AI Conversation Overview

It's tough to have 1:1 conversations with every student, especially in large courses. AI Conversation is specifically designed as an interactive activity in which students can actively participate. Instructors can create an AI Conversation in their courses, outlining a topic and an AI persona, and select the type of conversation for the students to engage in. Within the AI Conversation functionality, instructors can choose between two options: Socratic Questioning, in which the AI persona encourages students to think critically through continuous questioning, or Role Play, which allows students to play out a scenario with the AI persona. 

AI Conversation Best Practices

Consider these Best Practices when setting up an AI Conversation and guiding students in their experience with the tool:

• The more students put into the conversation, the more they will get out of it.  Providing thoughtful, clear answers will result in a better and more interesting conversation.  Encourage students to state a position rather than sit on the fence with their responses – just pick a side and see where the conversation goes.
• Be cautious of the conversation moving away from the original question and getting off topic.  The conversation does, however, remain broadly within the domain of the original question.
• Consider communicating the amount of time students should spend on the activity; otherwise, the interaction continues indefinitely and the questions are recycled, getting the student stuck in a loop.  Letting students know the extent of time they should spend participating in the conversation will provide parameters for effective use of the tool. 
• AI Conversation doesn’t like being asked questions but it can rephrase things when asked in a simpler form to better explain.
• Set the number of attempts on the exercise to multiple attempts to encourage students to try out different positions on the same topic (e.g. for/against, pro/anti, etc.) in order to gain better understanding of the topic.
• Consider multiple conversations on the same topic but with different personas (e.g. trait = supportive or trait = confrontational). This will give students a different experience and provide a tough conversation experience on the same subject.

Socratic Questioning 

This is a guided questioning activity or Socratic exercise. The AI persona will not confirm or reject any student response but moves students through a series of questions. At the end of the conversation, students reflect on the activity, highlighting weaknesses or strengths in their learning, or if the AI bot showed bias, hallucinations, or inaccuracies. On submission, the instructor will receive a transcript of the conversation and reflection, giving full transparency of the interactions. This is a great way to have a thought-provoking dialogue on the course topics without having individual 1:1's, which for larger or more complex courses, can be difficult to do. 

AI Conversation allows instructors to generate an image for the AI Conversation persona using generative AI. 

These functions are subject to the limitations and availability of the Azure OpenAI Service and are subject to change. Please check the relevant release notes for details.

 

Role Play

The Role Play feature lets instructors set up simulated conversations for their students by defining specific roles for both the AI persona and students. This interactive option enhances learning and training experiences by allowing students to practice communication skills in realistic scenarios, providing active learning opportunities. With customizable personality traits for the AI persona and contextual prompts, the Role Play feature fosters engaging and dynamic exchanges, enriching the overall learning process and encouraging critical thinking. 

Instructors can customize the AI persona by assigning it a name and image. They also define the AI persona's personality traits and select the complexity of its responses. The personality traits assigned to the AI persona in this Role Play option shape its responses and interactions. 

A MESSAGE FROM ANTHOLOGY:

As part of our testing of this functionality, Anthology reviewed and discussed these outputs to determine if the functionality should be limited to avoid any bias or inappropriate output. We concluded that, on balance, institutions and instructors should have the academic freedom to let students engage in simulated conversations that may be controversial or biased. At the same time, we understand that there are limits to the output that the AI persona should be able to produce. Accordingly, Instructors are ultimately responsible for the output of AI Conversation and the dialogue students will encounter through the Role Play functionality. In our testing, the existing guardrails implemented by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthology prevented any output that was illegal or otherwise did not meet our Trustworthy AI standards. We will continue to monitor this feature and any related customer feedback to ensure we can make changes that may be necessary for this feature to meet our Trustworthy AI standards. 

EXAMPLE OF ROLE-PLAY CONVERSATION

 

Setting Up AI Conversations

There are two elements to the activity:

• AI Conversation 
  • This lets students think critically about the topic that the instructor designs.
• Reflection question 
  • This asks the student to share their thoughts on the activity. The reflection question also lets the student flag any bias or errors from the AI as part of our Trustworthy AI Approach. Reflection helps students understand the responsible use of AI services. 

Instructors have the following configuration options: 

• A topic for the AI Conversation 
• An AI persona including a name, avatar (can be uploaded or generated), and personality trait 
• Complexity level of responses 
• Edit the reflection question, guiding the student on how best to reflect on this activity 

On submission, the instructor can review the AI conversation transcript and the student's reflection. The AI Conversation is a formative assessment by default, but you’re not restricted to this option.

1. Go to create a new item on the Course Content page.

 

2. Select AI Conversation within the Participation and Engagement section of the Create Item menu.

 

Customize the AI Conversation

Select the conversation type. You can choose between Socratic Questioning or Role-play.

Socratic Questioning conversations encourage students to think critically through continuous questioning. Role-play conversations allow students to play out a scenario with the AI persona.

 

For Socratic Questioning, enter a topic of conversation in the content field. Make sure that your topic is open-ended and doesn't have a right or wrong answer. Select Next to move on to the next step. 

 

For Role-play, include a scenario, roles for the student and persona, and the goal for the scenario. Select Next to move on to the next step. 

 

Now, select a persona for the AI Conversation. You can provide your own image, use Unsplash image repository, 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.

The personality traits significantly shape the interactions. Choose traits carefully and preview the conversation to avoid bias or otherwise inappropriate content.

Select Save when you're finished. You can preview the AI Conversation as a student and interact with the AI persona by selecting Preview chat. 

You should always preview an AI conversation before releasing the activity to students. AI tools can hallucinate and introduce bias. It's important to make sure that your instructions are clear and that the AI persona responds in an expected and appropriate way. 

Image 1. Instructor setting up a topic, AI Persona, and Reflection question

You can edit the reflection question to guide your students on how best to reflect on the activity.

 

Image 2. Instructor previewing the AI Conversation before making it visible to students

 

 

Review Student Interactions

On submission, you can review the AI conversation transcript and your students' reflections. The AI Conversation is a formative assessment by default, but you’re not restricted to this option.

You have the option of reviewing general student activity for the assessment by selecting the Student Activity tab. 

Image: A Student participating in the AI Conversation

 

Image: Instructor view of a submitted AI Conversation and reflection question