A chatbot for Wageningen study advisors. That was the winning AI application for WUR education during the Teaching and Learning Center hackathon on October 15 in Aurora. Three groups of students and teachers developed concrete applications of generative AI in education in about six hours.
Group 3, who developed the chatbot for study advisors, pointed out that the study advisors now spend about 10% of their time dealing with questions from students they could not find on the WUR website. A user-friendly chatbot should make that information more accessible. Group 3 built a prototype during the hackathon that answered students' imaginary questions during their presentation. That went so well that the jury selected them as the winner of the hackathon.
ChatGPT
The chatbot was trained with ChatGPT on an external server and used information already on the WUR website. The chatbot therefore scored well on the data security criterion. The feasibility of the AI application also scored well with the jury.
Groep 2 took second prize. This group developed an AI tool to critically analyse students' use of AI. The students already use AI to create assignments, this group reasoned, but that information may contain biases, knowledge gaps and simplifications. To check this, teachers and students can consult this AI tool. Ergo: they control AI usage with AI.
Subject-related
Has the teacher lost all control over the educational process in this case? No, said group 2, the teacher must above all ask very good subject-related questions. The group took as an example a nutrition teacher who asks the students to develop and reformulate a healthier - low-sugar - coconut paste. Students can easily reduce the sugar content from 40% to 25%, but then side effects occur that are described in the literature. The AI tool should check whether the students have included all relevant literature when reformulating the low-sugar coconut paste. The jury found this to be a concrete AI application that is easy to implement.
Three groups of five or six students and staff worked on AI applications during the hackathon. AI has become indispensable in education, which is why WUR wants to integrate it in a responsible manner. Organizer Anke Swanenberg of WUR's Teaching and Learning Center hopes to see more students at the next AI hackathon.
