Work-in-Progress Position Paper: Knowledge Society Educational Model. A Proposal with Multi-agent Modeling Eduardo Ahumada-Tello1, Manuel Castañón-Puga2, José S. Magdaleno-Palencia3, José M. Villegas-Izaguirre4 Baja California Autonomous University Mail to:
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Abstract This paper is a representation of an educational model with the central purpose of generates knowledge as a main characteristic to create a new society. We use the BDI approach to perform this model. The model proposed it’s based in results obtain from an educational science research. In this research we identify five main factors that affect the outcome of knowledge: teaching, research, management, extracurricular activities and cultural issues. In this work we developed the simulation of the first factor: teaching activities. This is the first stage for the complete simulation of an educational model oriented in creates science and research scenarios. Keywords: BDI, Agents, Educational models
1.
INTRODUCTION
Mexican society is immersed in an environment increasingly more complex global and competitive in different ways. Commerce, industrial production, education and therefore economic growth and social development are part of the strategic agenda of governments that seek an improvement in the state of welfare of its population. Educational models represent what is important that individuals of a specific society learn; to eventually participate in its development. The global issue of education is increasingly reflected in the differences socio-economic that exist between the developed and undeveloped countries. The first ones, generates technologies, innovate business processes and create solutions to business, government and even social issues; the second ones are using these developments according to their own needs. The concept of "knowledge societies" includes social, ethical and public policy much vaster. Discourses on education currently being handled both in academia, in business and in politics are directed to the formation of such societies. 1.1. Educational model base on competences This particular model of education is being use in several countries all over the world. And in order for this
model to be able to carried out successfully in the operation of the educational organization it assumes that the institution has the following entities: teachers, classrooms, laboratories, computer equipment, academic mobility, practices, social service, lodging, cultural activities and sports, among others. The main purpose of this model is to achieve that the students acquire the following capacities: 1. Instrumental competences (the ability to obtain information and learn from it), 2. Interpersonal competences (the ability to collaborate) and 3. Systemic competences (Ability to apply knowledge in real life environments). The actions or plans that must be made in the model for achieving the objectives are divided into the following actions: 1. Instrumental: to manage the student's ability to analyze and synthesize, organize and plan, develop knowledge, obtain oral and written proficiency among others; 2. Interpersonal: to develop conducts like the selfcriticism, teamwork, interdisciplinary and ethically behavior; 3. Systemic: which allow to apply knowledge, learning ability, adaptability, creativity, leadership, multiculturalism, allowing him to be self-taught, to design and manage projects, and to have initiative [6]. 1.2. Educational model of the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) UABC organizes the educational process from admission of students through four stages: first, basic training, with common core subjects, social values formation, foreign language, culture and sports and community service work; second, higher technical training with the module for professional practice; third, vocational training, integrating research, service and technological development; and fourth, graduate, professional and through basic research. The stages of the educational process allows the development of skills necessary to climb to the next stage, or to be able to develop work capabilities from the higher technical training that will allow insertion in the workforce. The fundamental structure of the educational model in the UABC consists of four components: first, institutional policies, in which the student is the focus of institutional efforts, which performs management, linkage, lines of
research and scholarly activity; second, educational philosophy, which supports the educational process in accordance with the "Delors Report” establish in 1992 by the UNESCO, which highlights the principles of education (learning to learn, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be); third, basic components, whose strategy emphasizes education over life; and fourth purposes for the student to achieve an integral education, which is responsible for their own learning process that teachers engage in teaching, research and management allow it to be a facilitator and promoter of the learning process, keep abreast of the contents of plans and programs of study by focusing on skills. [3]. 1.3. Proposed educational model in the Accounting and Administration Faculty (FCA) at UABC in order to generate knowledge based society The proposed educational model for this particular environment it’s the result of a research conducted in the faculty mention in the subtitle [1]. This model determines several agents that allow the formation knowledge based society. These agents are the following: 1. teaching, which executes the process of teaching and learning; 2. research and development, for generate new knowledge; 3. management, to be able to administrate the operation and performance of the process; 4. university culture, to generate interactions between actors; 5. extracurricular activities conducted by the students and teachers. All these agents affect the educational model of the FCA-UABC and can lead to develop a knowledge society (Figure 1).
2.
