ASR in classroom today: Automatic visualization of conceptual network in science classrooms

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) field has improved substantially in the last years. We are in a point never saw before, where we can apply such algorithms in non-ideal conditions such as real classrooms. In these scenarios it is still not possible to reach perfect recognition rates, however we can already take advantage of these improvements. This paper shows preliminary results using ASR in Chilean and Finnish middle and high school to automatically provide teachers a visualization of the structure of concepts present in their discourse in science classrooms. These visualizations are conceptual networks that relate key concepts used by the teacher. This is an interesting tool that gives feedback to the teacher about his/her pedagogical practice in classes. The result of initial comparisons shows great similarity between conceptual networks generated in a manual way with those generated automatically.

Automatic speech recognition; Classroom dialogue; Conceptual network; Teacher discourse