By Whitney Baxter
Coming soon: the AI tutor – a computerized personal assistant that can go over lessons, tailor study sessions based on students’ needs and quiz students on what they have learned in class.
It’s a project that Karl Kerns, assistant professor of animal science, and Tom Brumm, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, are developing with assistance from graduate students. They hope the program will improve students’ learning outcomes in their animal science and engineering classes.
The system will be unlike any other program offered at Iowa State, Kerns said. Students will have the ability to personalize their tutor by selecting features such as a preferred gender and language. Additionally, the tutoring program will provide interactive feedback to students when they choose a wrong answer on a quiz – something existing programs such as Canvas cannot do.
The two faculty received $50,000 in funding from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching’s annual Miller Fellowship program to support the project. The tutoring system is being developed this summer and fall, with the goal of introducing it to classes during the spring 2025 semester. Those classes include Kerns’ Domestic Animal Anatomy and Physiology lab (ANS 2140L) and Brumm’s Fundamentals of Technology (TSM 2100).
Kerns said a benefit of an AI tutoring system is it provides learning support to students who may not have access to educational resources outside of the classroom or if their schedules do not align with traditional tutoring timeframes.
“It has the ability to decrease barriers for students who cannot afford to hire a personal tutor,” Kerns said of the system.
Once developed and proven successful, Kerns hopes the program will be incorporated into other Iowa State courses. He said the project aligns well with Iowa State University’s emphasis on taking a student-centric approach to learning and creating an environment where all students can flourish.
“We should be open to using AI in the classroom and learn how to teach with it, not against it,” Kerns said.