learning with machine learning further. |
| D．Incorporate more advanced technology into educational software. |
| A．AI experts. | B．Psychologists. | C．Teachers. | D．Test writers. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】For several decades, there has been an organized campaign intended to produce distrust in science, funded by those whose interests are threatened by the findings of modern science. In response, scientists have tended to stress the success of science. After all, scientists have been right about most things, from the structure of the universe to the relativity of time and space.
Stressing successes isn’t wrong, but for many people it’s not persuasive. An alternative answer to the question “Why trust science?” is that scientists use the so-called scientific method. But what is called the scientific method isn’t what scientists actually do. Science is dynamic: new methods get invented; old ones get abandoned; and at any particular point, scientists can be found doing many different things. False theories sometimes lead to true results, so even if an experiment works, it doesn’t prove that the theory it was designed to test is true.
If there is no specific scientific method, then what is the basis for trust in science? The answer is the methods by which those claims are evaluated. A scientific claim is never accepted as true until it has gone through a long process of examination by fellow scientists. Scientists draft the initial version of a paper and then send it to colleagues for suggestions. Until this point, scientific feedback is typically fairly friendly. But the next step is different: the revised paper is submitted to a scientific journal, where things get a whole lot tougher. Editors deliberately send scientific papers to people who are not friends or colleagues of the authors, and the job of the reviewer is to find errors or other faults. We call this process “peer review” because the reviewers are scientific peers—experts in the same field—but they act in the role of a superior who has both the right and the responsibility to find fault. It is only after the reviewers and the editor are satisfied that any problems have been fixed that the paper will be printed in the journal and enters the body of “science.”
Some people argue that we should not trust science because scientists are “always changing their minds.” While examples of truly settled science being overturned are far fewer than is sometimes claimed, they do exist. But the beauty of this scientific process is that science produces both creativity and stability. New observations, ideas, explanations and attempts to combine competing claims introduce creativity; transformative questioning leads to collective decisions and the stability of scientific knowledge. Scientists do change their minds in the face of new evidence, but this is a strength of science, not a weakness.
1. Scientists stress the success of science in order to ________.| A．promote basic knowledge of science |
| B．remind people of scientific achievements |
| C．remove possible doubts about science |
| D．show their attitude towards the campaign |
| A．It’s an easy job to prove its existence. |
| B．It usually agrees with scientists’ ideas. |
| C．It hardly gets mixed with false theories. |
| D．It constantly changes and progresses. |
| A．It seldom gives negative evaluation of a paper. |
| B．It is usually conducted by unfriendly experts. |
| C．It aims to perfect the paper to be published. |
| D．It happens at the beginning of the evaluation process. |
| A．it is not uncommon for science to be overturned |
| B．scientists are very strong in changing their minds |
| C．people lose faith in those changeable scientists |
| D．changes bring creativity and stability to science |
【推荐2】Procrastination(拖延症) Tech Support
Choosing between immediate satisfaction and future benefit can easily lead to shortsighted decisions: Watching TV instead of going to the gym, for example, or going through social media rather than working on a challenging project.
To guide individuals toward greatest choices, Falk Lieder, a cognitive(认知) scientist, and his colleagues designed a digital tool called a “cognitive prosthesis.” It uses artificial intelligence to match a decision’s immediate reward with its long-term worth after making a to-do list. The researchers developed a set of models and algorithms(算法) that consider various elements such as a list of tasks, an individual’s unwillingness to each and the amount of time available.
The idea was to turn the challenging projects that people pursue in the real world into a game like environment. “The point system gives people achievable goals that signal that they’re making progress.” Lieder says.
Lieder says one of the current tool’s limitations is that it can handle only short to-do lists.
| A．People often struggle to do what’s best for them in the long run. |
| B．The team tested this tool in a series of experiments with human subjects. |
| C．The system then assigns reward points to each task in a way that is customized. |
| D．And now, he and his team are trying to develop it up for a larger number of tasks. |
| E．They found that 85 percent of individuals who used the tool completed all their tasks. |
| F．A study was conducted to find a way to help people increase their decision-making ability. |
| G．This tool is a convincing demonstration that procrastination is something that this strategy can help with quite a lot. |
【推荐3】Five years is a rather short time in the long history of China.
