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strategy, activating the tactics suitable to a
particular situation.
(4) The student evaluates the message received from
the MediatorAgent and tries to discuss the topics
which considers important, by changing its
model. At this stage, the student may also decide
to give up the learning process.
The AMPLIA's negotiation process occurs in a
dynamic choice of strategies. The parameters
considered are linked to student's beliefs, to the
evaluation carried out by the DomainAgent and to
the observations registered by the LearnerAgent.
In this negotiation process, both the student and
the DomainAgent have the possibility of giving up
the interaction. The DomainAgent only leaves the
negotiation process when the student presents a
solution, whose performance is equivalent or better
than its model. The DomainAgent may come to
accept the student's modelling, although it does not
correspond exactly to its model, but the student uses
the arguments to solve the study case problem
presented to him.
3 PEDAGOGICAL NEGOTIATION
Pedagogical negotiation requires we know its key
role along a teaching-learning process, namely
which are the final objectives of this process and
how negotiation may help to reach them.
In traditional negotiation processes, based on the
Economic Theory, the result is the maximisation of
gains expected by the agents. We expect to find a
solution that maximises gains of agents in relation to
all possibilities of solutions to the current
negotiation. Gains are measured through a utility
function known by the agents The problem lies
exactly on the presupposition that an agent knows
how to determine the utility in a given situation, as
well as in situations derived from its actions
(Sandholm, 1999). This does not happen in a
teaching and learning process, because, it is difficult
to realise how a student generates all his/her
preferences.
The same is valid for the teacher. Simply, it is
not reasonable to presuppose that the teacher has
total knowledge on all situations that may happen in
a teaching-learning process. Students can present
results so that, even they are not in accordance with
the teacher's expectations, they can be perfectly
acceptable in terms of teaching objectives intended.
We observe that results of a pedagogical
negotiation should be related to the final objectives
of teaching-learning process, as well as the concept
of preference or utility for an agent are not enough
to characterise results expected in the pedagogical
negotiation. As a solution for these problems, we
adopted some simplifying presuppositions, based on
the common sense, with which we expect to
contribute to elicit more this issue.
A primarily presupposition is not to approach the
teaching-learning process directly as a knowledge
transference process. Characterising the process in
this way implies to consider the need for solving
classical epistemological issues that do not have
concrete answers: what is knowledge? How could it
be transferred to another person? How to measure a
person's knowledge? To this claim we add the
discourse of pedagogical models supported in the
Piaget's genetic epistemology (Piaget, 1970), where
the subject builds knowledge through interactions.
We will use the notion of confidence that an
agent can have in relation to another (or about itself)
analysed aiming at maximising this relationship as
the process evolves. We will adopt the notion of
confidence based on the expectation of future
behaviour of an agent in relation to another (or to
itself). The idea is that the "expectation of future
behaviour" may be evaluated more precisely than
the perception of "how much this agent knows on
theme".
Considering the teacher-student learning
scenario, a first step in the characterisation of the
teaching-learning process is to attribute distinct
objectives for each role. In a constructivist point of
view, the teacher role is to mediate the interaction
process in such a way that the student can explore
and ask questions about facts, think about them and
formulate hypotheses. In this case, certification can
be translated through the confidence level that the
teacher has on the student, when he/she is in known,
and mainly new, situations, where knowledge
assimilated and already set or new reasoning and
hypotheses are required.
Relating to the teacher's role, as a mediator of
the teaching and learning process, it should be
considered not only the relationship of confidence
between teacher and student, but it is required an
inverse analysis, that is, the relationship of
confidence between student and teacher. Thus, there
are two important characteristics to outline in the
student's behaviour. (1) The student is confident on
the teacher's appraisal capacities during the
development of contents. This statement does not
imply necessarily that the confidence level is
complete, i.e., that the student should blindly trust
the teacher. What is said is that there should be a
reasonable level of confidence, and that it should be
undertaken so that the teaching and learning process
can be accomplished. (2) Definition of what the
student expects as a result of the teaching and
learning process. The simplifying presuppositions is
to undertake that the student expects to reach a level
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