A quick call with Andrei Poama on developing GenAI tools for fair formative feedback
If there's one thing that students should get from their teachers, it’s good feedback, says assistant professor Andrei Poama. ‘But we need to do it in a more fair way.’ Together with a team of experts on educational sciences, he is working on a project that develops GenAI applications that teachers can use for this very purpose.
Hi Andrei, why did you start this project?
‘In higher education we have a problem with providing formative feedback, which is feedback that students receive from their teachers or peers that is not tied to a score or grade. There is a lot of variation between the amount and quality of feedback that students receive, as well as in the time that teachers have to provide it. The ambition of our project is to acknowledge this problem, and to try to design hybrid formative feedback processes that bring together teachers, students and other experts on educational sciences, including our project team with colleagues from ICLON, LLInC and the ISSC. It’s important to stress that it’s not our ambition to replace teachers with AI, but to develop, construct, apply and evaluate a series of GenAI applications that teachers can use to provide better formative feedback.’
How is your proposal different from other projects that are trying to develop GenAI feedback tools?
‘Most GenAI feedback tools are designed with two specific values in mind: efficiency or effectiveness. In the pilot that we’re proposing, the guiding value is fairness. This can mean that you give consistent and transparent feedback, or feedback that reduces bias. But it also includes variables like feedback tone, respect, and giving students a voice in the overall feedback process. Voice is something we’ll literally bring into the picture by designing tools that students can interact with in both written form and in voice mode.’
What gives this project a sense of urgency?
‘If you look at the current higher education landscape, it’s not just universities that are developing feedback tools. Private educational technology companies are doing this, too – and often at a faster pace than universities. I think that paying commercial companies for these tools can be wasteful, not only in terms of university resources that are already shrinking, but also in terms of not really capitalizing on all of our in-house expertise and educational creativity. For that reason, I'm happy that our university is becoming aware of the need to develop and take ownership of these tools. I think that if there's one thing that students should get from their teachers, it is good feedback. To me, feedback is a professional conversation between teachers and students. But we need to do it better and we need to do it in a more fair way.’
Can teachers and students share their thoughts on AI use in assessments?
‘Definitely! Our proposal is tied to the FAIR ASSESS project that is currently supported by the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. The aim of this project is to try and figure out in a research and evidence informed way how we should regulate the use of GenAI tools in the domain of assessment at Leiden University. What does it mean to use these tools fairly, for both teachers and students? We'll host four deliberative assembly sessions in January and February where students and teachers get to reflect on these questions. This will be a premiere in higher-education worldwide, so I’d recommend all teachers and students to try and become part of it. The registration deadline is 1 December and you can register online.’