Adaptive Feedback Bots in Simulated Classroom
In addition to theoretical knowledge, university teacher training also includes practice-oriented phases that enable student teachers to apply the knowledge they have learned in an academic context. However, it is apparent that stronger practical orientation during the course of study would be desirable. Here, the use of simulated learning environments could offer the chance to embed knowledge in a concrete action situation and thus enable the practical application of knowledge. The Simulated Biology Classroom (SKRBio) was developed to be able to simulate interactions between (future) biology teachers and their student body. Within this digital learning environment, student teachers can ask questions of virtual students who respond based on their preset individual ability and trait profiles. The student teachers' assessments of the given virtual student responses allow conclusions to be drawn about their procedural subject knowledge, subject didactic knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. The current technical implementation of the SKRBio enables the measurement of procedural professional knowledge of prospective teachers, but neglects specific support measures during processing. This is where the project "FiSK - Effects of Adaptive Feedback Bots in the Simulated Classroom on Procedural Professional Knowledge" comes in, in which the SKRBio is extended by an AI-based bot system that responds either directly to student teachers' queries or in an automated way based on specified algorithms in the SKRBio. These feedback bots will provide adaptive feedback on the student teachers' demonstrated performance within SKRBio, thus guiding their activities in the simulated learning environment.
The goals of the FiSK project are to:
- Develop a feedback bot based on AI-based approaches as well as theory-driven competency models
- Implement these feedback bots in the SKRBio to provide student teachers with adaptive feedback to foster procedural professional knowledge
- Identify learning-enhancing effects of the feedback bot in the SKRBio
- Extend the SKRBio to other subject areas (e.g. experimentation, reasoning)
- To integrate the developed support system of classroom simulation and feedback bot into university teaching
