Evaluating tutors that listen: An overview of Project LISTEN

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors sketch the history of some of the main experiments they have performed in the course of developing the Reading Tutor, Project LISTEN. This software, which combined state-of-the-art speech technology with expertise from other relevant fields, was designed to listen to children read aloud and help them. The authors describe the successive prototypes they developed, their goals, the criteria they used to evaluate them, and the principal outcomes and conclusions. The purpose is to give an overall sense of the path that Project LISTEN has taken to date, and some lessons learned along the way. The authors pay special attention to how tutors can evaluate--evaluate oral reading, evaluate student learning, and even evaluate their own effectiveness.