AI Conversations is a tool that allows an instructor to set up an interaction with an AI persona for their students. That interaction can be either a Socratic questioning or a role-play experience. In neither case does the AI use course materials or provide answers to the students about the course or materials. This tool best suits structured critical thinking, decision-making practice, and perspective-taking exercises.
AI Conversation Tool Feature Comparison to External AI (for example, chat.rochester.edu)
- Native to Blackboard with simple setup – How to Set Up AI Conversations
- The instructor sets up the scenario and persona characteristics. The student cannot alter this.
- Can be a graded activity
- Chat log is visible to the instructor
Information to Consider for Setup
- Determine your conversation type: either Socratic questioning or role-play. This will tailor the kind of conversation that the AI persona will have with your students.
- Describe the scenario or topic for the conversation activity.
- For Socratic questioning: Decide on a topic. Aim to write a straightforward, open-ended question, with no objectively right or wrong answer. Consider thought-provoking questions that aim for deeper reflection. You may want to include a suggested length of time or number of interactions with the persona for Socratic questioning conversations.
- For Role-Play: Decide on a scenario. It should include the specific scenario, the student’s role in the scenario, the role of the AI persona, and what they’re trying to achieve.
- Describe an AI persona.
- This can be a historical figure, an expert, a fictitious character, or anyone else. Describe their expertise and role, and provide an image (you can upload an image, choose from stock photos, or generate one with AI).
- Set the complexity of the responses based on your persona. For a child, you would use a low complexity. For an expert, you would use a higher complexity. This allows you to tailor the AI responses to your scenario.
- Determine a reflection question for the student to complete after their interaction.
Best Practices
- The personality traits of the AI persona significantly shape the interactions. Add personality traits carefully and preview the conversation to avoid bias or inappropriate content.
- You should always preview an AI conversation before releasing the activity to students. AI tools can hallucinate and introduce bias. It’s essential to ensure that your instructions are clear and that the AI persona responds in an expected and appropriate way.
Notes
- This tool does NOT access the Blackboard course content: Any course content or links and documents attached in this activity are for student reference only and are not processed by the AI. Only the typed information in the topic description is used to support the activity.
- The AI persona always starts the conversation with a disclaimer: “My responses are generated by AI and therefore may have bias or not be accurate”.
- The instructor can preview the chat and interact with the AI persona without leaving the assignment or entering Student Preview.
Additional Resources & Information
Information about the AI Conversations tool from Anthology