T&L with AI Call for Proposals

Your Name and Title:

Dr. Michael Rota, Professor of Philosophy

School, Library, or Organization Name:

University of St. Thomas (MN)

Co-Presenter Name(s):

None

Area of the World from Which You Will Present:

Minnesota, USA

Language in Which You Will Present:

English

Target Audience(s):

Higher ed faculty and instructional technology staff

Short Session Description (one line): 

In this session you will learn how to bring your existing course assignments to life with Generative AI. 

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

In this session I'll show how instructors can use Personify, a new web app for educators, to easily create an AI Tutor tailored to their course. Personify allows any instructor to use existing material and assignments from their courses to create an AI Tutor powered by GPT-4. Professors enter both questions/problems and solutions/evaluation criteria, allowing the LLM to evaluate and Socratically discuss student answers based on instructor-provided expertise. A professor’s current homework assignments and in-class exercises can thus be turned into interactive assignments, and the system also works well for reading engagement/comprehension qusetions, and practice quizzes and practice tests.

Students benefit from immediate, personalized feedback, and they can repeatedly make mistakes and ask questions without embarrassment. Faculty save time on grading, because whereas in the past low-stakes assignments had to be graded in order to provide students with feedback, instructors can now have the AI Tutor provide feedback and then do completion grading (assigning full credit to any student who has eventually mastered all the questions). What is more, when the professor uses completion grading, the student’s incentive to cheat is removed. Professors can then base the majority of the course grade on in-class or electronically monitored exams, without losing homework’s function of promoting learning outside of class. Finally, since less in-class time is needed to go over answers on assignments and review basic concepts, more time is available for faculty to interact with students on deeper questions or new material.

How the session will unfold: After sketching the problems Personify addresses and explaining its basic functionality, I will do a live demo of the app. Next, I’ll invite attendees to try out the software for themselves by going to the web app at www.personifyai.app, entering a few questions and answers of their own to create an AI Tutor based on them, and then experimenting with the student experience of answering the questions and receiving feedback from the AI Tutor.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

www.personifyai.app