There is a push among ai developers to create an ai tutor, with some seeing it as a key use case for tools like ChatGPT. But one longtime educational technology expert sees an even better option for new ai chatbots in education: helping educators design course materials for their students.
All year, Michael Feldstein has been leading a project to build an ai assistant focused on learning design.
After all, today universities and other educational institutions are hiring an increasing number of human instructional designers to help create or improve teaching materials, especially as universities have developed more online classes and programs. And the people who fill those roles follow a manual to help subject matter experts (the teachers they work with) organize their material into a series of compelling learning activities that will provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills about a subject. certain topic. Feldstein believes that new ai chatbots could be especially suited to guiding instructors through the early stages of that learning design process.
He calls his system ai Learning Design Assistant, or ai-learning-design-workshop-see-and-try-the-alda-rapid-prototype/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>ALDA. And for months now he has been running a series of workshops through which more than 70 educators tested versions of the tool and gave their opinion. He says he has created a new version of the system every month for the past five months incorporating the input he has received. He argues that if ai could serve as an effective assistant in instructional design, it could help universities significantly reduce the time it takes to create courses.
However, Feldstein isn't completely convinced it works, so he says he's invited many people who are skeptical of the idea to try it.
“The question is: can ai do that?” he says. “Can we create an ai learning design assistant that interviews the human educator, asks the questions and collects the information that the educator has in his head about the important elements of the teaching interaction, and then generates a first draft?”
EdSurge has been consulting with Feldstein for the past few months as he went through this design process. And he has shared what has gone well and where early ideas failed. You can hear highlights of those conversations on this week's EdSurge podcast.
Even if it turns out that ai is not suitable to help create courses, Feldstein says the project is generating lessons about where generative ai tools can help educators do their jobs better.
check it in Spotify, Apple Podcastsor in the player below.
