Categories: EDUCATION

Our GenAI-Powered Student Assistant Personalizes Learning

Published: 9/10/2024

Reading Time: 2 minutes

If you haven’t heard, there’s a new assistant in town.

We announced the beta launch of our GenAI-powered Student Assistant in August — designed to personalize learning and help students take ownership of their education. You may be asking: How does this work? What about academic integrity? How did you create it, and why now?

Let’s start at the beginning.

Focused on what you — higher ed faculty — and your students need most

We started the journey in 2022. It took two years of surveys and studies with over 3,000 faculty and 200 students to understand classroom challenges and how GenAI can enhance learning.

In fact, we found 73% of faculty feel GenAI is going to play an increasingly important role in higher education.

It’s these insights that informed our patent-pending approach in creating the Student Assistant.

Not your mother’s GenAI-powered assistant

The Student Assistant leverages intelligent language models and Cengage-owned content to focus on a specific discipline. The GenAI-powered Student Assistant guides the students through the process of thinking critically, allowing them to come up with their own solutions. We believe it creates a better experience for the student, as it emphasizes learning over providing the answers.

Keeping academic integrity top of mind

With GenAI on the rise, plagiarism is a top concern in higher ed. Let’s be clear, this tool does not help students cheat.

That’s why we ensured faculty alongside students helped train the Student Assistant. Students held conversations to help inform the tool, while instructors reviewed the exchanges for accuracy, depth and inputs — and to ensure the Student Assistant walked the students through a collaborative and critical thinking process in an encouraging and supportive manner.

On a mission to personalize learning

56% of faculty cited personalization as a top use case for GenAI to help enhance the learning experience.

The Student Assistant helps students connect with key concepts in new ways, and best of all, provides them with access to resources right when they need them, with personalized, just-in-time feedback. As one instructor put it, the Student Assistant allows “every single one of my students to have a private tutor.”

So, even those learners who like to study in the wee hours get personalized support!

The Student Assistant: There’s more to come

It’s still in beta, because after all, a tool this meaningful deserves a deep, thoughtful and research-driven assessment process.

Coming this fall, more than 5,000 students across the country will have the opportunity to test the technology in four courses: “Understanding Management,” “Organizational Behavior,” “Human Development” and “Economics and Macroecronomics.”

Their thoughts will help us to refine the Student Assistant and expand its availability in 2025 — and most importantly, help us develop future applications to better serve you.