There is a movement among AI developers to create AI tutors, and some see this as an important use case for tools like ChatGPT. But one longtime edtech expert believes new AI chatbots in education are even better suited to help educators design course materials for students.
That’s why Michael Feldstein has been leading a project throughout the year to build an AI assistant focused on learning design.
After all, these days, universities and other educational institutions are hiring more and more human instructional designers to help create and improve course materials, especially as universities develop more online courses and programs. I am. The people in these roles then help subject matter experts (the teachers they work with) organize the material into a series of compelling learning activities to help students acquire the knowledge and skills they need about a particular topic. Follow our handbook to help you do it. Feldstein believes that new AI chatbots may be well suited to guide instructors early in the learning design process.
He calls his system AI Learning Design Assistant. Alda. And for several months now, he’s been leading a series of workshops in which more than 70 educators have tried out versions of the tool and provided feedback. Over the past five months, he says, he has been building a new version of the system almost every month, incorporating feedback he has received. He argues that if AI can act as an effective instructional design assistant, universities could significantly reduce the time it takes to create courses.
But Feldstein said he’s not completely convinced it will work, so he invited a number of people who were skeptical of the idea to test it.
“The question is, can AI do that?” he says. “Can we create an AI learning design assistant that interviews a human educator, asks questions, collects information in the educator’s mind about important elements of the instructional interaction, and generates a first draft? ?”
EdSurge has been following Feldstein through this design process over the past few months. And he shared what worked and where early ideas didn’t work. You can hear highlights of these conversations on this week’s EdSurge podcast.
Even if AI turns out to be unsuitable for course building, Feldstein said the project holds lessons for how generative AI tools can help educators do their jobs better. Masu.
Please check it out spotify, apple podcastor in the player below.
