Adaptive dialogues in the context of AI refer to interactive conversations where artificial intelligence tailors its responses based on students' input, context, and previous interactions with the aim of supporting students' conceptual understanding.
In WISE, developed by Professor Marcia Linn and her colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), students learn to engage in inquiry-based science education that promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Teacher facilitated classroom conversations
In this project we are interested in examining the role and impact of teachers’ facilitation of classroom conversations as part of the AI-supported learning processes. The AI-tool is based on natural language processing, implying that students receive adapted and domain specific feedback on their written ideas and contributions in the digital learning environment.
We merge teacher facilitation strategies developed by the researchers at the Department of Teacher education and School Research and Department of Education, University of Oslo (UiO) and AI adaptive prompts for web-based dialogs designed by the researchers at UCB.
The web-based inquiry unit WISE
The WISE science unit in focus of this project is called ‘The urban heat islands’ (UHI) where students learn about what causes urban heat islands, how population density contributes, and how urban designers can reduce the heat island effect. Low-income communities and minority communities are most impacted by UHI.
Avatar adaptive dialogs in UHI
To support student learning, the Linn-group designed two AI-based dialog tools where students engage in conversation with avatars in the WISE-environment. The avatar detects the ideas in each student's response, acknowledges them, and continues the conversation by asking a question intended to further elicit the student’s reasoning about their idea.
Other participants are Professors Sten Ludvigsen and Ingvill Rasmussen, Department of Education, UiO, and Research Professor Libby Gerard and Postdoctoral Scholar Allison Bradford from UCB.
Funding
• Peder Sather research grant 2025-2026
• The project was awarded stimulus funds for ‘Excellent research and interdisciplinarity’ from Faculty of Educational Sciences, UiO, 2025
