{"id":1025,"date":"2025-06-13T19:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T19:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationassessments.com\/blog\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2025-06-14T10:23:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T10:23:43","slug":"structured-ai-chat-at-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationassessments.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/13\/structured-ai-chat-at-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Structured AI Chat at Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Innovation is proud to introduce its newest learning tool: structured AI chat<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We created this feature to empower students to practice conversations and engage with course material outside of class time<\/strong>. Although originally designed for world language learners, our AI chat works beautifully across disciplines<\/strong>, making it a versatile resource for content-based courses as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Innovation, we believe technology should enhance learning in structured, meaningful ways<\/strong>. We call our applications “21st-century learning spaces<\/a>“\u2014they’re carefully designed to meet educational best practices and support student growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers have two powerful ways to use AI chat: hosted or hostless.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI\u2019s responses follow strict, teacher-defined parameters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosted Chat:<\/strong> This mirrors Innovation\u2019s original synchronous chat app where teachers facilitated real-time conversations between students. The key difference? Now, students can be paired with AI personas instead of classmates.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hostless Chat:<\/strong> These are independent, self-paced chat assignments that students can complete on their own. But they\u2019re not free-for-alls\u2014the guardrails are still firmly in place<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chat transcript is automatically recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students have a limited number of turns with the AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When teachers set up a chat, they set the boundaries of the conversation by limiting its length and defining the AI persona’s role.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Students are always responsible to start the conversation. When the chat starts, the assignment is clear and the AI’s interaction protocols are clearly stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The AI persona will keep the student on track even if they attempt to distract it with irrelevant questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here, the student tried to distract by asking about sports and the AI brought the discussion back to task.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once completed, Innovation provides an app to evaluate the quality of the student’s interactions in the chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This summer, I will add an AI grading assistant to help assess student work in a chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this was initially envisioned for language students, its use in teaching content became clear. In this example, we set up these parameters for the AI persona:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By the way, teachers can optionally include “accessories” such as a PDF article or a video for students to review before discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how our chat with the Ai started for a critical discussion of the causes of the French revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our sample conversation went on like this: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ever true to the parameters set for it, the AI persists in challenging the student to think more deeply and clearly define their points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI chat feature at Innovation has great potential to enrich assignments and promote critical thinking in content courses and linguistic fluency in language classes. Try it out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n