But has it occurred to you that just five years ago all these things were beyond people’s imagination?
| A．By the end of 2016, there were 695 million mobile phone users in China, an increase of 12 percent on year-on-year basis. |
| B．With the constantly improvement of digital technology, a lot of changes have taken place in many aspects of our life. |
| C．At that time there were no apps to order takeaway food. |
| D．Thanks to the fast-developing digital world, our life is becoming more convenient so that we can spend more time with our family or on work. |
| E．You had no enjoyment of higher efficiency from convenient sharing bicycles to cash-free payment. |
| F．But for digital development, things are totally different. |
| G．In China, holding a mobile phone means having the world in your hands. |
【推荐1】Now researchers are looking closely at how “green” our payment systems are. They’ve found buyers can help cut some environmental costs, no matter how they pay.
To measure the full “cost” to society of money, researchers examined the life cycle of a U. S. penny. People mine zinc(锌) and copper(铜) rocks at different places. Multiple steps go into separating the metals from these rocks. The metals then go to a factory. Copper coats each side of a thicker zinc layer. Then the metal is shaped into disks known as coin blanks. Those disks travel to U.S. Mint plants. Different processes there form the disks into coins.
Packaged coins travel to banks that are part of the Federal Reserve, the United States’ central bank. These banks ship the pennies out to local banks for release to the public. All of those steps use energy and produce waste.
Years later, Federal Reserve banks collect worn-out pennies. These are melted and destroyed. Again, every step requires energy—and produces pollution.
But cash is more than just pennies. Most countries also use banknotes or bills. Great Britain began its switch from cotton-fiber paper to plastic in 2016. Shonfield, one of the researchers, compared the environmental impacts of the two types of bills.
Both types of bills had advantages and disadvantages, he found. On balance, their report found, plastic bills last longer. So over time, “you don’t have to create nearly as many banknotes with plastic notes as with paper,” Shonfield says. That cuts the overall need for raw materials and energy. And, he adds, plastic bills are thinner than paper ones. More of them fit into ATMs than older paper bills. So, keeping the machines full takes fewer trips.
Shonfield’s group concluded that about 31 percent of those environmental impacts came from making coins. A much bigger share—64 percent—came from energy for running ATMs and transporting bills and coins. Fewer ATMs and more renewable energy could reduce those impacts, the study concluded.
1. What feature of “disks” is mentioned?| A．They are of different value. | B．They have nothing on them. |
| C．They are of different sizes. | D．They are made of plastic. |
| A．By doing various experiments. | B．By observing the way people pay. |
| C．By examining the life cycle of a penny. | D．By analyzing the raw materials of coins. |
| A．Paper bills produce less waste than coins. |
| B．Pennies will retire from the stage of history. |
| C．Coins make use of less energy than paper bills. |
| D．Plastic bills are more environmentally friendly. |
| A．The ways we pay affect our planet. |
| B．Money produces most waste when in use. |
| C．“Green” payment systems are catching on. |
| D．E-payment can also pollute the environment. |
【推荐2】The battle for women’s right to vote
One hundred years ago, British women were given the vote for the first time. How did it come about?
The first appeals for women’s right to vote in Britain date from the early 19th century. In 1818, in his Plan of Parliamentary Reform, Jeremy Bentham insisted that women should be given the vote. Women at the time had no political rights at all– they were deemed to be represented by their husbands or fathers. The old arguments prevailed. Women, it was said, were mentally less able than men; their “natural sphere” was in the home; they were unable to fight for their country, and thus undeserving of full rights; moreover, they simply didn’t want the vote. This was at least partly true. “I have never felt the want of a vote,” declared Florence Nightingale in 1867, while Queen Victoria condemned the “mad, wicked folly of women’s rights”. Even George Eliot was reluctant to back the cause.
It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that the first campaigning women’s groups were formed. Initially they focused on the lack of education, employment opportunities and legal rights for women (married women, at the time, had no independent legal standing); but the question of the vote gradually became central to their demands – both symbolically, as a recognition of women’s rights, and practically, as a means of improving women’s lives.
