AI Learning Assistants at Scale with Kavitta Ghai and George Hanshaw

Share your thoughts about this episode as a text message. Consider the AI learning assistant, with access to all the materials from a particular course and programmed to serve as a tutor for students in that course. What happens when you embed this kind of AI technology in every single course offered at a university?  Today on the podcast, I talk with George Hanshaw, director of learning solutions at Azusa Pacific University Global, where they did just that. I also talk with Kavitta Ghai, co-founder and CEO of Nectir, the company that partnered with George and his team to roll out AI learning assistants at scale.  George and Kavitta talk about the faculty and student experience of this technology, why it's a particularly good fit for asynchronous online courses, and why students choose to talk to an institutionally provided AI tutor instead of their good friend ChatGPT. Episode Resources George Hanshaw on LinkedIn Kavitta Ghai on LinkedIn Nectir Three papers by George Hanshaw and colleagues on the Spark experiment: “Exploring the Effectiveness of AI Course Assistants on the Student Learning Experience,” “Exploring Barriers to AI Course Assistant Adoption,” and “An Experimental Study on the Effect of AI Course Assistants on Student Grade Outcomes.” “Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Offloading, and Implications for Education” by Jason Lodge and Leslie Loble Support the show Podcast Links: Order The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching by Annette Vee, Marc Watkins, and Derek Bruff. Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association. Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky. See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.