A senior lecturer at the University of Queensland is attracting international attention for his innovative efforts to use artificial intelligence to transform tertiary teaching and learning.
Dr. Hassan Khosravi, Lecturer in Data Science and Learning Analytics at the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation at UQ, invented an AI-based educational tool called RiPPLE that improves student engagement, satisfaction and learning.
“Lecturers are short on time, but they care about their students and want to find meaningful ways to enrich their learning,” said Dr. Khosravi.
“As the workload and class sizes have increased in recent years, lecturers have often found it difficult to develop their resources and experience for the students. That is why we developed RiPPLE.
“The novelty of the RiPPLE system is that we do not rely on the development of content by lecturers, but work together with the students to create the content and evaluate the system in one course.”
The platform has been used by 25,000 students in more than 100 courses over the past few years.
Dr. Khosravi said the program is designed to help students better regulate their learning and spend more time doing things they need help with.
“Students don’t make good use of their time studying and focus on things they already know rather than things that are difficult for them to study and that may be less enjoyable,” he said.
“RiPPLE uses algorithms to adapt learning materials to student performance, assess the skills of each student and actively monitor student progress.”
Dr. Khosravi said the program worked very well.
“A recent survey of students using the platform found that it has helped them learn, is easy to use and navigate, and would like to see it in other courses,” he said.
“Two large-scale experiments that looked at whether it helped students learn, one at UQ and the other at La Trobe University, found that using the platform contributed to higher grades.”
Dr. Khosravi worked with UniQuest, UQ’s commercialization company, to patent the intellectual property of the work they did in developing RiPPLE and to explore various avenues for commercialization.
“We are very excited about the commercialization opportunity, but I think the most important thing is that we solve a problem,” he said.
“I think we are working on a program that is both a really exciting path to research and that can benefit higher education in the future.”
Dr. Khosravi was awarded a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning at the UQ Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Learning this week.
The teaching and learning week 2021 celebrates inclusion and student affiliation.
Picture above left: An example for the RiPPLE program.
Media: Dr. Hassan Chosravi, h.khosravi@uq.edu.au, +61 (0) 7 3346 0774; UQ media and communication, communications@uq.edu.au, +61 (0) 429 056 139.
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