Investigating the Impact of an AI-driven Discussion Platform on Educator Perceptions and Feedback

Abstract

Asynchronous discussions are a popular element in online education, often used to replace the student-student and educator-student interactions that occur in physical classrooms. Most Learning Management Systems (LMSs), such as Canvas and Moodle, include native discussion tools that offer students and instructors the ability to interact and communicate at their own time and pace. Some specialized products offer a wider variety of discussion features that standard LMS tools may not have. In this study, we discuss the impact of an online discussion platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and gamified features. We conducted a qualitative study examining how AI elements affect the workflow, grading, and feedback experience of educators. Preliminary findings offer insights into the impact of the AI elements on graders’ perceptions, in particular on their perception of giving feedback and the perceived ambiguity of the way the AI assesses students’ post quality.

A Validation of AI-Enabled Discussion Platform Metrics and Relationships to Student Efforts

“…The instructor of political science had prior experience teaching with AI-supported online discussions. The instructor teaching a high-enrollment biology course was supported by five teaching assistants (TAs), all of whom had previously completed an entirely online semester-long TA development program (Heap et al, 2020 ).…”