However, the women’s campaigning was still a subject of debate. While most historians agree that the campaigns were initially very effective in mobilizing women and highlighting injustices, a series of mass processions followed; more than 250,000 women protested in Hyde Park in 1908. Many were arrested and ill-treated; prisoners who went on hunger strike were brutally force-fed. Over time they became steadily more militant – smashing shop windows, setting fire to letter boxes, libraries and even homes. The PM, Herbert Asquith, an opponent of women’s votes, was attacked with a dog whip. Such use of violence was thought, certainly at the time, to have been unfavorable.
With the sacrifices of the First World War strengthening support for widening the right to vote generally, women suspended campaigning. More than a million women were newly employed outside the home --in munitions (军需品) factories, engineering works. Crucially, Asquith was replaced as PM by David Lloyd George, a supporter of votes for women. The Representation of the People Act 1918 was introduced by the coalition government and passed by a majority of 385 to 55, gaining the Royal Assent on 6 February 1918. Women over 30, who were householders or married to one, or university graduates, were given the vote.
1. Which of the following is NOT the reason why women were not qualified to vote?| A．Women were supposed to do housework and serve their husbands. |
| B．Women were too weak to fight against enemies. |
| C．Women had already enjoyed many political rights. |
| D．Women were not as intelligent as men. |
| A．Because it failed to mobilize women and emphasize injustices. |
| B．Because women were put in prison and abused during the protest. |
| C．Because most women didn’t want the vote. |
| D．Because all the emotional behaviors were regarded as improper. |
| A．imposing. | B．extreme. | C．negative. | D．obedient. |
| A．Women stopped protesting for their vote because they were offered more job opportunities. |
| B．The PM, Herbert Asquith, an opponent of women’s votes, committed suicide. |
| C．The first campaigning women groups were formed originally for the sake of legal rights. |
| D．All women can enjoy their right to vote since the introduction of People Act. |
【推荐3】You are out with a few friends after a long day at the office. You are so relieved to be able to speak freely at last, with as much slang (俚语) as you like. Then another friend joins your group, contributing humorless and grammatically perfect sentences to the conversation. Are you at ease?
If you can imagine yourself in this situation, you can understand how a lot of young people feel when they receive a text with a big period (句号).
For the younger generation, using proper punctuation (标点) in an informal context like texting can give an impression of formality that borders on rudeness. The message-ending period establishes a certain distance. The punctuation is polite when you are speaking to someone older than you or above you at work, but unpleasant among friends. To put it simply, including a formality in informal communication makes people uncomfortable.
Think of a mother using her son’s full name when issuing a serious ultimatum (最后通牒). Or of an upset lover speaking to a partner in a cool, professional tone. People gain and express interpersonal comfort through unpolished self-presentation, and acting (or writing) too formally comes off as cold or distant.
It is also worth noting that more of our informal communication is digital now than ever before, so texting etiquette (礼仪) carries at least as much weight as speaking tone. It is generally accepted that many texters, especially young people, see end-of-message periods as unnecessary. It is clear that a message has ended regardless of its punctuation, because each message is in its own bubble. Thus, the message break has become the default (默认) full-stop.
This pressure to get one’s thoughts across increases when they are aware that the people that they are texting know they are typing—as with speech, both parties in the conversation are responsible for maintaining it To avoid keeping their friends waiting anxiously, therefore, texters send out single, often unpunctuated phrases rather than full sentences.
Adapting to this new custom may be difficult for older texters. However, this is not the first time that writers have repurposed standard punctuation. The new customs surrounding the period are just one episode in a centuries-long history of grammatical exploration.
1. The two examples in Paragraph 4 are used to show ______.| A．using punctuation is practically rude |
| B．formality can create a certain distance |
| C．period is proper for elders and lovers to use |
| D．informal communication causes discomfort |
| A．More informal communication is digital now than before. |
| B．The message in its own bubble carries more significance. |
| C．They use unpunctuated sentences to keep a conversation going. |
| D．They want to escape the pressure of communicating their ideas. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Critical. | C．Opposed. | D．Acceptable. |
| A．No more periods when texting. | B．Periods or not, that’s a choice. |
| C．Standard punctuation when texting. | D．Texting etiquette among generations. |
