Changing Parameters for Adaptive Tutoring:

MediaMatrix allows instructors to change the parameters which control the adaptive tutoring system. These parameters include how many questions should be used to determine the running average of current progress, how many questions are used for each tutoring segment, how many levels of adaptive tutoring to use, the levels of accomplishment for moving up or down in levels of tutoring, etc. This screen is reached via the "Tutoring" selection of the "Group Parameters" menu at the top of any screen:  

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However, there is only one parameter we recommend you even consider changing on this screen: the "Tutor Limit" setting. This setting determines how many levels beneath the "Probe" level your system will use in adaptive tutoring. When set to "1" it is not really adaptive at all--it merely switches between "muliple choice questions" with lots of prompts showing and "Probe" mode with multiple choice questions appearing at random intervals and no prompting. Some instructors wish to "simplify" the learning requirements for their students and set this parameter to "2" levels. In this configuration, students move between multiple choice (Level 1), fill-blank (Level 2), and "Probe" which uses both types of questions randomly. For semantic network, or verbal association, development, the level should be set for 3 or 4. Settings of "3" add a third adaptive level to tutoring with faded prompts and paired-associate types of questions before "Probe" is reached. Settings of "4" add the full power of highly faded prompts and "fill-in blanks" to a prompted association question.

SPECIAL IMPORTANT NOTE: Beyond this Tutor Limit setting, we DO NOT RECOMMEND that instructors change ANY of the remaining parameters unless you are extremely well versed in the theory, logic, and mechanics of this system! You can easily make this system work to the SEVERE DETRIMENT to learning if you change parameters to ineffective settings. We only condone changing these parameters if you are conducting research on adaptive parametrics, and are thus willing to accept less-than desirable learning outcomes for which your participants have been fully informed and to which they have consented. Under these circumstances, we would appreciate being informed of your research project and its goals.

Having said all of this, if you do change these settings and wish to bring the system back to our default settings, there is a button to accomplish this:

 

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If any previous changes have been saved to the server, you must register your newly established default settings to over-ride the old settings. Use the "Save Tutoring Parameters to DB" button to save parametric settings to the server for the actively selected section of your course (which implies that different sections may have different parametric settings, of course).

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