Student Modeling for Collaborative Medical Problem-Based Leaning

Today a great many medical schools have turned to a problem-based learning (PBL) approach to teaching. PBL instructional models vary but the general approach is student-centered, small group, collaborative problem-based learning activities. While PBL has many strengths, effective PBL requires the tutor to provide a high degree of personal attention to the students. In the current academic environment where resources are becoming increasingly scarce and costs must be reduced, providing such attention becomes increasingly difficult. This is exacerbated by the fact that medical school faculty, in particular, often have limited time to devote to teaching. As a consequence, medical students often do not get as much facilitated PBL training as they might need or want. Our proposed work combines concepts from Intelligen