Interview AI about microplastics in aquatic ecosystems

Teaching goals

Stellar group projects require many rounds of feedback, both from teachers and sometimes even subject matter experts. This environmental science teacher has groups of students do a project every year where they develop solutions for reducing the amount of microplastics in the Great Lakes. Typically, finding and scheduling time with experts takes a lot of time, during which students can only do their best to work off of assumptions.

To provide students with more cycles of conversation and iteration, this teacher trained a Flint tutor to act as a subject matter expert and project consultant. The teacher attached articles and websites from trusted sources like the NIH and The Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Extra customization

The teacher turned off grading for this tutor to make sure students knew it was an extra resources available to them, but not directly a part of their assessment. If the teacher wanted to make the feedback given by the AI more specific to the goals of the project, they could attach a rubric or success criteria for Flint to reference in the setup. Then, turning on the ability for students to see the rubric may also help keep them on track to satisfy the requirements as they work on their projects.

For the duration of the project, the teacher wanted to keep this tutor readily available for their students. They achieved this by setting it as the default of their class group, but an alternative could also be pinning the tutor to the top of the tutor list for the group. Without a deadline or timer, this tutor acted as a resource students could access anytime, anywhere.

Student experience

Having access to this tutor allowed students to more quickly get to the point where they could dive deeper into the issues and solutions they were looking at. Also, by the time they can meet with real experts, they’ll be prepared to ask much more detailed and informed questions.

Interacting with an AI expert in this way also simulates the process of getting feedback and insights from stakeholders in real-world projects. It helped prepare them for future collaboration and communication.