An AI assistant for eLearning: From feedback to action

How AI Chatbots Can Solve Common Learning Barriers

Imagine a student who is constantly interacting with a teacher—compassionate, attentive, and deeply committed to helping them navigate and overcome challenges. This idea of ​​an always-on guide is now accessible with AI. Designing such a teaching assistant is not just a futuristic idea; is a practical solution to today’s eLearning and instructional support needs. The real challenge, however, is to ensure that this AI assistant is highly relevant and specific to each person on your team and the content they need to use. By using their feedback, tracking learning barriers, and providing personalized support, you can build a chatbot that grows and adapts to your students, providing meaningful, ongoing support.

Designing Personal AI Promotes Teaching Challenges for College and Workforce Professionals

Here, I describe my experience in creating an overview of my chatbot system, which is specifically designed to address the unique challenges college staff and faculty face while working with digital tools. This process involves carefully analyzing the daily obstacles these users encounter, such as managing tasks, handling email traffic, scheduling meetings, and collaborating on documents. By incorporating feedback from real-world experience, I designed system instructions that guide the chatbot to provide practical, easy-to-use solutions that meet the needs of educators and staff. These alerts ensure that the AI ​​assistant delivers the right support, helping users successfully navigate workplace tools for communication, task management, scheduling, and collaboration to improve workflow and improve productivity.

Step 1: Gathering Feedback on Student Challenges

To ensure your AI assistant is effective, collect data on the daily challenges students encounter. Observe their behavior and gather qualitative and quantitative information about their learning experience. The most effective way is to involve learners in the feedback loop, positioning them as active participants in the community of practice—an approach I discuss in detail in my article “Feedback-Driven AI: Transforming eLearning for Lifelong Success.” For example, when using task management, scheduling, and collaboration tools, students often struggle with task management, email overload, and effective collaboration.

Step 2: Creating Basic Assistant Instructions

Using the collected data, define what the chatbot should be and do. Define its tone, audience, and areas of focus. This ensures that the assistant feels more like a useful and relevant guide than a standard tool.

• An example of basic commands:

1. 1. Personality
      Become an Instructional Designer with extensive experience in creating humor and empathy.
   2. The focal point
      Digital tools for everyday tasks.
   3. Input
      User questions about challenges or ideas for improvement.
   4. Results
      Clear, actionable advice tailored to the user’s situation.

Step 3: Translating Instructions into Functional Statements

Break down instructions into specific problem-solving skills. Explain what the assistant will handle and how they will work together.

• Example of statements that can be made:

1. 1. Solve everyday challenges related to online work management.
   2. Provide practical advice on scheduling and managing email.
   3. Provide step-by-step guidance for team collaboration.

Step 4: Install System Prompt

Once you’ve gathered all the relevant information, the next step is to compile it into a coherent system brief that describes the chatbot’s behavior, tone, and scope of help. This notification system will serve as the foundation of the instruction provided by the AI ​​assistant, ensuring that it remains focused, relevant, and relevant to the needs of your students. To do this, combine the following elements:

1. Behavior and competence
   Define the role of the chatbot clearly. There must be knowledge, empathy, and the ability to face certain challenges. For example, a chatbot may act as an Instructional Designer with special experience in designing online documents, able to guide students through daily activities, problem solving problems, and provide actionable advice.
2. A tone
   Set the tone for the chatbot interaction. In this situation, there should be friendship, encouragement, and support, as well as humor to keep students engaged. It should promote a positive and encouraging learning environment, celebrate progress and push students to continue developing their skills.
3. Scope of assistance
   Clearly state what the chatbot can and cannot do. Focus on core areas of support—helping students organize their work, manage email, plan events, collaborate effectively, and solve common problems with task management, scheduling, and collaboration tools. A chatbot should be ready to give clear instructions, explain features, and offer troubleshooting advice.
4. Learning objectives
   Focus on student goals, such as improving digital work management to improve their workflow, improve productivity, and build confidence in using digital tools in everyday tasks. System information should guide the AI ​​assistant to be results oriented, encourage continuous learning and mastery of skills.
5. Interactive and engaging learning
   A chatbot should encourage students to ask questions, provide feedback, and reflect on their experience. Additionally, it should be able to provide challenges and situations that allow users to practice their skills, fostering a dynamic, interactive learning environment.

• Example of system prompt:

He is an experienced and passionate Instructional Designer with a deep understanding of project management, planning, and the tolls of collaboration. Your goal is to guide college faculty and staff in the daily challenges they face with these tools. He is patient, knowledgeable, and has a great sense of humor to make learning fun and engaging.

1. 1. Behavior
      Provide effective solutions for work management, email organization, collaboration, and document storage. Solve common problems and provide clear, step-by-step instructions.
   2. A tone
      She is friendly, supportive, and encouraging. Celebrate student success and provide encouraging feedback.
   3. Key Functions
      Help plan schedules and manage tasks with task management and scheduling tools.
   4. How to learn
      Engage users with practical, real-world scenarios. Provide personalized suggestions based on user progress and needs. Encourage dialogue and reflection to promote self-confidence and resilience.

With this system information, the AI ​​assistant will be equipped to provide targeted, relevant, and personalized support, ensuring that students can effectively use digital technology tools and applications in their daily routines and improve their eLearning experience.

Step 5: Writing User Initialization Messages

Creative examples of user messages that demonstrate the range of chatbot capabilities. These examples help users understand how to interact with AI effectively.

• Example user messages:

1. 1. Work management
      “How can I use To Do to prioritize my tasks?”
   2. Cooperation
      “Can Teams help us manage shared documents better?”
   3. Editing
      “How do I set up recurring meetings with reminders in Groups?”
   4. Problem solving
      “I’m inundated with emails. Can you suggest a prioritization system?”
   5. Encouragement
      “I’m new to the Editor. Can you help me get started?”

Step 6: Activate your Chatbot

Bringing your AI chatbot to life is the last and most exciting step. Using various platforms or tools, you can easily transition from design to implementation. These platforms make it easy to use the carefully designed information, instructions, and examples you’ve produced. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Visit the forum
   Start by navigating to a site that provides easy-to-use links for creating a chatbot.
2. Create a new assistant
   Click the appropriate buttons or start a new appropriate project.
   
3. Enter your system design
   Copy and paste system information, guidelines, and example user messages into the selected fields. These inputs define your chatbot’s tone, scope, and functionality.
4. Introduce your assistant
   Click the appropriate button or complete and run your assistant, ensuring that it is ready to address the needs of users.

Step 7: Testing and Refining

The last step is to test iteratively. Engage students to interact with the chatbot and provide feedback. Improve system information, instructions, and capabilities based on their experience. This ensures that the AI ​​assistant remains a powerful and dynamic learning companion.

By focusing on real-world obstacles like task management, email traffic, and collaboration, these alerts enable chatbots to provide practical, easy-to-use solutions that improve productivity and streamline daily workflows. Become a personalized teaching partner, empowering students with tailored support and practical solutions to everyday challenges. Whether you’re in the classroom or online, your AI assistant is always there—ready to make learning engaging, efficient, and fun.