IDIG: AI in Education Roundtable

Join us Nov. 13 from 1:30-2:30 p.m. as AI in education researchers from across the NC State campus discuss their work and findings. We will have five different researchers give brief lightning talk overviews of their work, and then the panel will open up the roundtable for questions. 

We look forward to seeing you there! 

The researchers include: 

Noboru Mata 

The QUADL project aims to develop an AI-based method for generating effective pedagogical questions by understanding how experienced instructors create them. To overcome LLMs’ lack of student-specific insights, the project introduces a prompting technique that incorporates students’ open-ended responses to improve question quality.

Benny Tabarsi

​​MerryQuery is an AI-powered educational assistant that uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide course-specific, contextually relevant responses. With guided dialogues and reliable source citations, it enhances student learning and engagement. It also enables instructors to monitor student interactions and customize response granularity, ensuring accurate and adaptive support for different educational needs.

Xiaoran Yan

This study explores how embodied AI agents can address the lack of effective communication in human-AI pair programming and validates this through a Wizard-of-Oz experiment in a virtual reality programming environment. The results show that embodied actions significantly enhance user engagement, communication efficiency, and emotional support, making the AI appear more like a real programming partner. However, their effectiveness depends on the timing and accuracy of these actions, offering valuable insights for designing more intuitive and supportive AI programming assistants in the future.

Ryan Chiechi

NC State’s Department of Chemistry is piloting a generative AI study tool in CH 221: Organic Chemistry. Led by Dr. Ryan Chiechi, Dr. Jeremiah Feducia, and Dr. Naish Lalloo with support from a DELTA Grant, the project integrates course-specific data into large language models (LLMs) to give students a conversational way to study. Early surveys show the tool helps students get timely answers and strengthens AI literacy.

Yan Shen

Yan Shen developed and piloted a set of ten custom AI assistants to support course design in the DELTA Hybrid Learning program. Each tool is configured to address distinct instructional design tasks, such as writing learning objectives, structuring content and schedule, designing application activities, developing lecture materials, or drafting project or assignment instructions. These AI assistants were created based on a course design process informed by the Holistic 4D Model of instructional design (Reigeluth & An, 2021). Preliminary feedback from instructors highlighted increased efficiency, useful ideas, and new perspectives on course material and activities.

Zoom Details

Title: AI in Education Roundtable

Date and Time:  Nov. 13 from 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Zoom Link: https://ncsu.zoom.us/j/96599136617

Passcode: 965 9913 6617