The AI Conversation tool provides a Socratic questioning exercise guided by generative AI and a Role Play exercise between an AI persona and a student in a given scenario.
You can add the AI Conversation tool by clicking on Create and under the Participation & Engagement area you will find AI Conversation listed.
Step 1 – Select the AI Conversation Content
To create an AI Conversation exercise, there are 3 steps to follow. First, enter the number of points available for the exercise. Then select the type of conversation, either Socratic Questionning or Role Play.
Step 2 – Student Instructions
Socratic Questioning
Staff choose a topic and provide a name, image and persona for the bot on how it responds to student questions, along with a suggested level of complexity. It has to be specifically added to a course by the lecturer, appearing as a content item. The conversation lets students explore their thoughts on a topic, it has been specifically designed not to confirm or deny any student input (or write essay answers).
There are two elements to the AI Conversation activity:
- The Conversation
- This encourages students to think critically about the selected topic.
- Reflection
- Students are shown a text box at the end of the activity, and asked to answer a question set by the lecturer, e.g. to share their thoughts on the activity. The reflection question also lets the student flag to staff any perceived bias or errors from the AI. Staff can see a log showing the questions the bot asked and the answers the students gave. Reflection helps students understand the responsible use of AI services.
Role Play
If you select the Role Play conversation, give clear instructions to the student explaining what there role.
Recent updates now enable a limit to be placed on the number of conversation iterations. Expand the advanced settings and add the limit, i.e. 5 iterations.
Setting Conversation Constraints
Once you have set the scene for either Socratic Questionning or Role Play, you can set the conversation constraints. These can be either a Student message limit or a Conversation time limit in minutes. The student message limit should be set as the maximum number of question and responses given. After this number, the conversation stops. Alternatively, the conversation time limit sets a limit in minutes. This could therefore be a longer series of shorter answers that fits within the time frame.
Note: If there are any assessment settings such as extra time accommodations or time constraints then this will override any time constrating added during the set up of the conversation as described above. In this case the ‘save and submit’ at the end of the time constraint will be applied.
Step 3 – Creating the AI Persona
Now, select a persona for the AI Conversation. You can provide your own image, use Unsplash, or generate an image for the persona’s avatar. Enter a name for the persona and briefly describe the persona occupation, personality, or mood. You can also adjust the complexity of the persona’s responses.
Reflection Question
At the end of each conversation there is an option to add a section to enable the learner to reflect on the conversation. Add points available for the activity and and add a prompt question.
Additionally, you can add an example of a correct response. This has not been added here as this is an exercise for self-assessment of the student’s own skills and reflection on them.
There is also a slider for question metadata, this includes the question title and tags if required.
Auto Generate Conversation
Auto generate conversation is now also available for the AI Conversation tool. The AI Design Assistant can generate three suggestions at once. You can select what the AI Design Assistant generates. You can choose to generate:
- AI Conversation title
- AI persona
- Reflection question
These suggestions provide inspiration for an AI Conversation. Instructors can refine the AI Design Assistant’s suggestions in several ways:
- Manually revise the question
- Provide additional context
- Adjust the complexity of the question
- Select context from the course
Please see our AI Conversation Tool Tips page for more information on setting up this activity.
The Student View
Once the student is engaging with the AI conversation, a warning message will appear at the bottom of the screen to indicate just how many iterations of the conversation are left.
