Abstract:

The Artificial Intelligence Assisted Learning (AIAL) application will be created to help students and assist teachers in primary schools. This application will generate homework and classwork, primarily Mathematics, depending on each student’s ability. The aim of this application is that students find the work assigned to them stimulating and challenging since it will be directly targeted to their level. This application will also correct the given work and provide immediate feedback to the student on their performance in the worksheet.

Additionally, the AIAL application will provide analytical feedback to the teacher regarding each student’s progress so the teacher will then be able to focus on specific areas of difficulty.

One of the essential parts of the AIAL system, mainly used by teachers, is the Blueprint Designer. The Blueprint Designer is used to design the type of questions that will be given to the students together with the possible solutions to these questions. The Blueprint Designer has a drag and drop interface for the teachers to use. This interface is similar to that of a visual programming language. Consequently it is easy to use with a low learning curve and does not require the teacher to have any prior knowledge in programming. The teachers select and drag these terms one at a time: number, operator, list, sentence, answer.

When a number term is chosen, the teacher also needs to specify the range in which the number is to be generated. When the operator term is selected, + , - or can be placed into the question template. A list term is used when several related items (that form part of a list) can be placed into the question. A sentence term contains any word or sentence the teacher wishes to include in the question. The answer term is placed in the location where the student enters the answer.

After selecting a term, the teacher then drops the term into the question template box and creates a question template by appending these terms together. A sample question is then generated for the teacher so that the teacher ensures that the question template has been successfully created. The question template can easily be amended by adding or removing terms, or deleted if the question template is not the one envisioned. Multiple questions can be created underneath each other and placed in different topics. The teacher also has the option of rating the difficulty level of the question as easy, medium or hard. Once the teacher finishes creating questions and presses the save button, all the questions created are saved into a database which can then be accessed by the AIAL system to generate personalised questions.

The Blueprint Designer therefore aims to be a very useful tool for teachers as it will allow them to easily amend the questions given to students, namely when the syllabus is modified or if additional exercises need to be added throughout the scholastic year. The Blueprint Designer’s interface is designed so this can be done without needing any prior programming knowledge. Therefore, when the teacher wants to schedule work for the students, the teacher tells the system (through a separate dashboard) which topic or specific exercises should be included in the worksheet given for classwork or homework. Then the AIAL system decides which questions from the database to put into the worksheet and how many questions to give each particular student depending on the individual’s user profile.

Keywords:

Blueprint Designer, Artificial Intelligence Assisted Learning(AIAL).