THE VIRTUAL SCIENCE TEACHER AS A HYBRID SYSTEM: COGNITIVE SCIENCE HAND IN HAND WITH CYBERNETIC PEDAGOGY

Abstract

The findings of cybernetic pedagogy and didactics developed in the 1970s, which were in those times limited due to poor technological capabilities, are taken as a starting point in this research. A revised version of cybernetic pedagogy is proposed and is used to develop the hybrid cognitive model presented. It is not based purely on the symbolic notation of the teaching algorithm alone, as done in the past, but also on the connectionist model of our cognition, which draws on the brain’s characteristics and their physiological and functional structure, such as parallel data processing, content associative memory and divided presentations. The learning process algorithm can be, on the basis of this idea, re-defined as a hybrid cognitive model, i.e. a combination of a symbol system and a neural network, and named mRKP. The article concludes that an intelligent artificial tutor can independently, i.e. without the need for reprogramming, accommodate the learning process to the needs and possibilities of an individual student if it uses mRKP as its basis, and can eventually replace a human tutor in some situations, but a human teacher must decide where and when it should be used. Key words: cybernetic pedagogy, cognitive science, hybrid systems, learning algorithm, e-learning material.