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Conversational agents constitute a specific type of ITSs that has been reportedly proven successful in helping students in one-to-one settings, while recently their impact has also been explored in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In this work, we present MentorChat, a dialogue-based system that employs a configurable and domain-independent conversational agent for triggering students' productive dialogue. After a system overview with an emphasis on design rationale and system architecture, we present a pilot study, where the agent is evaluated in the context of the computer-assisted language learning (CALL) domain. Thirty students collaborated in small groups trying to accomplish three different tasks. MentorChat conversational agent supported each group discussion differently in each task providing (a) 'weak'-directed interventions and/or (b) undirected interventions. The study results indicate that 'weak'-directed agent interventions can be more effective than undirected interventions by means of increasing the level of explicit reasoning, and thus productive dialogue. Some encouraging results concerning the system usability and user acceptance are also presented.

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This work explores the impact of teacher-led heterogeneous group formation on students' teamwork, based on students' learning styles. Fifty senior university students participated in a project-based course with two key organizational features: first, a web system (PEGASUS) was developed to help students identify their learning styles and distribute them to heterogeneous groups. Second, group facilitation meetings were introduced as a technique to help students reflect on their weak/strong traits and employ appropriate roles in their group. The study research questions focused mainly on students' attitudes regarding the learning style-based group formation approach. By applying qualitative research method students' views were recorded about the impact of styles awareness and group heterogeneity on group collaboration and possible benefits and drawbacks related to the style-based grouping approach. Evaluation data revealed that students gradually overcame their initial reservations for the innovative group formation method and were highly benefited since styles heterogeneity within the group emphasized complementarities and pluralism in students' ways of thinking. Overall, this work provides evidence that the adoption of learning styles theories in practice can be facilitated by systems for automated group formation and supportive group facilitation meetings that help avoiding the trivial and discouraging approach of using learning styles to simply label students.