Title: A knowledge translation tool for classroom teaching

Authors: Alexandra I. Cristea and Toshio Okamoto

Addresses: Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Computing, Graduate School of Information Systems, University of Electro-Communication, Chofu, Chofugaoka 1-5-1, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan. Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Computing, Graduate School of Information Systems, University of Electro-Communication, Chofu, Chofugaoka 1-5-1, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan

Abstract: Teaching and instruction use symbolic knowledge, which can be stored in knowledge bases. Knowledge-based educational tools can provide help in many ways for the teaching process. However, what if the knowledge that is necessary is not in symbolic form and cannot be neatly stored in a knowledge base? What if this knowledge has been previously learned by an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and is embedded sub-symbolically in the weights and biases of that ANN? The instructor can access the input-output structure of the ANN and get responses and predictions, but cannot access the knowledge itself. This is where rule extraction from ANNs finds a yet unexplored research and application field. We have built a knowledge extraction environment for education assistance. In this paper, we discuss our research goal, the functions performed by the environment, and some tests showing the validity of both research and prototype system.

Keywords: education; neural networks; knowledge extraction; classroom instruction; human-computer interaction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2001.000394

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2001 Vol.11 No.3, pp.202-215

Published online: 16 Jul 2003 *

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