DiscussionTracker (original) (raw)

The goal of this project is to develop an innovative technology called Discussion Tracker, a computer-based system for high school English teachers that uses recent advances in human language technologies (HLT) to provide teachers with automatically generated data and instructional guidance on the quality of students' collaborative argumentation in their classrooms. Discussion Tracker will provide teachers with visual representations of the significant features of their students' collaborative talk and tools for instructional reflection and future planning. The project will improve the teaching and learning of collaborative argumentation in high schools so that students will be prepared for collaborative problem-solving in future educational, workplace, and civic settings. This project leverages recent advances in human language technologies (HLT), data visualization/ analytics, and teacher learning to advance technology that provides automated feedback on classroom talk with the goal of improving teaching effectiveness and student achievement. It develops novel HLT methods for detecting three significant features of students' collaborative talk: argument moves (claim, evidence, explanation), specificity, and collaboration (e.g., building on, probing or challenging others' ideas).

Amanda Godley

Professor, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh

Home page

Diane Litman

Professor, Computer Science Department, Senior Scientist, Learning Research and Development Center Director, Intelligent Systems Program, University of Pittsburgh

Home page

Tianzhi Zhang

Graduate Student, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh

Home page

Ashley Feiler

Undergraduate, English and Writing Majors, University of Pittsburgh

Luca Lugini

Ph.D, Computer Science Deparment, University of Pittsburgh

Chris Olshefski

Ph.D, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh

Ravneet Singh

Graduate Student, Computer Science Department, University of Pittsburgh

Keshika Gopinathan

Undergraduate, Microbiology Major, University of Pittsburgh

Lindsey Rojtas

Undergraduate, Computer Science Deparment, University of Pittsburgh

Ilana Udler

Undergraduate, Computer Science Deparment, University of Pittsburgh

Calvin Yu

Undergraduate, Computer Science Deparment, University of Pittsburgh

Bowen Zheng

Undergraduate, Health Informatics Major, University of Pittsburgh

Maria Scanga

Undergraduate, Health Informatics Major, University of Pittsburgh

Made available under the terms of GNU General Public License. The corpus is distributed without any warranty.

To access the DiscussionTracker corpus, please fill out the following form. We respect your privacy and will only use your information for the purpose assessing interest in the resource.

Discussion Tracker Web App Demo

To access the Discussion Tracker Web App Demo head over to the App at discussiontracker.lrdc.pitt.edu.

The username to log in to the system is `T2D_Demo` and the password is `secretPassword`. Once logged in you will be taken to the overview page of the demo transcript and you will be able to interact with the interface as a teacher.