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ARIES

PI: Keith Millis (Northern Illinois University)
Co-PI: Diane Halpern (Claremont McKenna College)
Co-PI: Art Graesser

Class 5.0ARIES (Acquiring Research Investigative and Evaluative Skills) is a learning environment with conversational agents that hold trialogs with the human learner who is acquiring critical reasoning skills on science. The learner holds conversations with two animated pedagogical agents while solving a number of engaging problems in the social and physical sciences. ARIES is embedded in a game environment with an electronic textbook, multiple choice questions, and the trialogs. Science teachers in both high school and higher institutions could assign ARIES as homework, if they decide not to devote class time to it.

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Past Funding:

  • ARIES: Acquiring Research Investigative and Evaluative Skills for Scientific Inquiry. PI (UM): Art Graesser. Funding Agency: IES (Art Graesser PI on Memphis subcontract). $640,000.

Selected Publications:

  • Forsyth, C.M., Graesser,A.C. Pavlik, P., Cai, Z., Butler,H., Halpern, D.F., & Millis, K.(in press). OperationARIES! methods, mystery and mixed models: Discourse features predict affect in a serious game. Journal of Educational Data Mining.
  • Halpern, D.F., Millis, K., Graesser, A.C., Butler, H., Forsyth, C., & Cai, Z. (2012). Operation ARA: A computerized learning game that teaches critical thinking and scientific reasoning. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 7, 93-100.
  • Kopp, K., Britt, A., Millis, K., & Graesser, A. (2012). Improving the efficiency of dialogue in tutoring. Learning and Instruction, 22, 320-330.
  • Millis, K, Forsyth, C., Butler, H., Wallace, P., Graesser, A., & Halpern, D. (2011) Operation ARIES! A serious game for teaching scientific inquiry. In M. Ma, A. Oikonomou & J. Lakhmi (Eds.) Serious games and edutainment applications (pp.169-196). London, UK: Springer-Verlag.