A Support Environment for Learning by Describing Problem Map

A learner who can solve a problem cannot always understand the problem adequately. In order to deeply understand a problem, it is necessary that he/she poses various problems which can be solved by the “solution method” of the problem. Moreover, after he/she poses problems, it is necessary that he/she considers and indicates differences between the problems posed by him/her, too. So, we developed an intelligent learning environment for problem posing (it is called POP-B) and a support environment after problem posing (it is called POP-C). In this paper, we describe POP-C. POP-C deals with arithmetical word problems. In POP-C, a learner draws relations between the word problems which the learner posed by POP-B. The relations are described based on a difference of difficulty between problems. We call a set of the described relations and problems “problem map”. And, we call a learning activity in POP-C “learning by describing problem map”. Moreover, POP-C interprets the described problem map and can provide the learner with a feedback to activate the learning activity based on the interpretation.