Study coach for students
A chatbot that helps students study more effectively: asks what is not working, then offers two or three things to try this week.
What it is: a coaching conversation of a few turns. The bot asks what is not working - putting things off, no grip on the week, reading but remembering nothing - and then offers a few concrete things to try, from small to large.
Runs on: this site. Open the study coach.
What the Education Lab is testing here
How far an AI coach can go without becoming a therapist, a student adviser or an invigilator. The design deliberately keeps its ambition small: little next steps, a referral when the conversation gets too heavy, and no appearance of a diagnosis. That widens the portfolio from purely teaching aids into guidance and self-regulation.
What it does and does not do
It works with techniques known to help - testing yourself instead of rereading, spacing instead of cramming, explaining to someone else - and names them, so a student can read up on them.
It is not a therapist and not a student adviser, and says so. If the conversation turns to stress or low mood it points to the student adviser and the student psychologists. That is built in deliberately: a coaching bot that goes along with that does more harm than good.
How to use it
- As something to point at in the course manual or in Canvas, not as an assignment.
- In an introduction week, alongside a conversation with a tutor rather than instead of one.
- As an example in a class on learning strategies: have students judge the advice rather than follow it.
Origin
The idea comes from the prototype on edudatabase.ctl-vu.nl by the VU Education Lab. That prototype’s prompt lives in WordPress and cannot be read from outside; this version is ours, written from the same brief. If the original becomes available we will replace it.