Educator Development Using AI for Instructional Design

Lecturers in higher education are often experts in their field, but have not always received didactic training to effectively transfer their knowledge and skills to their students.

Although there is a basic training for didactic competence in many colleges and universities, it is not compulsory everywhere and therefore not all higher education teachers receive these basic skills. In addition, these courses vary greatly between institutions and are often very general in nature, which means that they do not meet the specific needs of teachers. Lecturers do learn principles for effective educational design during their training, but do not receive sufficient support, follow-up and feedback afterwards to effectively apply this knowledge in their own teaching practice. Educational support staff and trainers do not have enough time and space to provide individual guidance and feedback for all teachers on the spot. As a result, the transfer to their own lessons is very limited. 

The proposed project aims to break this trend by providing personalized feedback on teachers' educational designs in an efficient way, and by examining the extent to which the principles for effective didactics have been taken into account.

Two tools are central to this:

• an open repository with scientifically based design principles and the accompanying literature
• an AI-driven feedback tool that allows teachers to receive interactive, personalized feedback.

This approach encourages innovations and better teaching practices, increases teachers' digital competence, and improves their perception of CPD programs, which in turn can lead to increased participation.

Strengthening the teaching practice of lecturers in higher education:

• To provide higher education teachers with insight into scientifically proven design principles for effective higher education.
• To contribute to the quality and impact of continuous professional didactic development (CPD) for teachers in higher education.
• Developing an interactive feedback tool using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, giving teachers direct and appropriate feedback on their educational design.

• An open interactive repository of design principles for effective higher education that can support teachers in strengthening their teaching practice.
• A prototype of a validated open access AI-driven feedback tool for teachers in higher education and educational support staff.

• Thomas More

  Centre of Expertise Education and Learning (Milou de Smet, Mitte Schroeven) 
  Department of Education (Heidi Verlinden, Kirsten Vandermeulen)
  Centre of Expertise Design and Technology (Daiane Seibert, Karen Feyen)
   

• Zuyd Hogeschool
  
  Hanneke Theelen
  Marcel van der Klink
  Roger Bemelmans
  Kim Dirkx
  Mark Goossens
   

• OsloMet
  
  Wilfried Admiraal
  Hege Hermansen