The Future of Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Writing

Abstract Writing is essential for success in academics and everyday tasks, but the development of writing skills depends on consistent access to high-quality instruction, extended practice, and personalized feedback. To address these demands and meet students’ needs, educators and researchers have turned to technology-based writing tools. Ideally, these tools integrate the core components of intelligent tutoring, including a domain model, student model, tutor model, and interface model to engage students with individualized feedback that is linked to adaptive writing instruction. However, the landscape of writing tools still has much room for improvement in terms of incorporating advanced artificial intelligence-enabled features to better approximate intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs). This chapter describes the key elements of ITS technologies and how they can be integrated to further develop ITS tools for writing. To this end, this chapter (1) summarizes evidence-based aspects of successful ITSs and how they might be integrated into computer-based tools for writing, (2) reviews how existing systems have leveraged intelligent tutoring approaches, and (3) articulates how future technology-based writing tools could implement advanced intelligent tutoring features to better meet students’ needs. The chapter concludes with the implications and future directions of intelligent tutoring for the teaching and learning of writing.