AI ‘study buddy’ could boost student engagement, study shows

Thousands of Aussie students have been using an AI* “study buddy” to check their work and give them feedback – and the results have so far been positive.

Teachers across the country have reported improvements in the quality of work by students who are using a particular AI tool that is geared to help them revise and improve their drafts.

The AI tool in digital learning platform Education Perfect gives students real-time feedback on written work and is being used by around 15,000 students at 100 schools across the nation.

Results released by the company show a 47 per cent average improvement in students’ final response quality, with 87 per cent of students more engaged to rework low scoring responses.

More than 90 per cent of teachers surveyed as part of the findings thought it had improved learning outcomes.

In a world where AI is rapidly advancing, not all education experts have remained positive about its use in the classroom.

The findings from Education Perfect come as some experts, such as Professor Ken Purnell and Dr Ragnar Purje from Central Queensland University, have found that AI tools are dumbing down students so much they can’t remember what they have just written.

But educators at St Mary MacKillop College in Canberra, where students have AI embedded* in their assessments and learning tasks, disagree.

The school has been using the Education Perfect AI tool to give students instant, detailed feedback on drafts. The tool encourages them to keep working until the final product is improved.

Trent Wilson, the school’s digital learning co-ordinator, said students were given feedback on the quality of their responses, such as their grammar and punctuation. They were also given feedback on the way they explained concepts and their sentence structure.

“We are moving beyond focusing only on the risks of AI to equipping students to use AI and giving them the skills,” he said. “Teachers can see the feedback, see what the students are doing and see who needs added support.”

Mr Wilson said students liked the fact they got the feedback straightaway. They also liked the amount of detail it offered.

Erin White, assistant principal of teaching and learning at the school, said they had involved parents in the use of the tools, including holding an information evening.

“This is a tool of support that doesn’t replace thinking,” she said. “We can see students growing in confidence using it.”

Older students at the school were being trained to use an external chatbot called Perplexity* to help them ease into a less controlled learning environment after school.

Ms White said it was “still in the early days but has been integrated into classwork and assessments”.

“Students are taught to prompt* it and to evaluate* their prompts, upload documents and evaluate citations*,” she said.

Ms White said teachers also used AI, finding it reduced their preparation time and helped them come up with learning resources.

She said AI “was here to stay and that it was important for schools to take the opportunity to explore the opportunities that it brings to enhancing teaching and student learning”.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• AI: Artificial Intelligence, or computer-based learning that enables programs to perform tasks usually requiring human intelligence, by using algorithms to find complex patterns in data to form rules
• embedded: included as a part of
• Perplexity: an AI platform that includes a search engine which enables it to provide responses based on current internet data
• prompt: the directions you feed into an AI platform when asking it to provide instructions or assistance with something
• evaluate: critically look at something and weigh up whether it is accurate or relevant
• citations: quotes or references to a book or paper

EXTRA READING
Landline coming back to the future
YouTube added to U16 social ban
Kids beware: rise of ‘AI influencer’

QUICK QUIZ
1. How many students are using the AI study buddy in Education Perfect?
2. What percentage of students were more engaged to rewrite drafts?
3. What negative effect of AI was found by professors at Central Queensland University?
4. Do two things do students at St Mary MacKillop College Canberra like about the Education perfect AI study buddy?
5. Which AI tool are older students at the school learning to use?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Technology School?
Imagine that it is your first day at a new school. This school has no human teachers and is taught and run completely by different types of technology. Write a story about your first day.

Time: allow at least 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

2. Extension
Can a type of technology, like AI, be all good or all bad? Write a reflection on this question. Use information from the story for ideas.

Time: allow at least 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Information Technology

VCOP ACTIVITY
Wow word recycle
There are plenty of wow words (ambitious pieces of vocabulary) being used in the article. Some are in the glossary, but there might be extra ones from the article that you think are exceptional as well.

Identify all the words in the article that you think are not common words, and particularly good choices for the writer to have chosen.

Select three words you have highlighted to recycle into your own sentences.

If any of the words you identified are not in the glossary, write up your own glossary for them.

Extension
Find a bland sentence from the article to up-level. Can you add more detail and description? Can you replace any base words with more specific synonyms?

Down-level for a younger audience. Find a sentence in the article that is high level. Now rewrite it for a younger audience so they can understand the words without using the glossary.