By Whitney Baxter
“It’s like having a Zoom session with a real-life human mentor.”
That’s how Karl Kerns, assistant professor of animal science, describes the AI tutor he’s spent the past two years creating and refining with his graduate students. Unlike any other program offered at Iowa State University, it provides an educational resource students can use when it’s convenient for them – whether that’s in between classes, late at night or on the weekend.
Kerns introduced the tutor to students in his ANS 2140L: Domestic Animal Anatomy and Physiology Lab last semester, after a soft launch during the spring 2025 semester.
In a course with 160-180 students enrolled each semester, Kerns said the lab has historically emphasized small-group instruction with dedicated support at each specimen table. The AI tutor builds on that model by providing students with consistent, on-demand guidance beyond the classroom.
Students can use the tutor to review a specific week’s content, create flashcards to help them study or engage in guided practice sessions to test their knowledge. During these guided sessions, the AI tutor provides interactive feedback when students state a wrong answer – something existing programs such as Canvas cannot do.
Early results from the course suggest the tutor is having a measurable impact. Students who used the AI tutor scored 4.6 percentage points higher on their final course grades compared to non-users, and those who engaged with the tutor four or more times finished with 9.1 percentage points higher on their final grade in the course, roughly equivalent to a full letter grade difference, Kerns said. Adoption was also strong, with approximately 40% of students choosing to use the tutor voluntarily.
Alex Else-Keller, previously a graduate student in genetics and genomics and now a postdoc research associate in animal science, has been a teaching assistant in Kerns’ lab for nine semesters. She was involved in the logistics of the AI tutor creation and encouraged students in last semester’s lab sections to use it.
“The goal for it is to be supplementary for people who need that face-to-face learning, not a replacement,” Else-Keller said.
Students took brief surveys at the start of each class to assess how many students were using the tutor, how often they used it and how well it worked for them. Else-Keller and other graduate students are combing through that data and intend to write a teaching manuscript about implementing the AI tutor.
Else-Keller said students sometimes needed a little push to use the tutor at first, especially those who were leery of AI technology.
“Being able to give students instructions on how to use the tutor, then seeing them come back and tell me it was helpful was rewarding,” Else-Keller said.
On a campus with the slogan, “Innovate at Iowa State,” Kerns said it has been exciting to create a new technology that enhances student learning.
“We are always looking for ways to innovate in the classroom and to give students another useful tool,” Kerns said. “It’s all about setting students up for success.”
Funding to create the AI tutor was provided by the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching’s annual Miller Fellowship program. Kerns hopes the tutor is something that can be scaled out to the entire university and used by ISU Extension and Outreach.