BDI AND AGENT MODELING
The term agent is widely used, by several researchers, students and professor of several areas of knowledge. It’s usually use this term to mean a computer system that, in addition to have properties of conduct and behavior, is conceptualized or implemented using concepts that are more usually applied to humans [5]. For example, in artificial intelligence is usual to characterize an agent using social notions, such as knowledge, belief, intention and obligation. Some researchers have even considered including emotional agents. Another way of giving agents human-like attributes is to represent them visually [7][8]. 2.1. BDI approach of the educational model at FCA – UABC This is an approach based on the study of mental attitudes and tackles the problems arising when trying to use traditional planning in situations requiring real-time reactivity. The “B” stands for Beliefs represent the informational state of a BDI agent, that is, what it knows about itself and the world. The “D” stands for Desires or goals are its motivational state, that is, what the agent is trying to achieve. A typical BDI agent has a so-called procedural knowledge constituted by a set of plans which define sequences of actions and steps to be performed to achieve a certain goal or react to a specific situation. Finally, the “I” stands for intentions represent the deliberative state of the agent, that is, which plans the agent has chosen for eventual execution. [2] For building the simulation model, the research took part in the FCA at UABC with the undergraduate student’s degree in computer science, which is operating since 1990, with 15 full-time teachers of which the course workload is distributed as follows: teaching 51%, management 29% and research 20%. The course is 80 hours per semester and nine semesters to pursue the complete degree. This model generates two sub-agents (professor and student) inside the teaching agent. 2.2. BDI definitions and interactions
Figure. 1. Agents involved in the Educational Model at FCA in UABC.
In this paper the simulation is about the teaching agent. Which are included in full-time teachers with the activities in their burden of work hours, such as: teaching, research and management. In addition to the teaching-learning process (which involves all actions necessary to achieve competence in students).
Beliefs: The model assumes that the faculty has a number of full-time teachers accordingly with the number of students, also has the sufficient infrastructure. By the end of the simulation is assumed that the faculty has classrooms, computer labs, academic mobility, practices, social service, internships and cultural activities and sports. The teacher has 40 hours of work. For the teacher: hours-teaching, hours-research, hoursmanagement and teaching strategies. The latter considers that the teachers have professional training and pedagogy
(teaching strategies) to convey the competition as a facilitator of student learning. For the students: motivation (student-mot) and study disposition (student-disp) depend both on their interaction with the teachers and with each others Desires: The goals of the simulation are to increase the ability to improve learning and knowledge generation by the student. We assume that when the student achieves the learning skills he’s also generating knowledge, this is measure above 90% of the expected competences. It must be given a grade, since the model requires quantification of the outcome. With the generation of knowledge is considered that the students are able to acquire instrumental, interpersonal and systems abilities with a high level of knowledge.
Always m-professor + r-professor + t-professor must be equal to 40 (Qty of hours that a professor works at FCAUABC) or equal to 90, we increment the studentknowledge. Also we evaluate the student learning each 80 days (each semester) In Figure 2 it’s shown the simulation with NetLogo. It includes the library “Agents with Beliefs and Intentions” developed in NetLogo by Sakallariou [4].
Intentions: The actions to be taken by the agents are: Student: research-student, studying- student; Professor: rprofessor (research), m-professor (management), t-professor (teach). The previous intentions cover the requirements for the teacher to convey the necessary skills that will enable the generation of knowledge Table 1. BDI initial data, actions and outcomes of the educational model at FCA in the UABC Initial data Student Qty: 150 Professor Qty: 15 Time: 80 (days)
Actions t-professor: 20 r-professor: 8 m-professor: 12 student_disp: 60 student_mot: 60
Outcomes student-learning knowledge-generation
Figure. 2. Agent interaction and outcomes of the Educational Model at FCA UABC.
3.
IMPLEMENTING THE MODEL IN NETLOGO
Table 2 represents the definition and the relations between agents accordingly with the actions to be taken in order to create the model Table 2. Actions to be taken in the simulation process
The model student learning checks every 80 hours (end of the semester to check the status of skills achieved), and if learning is greater than or equal to 90, there is knowledge generation. With knowledge generation are re-established culture of learning, motivation and willingness to their original values, since they indicate a new semester where students study new subjects. The graphic shows the learning results acquired during a semester and the generation of knowledge during that semester (ie, how many students achieved a grade greater than or equal to 90)
4.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper the agents (professor and student) have the BDI principles and use the library from Sakallariou [4]. We note that 15 percent approximately reach the knowledge generation (reaching the competences of the educational model of the UABC), and this result may vary if the
institutions defined policies and actions to be taken in order of increase the student motivation and disposition toward the process of knowledge creation. In future works it’s going to take part the implementation of fuzzy logic techniques to analyze and evaluate the student-professor learning process to know if there is more actions to be taken to increase knowledge generation. Also because it will need to know what happened if one student reaches 89.99 of learning and only 90 or more reach that knowledge generation. Also its necessary implement the other factors that we describes before and may help to the educational model in his goal of increase the knowledge acquisition.
Biography Eduardo Ahumada-Tello is a Lecturer and Researcher at Administrative and Accounting Faculty at Autonomous University of Baja California and PhD student at Autonomous University of Baja California Manuel Castañón-Puga is a Lecturer and Researcher at Engineering and Chemistry Science Faculty at Autonomous University of Baja California. Currently is leader of “Complexity and Computation” Academic Research Group. José S. Magdaleno-Palencia is a Lecturer at Tijuana Technological Institute and PhD student at Autonomous University of Baja California.
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2.
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4.
Sakellariou, Ilias (2008). Agents with beliefs and intentions in Netlogo. A library for Netlogo.
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José M. Villegas-Izaguirre is a Lecturer and a Researcher at Science and Technology Research Institute at Autonomous University of Baja California.
