Narrative-Centered Environments for Guided Exploratory Learning
Proceedings of the Agent Based Systems for Human Learning Workshop at the 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (ABSHL-2006), Hakodate, Japan, (2006)Abstract
Narrative-centered learning environments offer significant
potential for supporting guided exploratory learning. By taking
advantage of the inherent structure of narrative, narrative-centered
environments provide students with engaging worlds in which
they actively participate in motivating story-based problemsolving
activities. Two key challenges posed by narrativecentered
environments for guided exploratory learning are (1)
supporting the hypothesis-generation-testing cycles that form the
basis for exploratory learning, and (2) orchestrating all of the
events in the unfolding story to support appropriate levels of
student motivation, engagement, and self-efficacy for effective
learning.
In this paper we propose a narrative-centered architecture for
guided exploratory learning environments. The architecture
continually constructs and updates narrative plans to support
exploratory learning while monitoring the student's progress,
observing her behaviors in the interactive environment, and
guiding the behaviors of believable agents serving as characters in
the stories. The architecture is being used to implement CRYSTAL
ISLAND, a prototype narrative-centered guided exploratory
learning environment under development in our lab. CRYSTAL
ISLAND is a guided exploratory learning environment for the
domain of microbiology in which students play the role of a
detective solving a science mystery.