Morehouse College Releases AI Teaching Assistants That Resemble Professors: Is it the Future of Student Support?
The AI TAs allow students to ask questions privately, helping them learn without classroom pressure.
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At Morehouse College, students who need help beyond office hours can be assisted by their professors, or rather—an AI version of them.
Using AI-powered digital teaching assistants or TAs, they can help students by sounding like the exact professors they represent, and in return, students can ask questions and review for exams at any time of the day.
According to the Chronicle, the idea is to help those who might not reach out in class and get answers to their questions in a private and low-pressure setting. Students can use the AI TAs to clarify concepts, revisit past lessons, or even watch quick demonstrations on course topics.
Designed by VictoryXR, they are more than just a chatbot. They can display slides, images, videos, and 3D models to come up with an interactive learning model. They are especially useful in courses like chemistry, where they can offer a brief demo to students who may be able to learn through visuals.
Is the AI TA the Future?
With so many concerns regarding AIs in a classroom, the TAs will be kept within course-specific content that each professor uploads, with help from external information only when necessary. Therefore, this will help the AI's answers align with what students are learning in class while also offering a deeper on-demand resource.
Now, early tests showed that students are more likely to ask questions to AI TAs due to the absence of judgment.
However, there is a learning curve for students to get effective answers since they must learn to prompt the AI properly. Experts believe these minimal training students apply to AIs will become an essential skill even outside the classroom.
This isn't the first of its kind to be introduced to colleges. Earlier reports from the University Herald in 2016 stated that the same tech has already been used successfully at Georgia Tech with a virtual TA called Jill Watson.
