The Pittsburgh Area Cognitive Tutoring center develops production system-based intelligent tutoring technology. PACT center tutors have been shown to improve student performance by two standard deviations. The Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools project aims to create tools to allow teachers and other subject matter experts to create cognitive tutors easily.

As a Java developer on the CTAT project, I worked on various aspects of the tools, including a redesign of the CTAT debugging tools. These tools allow tutor authors to examine the state of the production system as they test their tutors. The challenge in designing these tools was presenting information about the production system to non-expert users in such a way that they could diagnose and correct bugs in the tutors they were constructing.

More information on CTAT can be found at the CTAT home page.