Section A: Project Information
Essay Master is a groundbreaking educational platform that revolutionizes language learning for students by integrating human expertise with advanced generative AI technology. Our innovative approach combines the nuanced understanding of experienced educators with the precision and scalability of state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) models, specifically for the Chinese language.
The core innovation of Essay Master lies in its hybrid feedback model, which allows teachers to provide strategic, overarching guidance while AI systems deliver detailed, immediate feedback on specific linguistic aspects. This blend of human and machine insights offers personalized, culturally relevant feedback that is crucial for effective language mastery.
The potential impact of Essay Master is significant, addressing social issues of educational inequality and accessibility. By streamlining the feedback process, we empower teachers to concentrate on engaging, high-value interactions with students, while providing learners with equal opportunities to excel in their writing skills. This aligns with broader social goals of equity and inclusion in education.
Our platform’s design emphasizes user-friendly interfaces that integrate seamlessly into classroom settings, promoting long-term user engagement through adaptive learning technologies. By prioritizing green computing practices, Essay Master also commits to environmental sustainability, minimizing its carbon footprint while delivering impactful educational technology.
Currently, we don’t train models ourselves but use publicly available models for the services. In the long term, we plan to fine-tune our own models on state-of-the-art open-source base model using the educational data we collected (if permission is granted users). Therefore, through Essay Master, we aim to set new standards in technology-assisted language learning, delivering a scalable, sustainable solution that adapts to evolving educational needs and fosters lasting improvements in student outcomes.
Section B: Participant Information
| Title | First Name | Last Name | Organisation/Institution | Faculty/Department/Unit | Phone Number | Current Study Programme | Current Year of Study | Contact Person / Team Leader | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mr. | Guichao | ZHU | The University of Hong Kong | School of Computing and Data Science | gczhu@connect.hku.hk | 64009859 | Doctoral Programme | Year 2 | |
| Miss. | Hongyun | DENG | The University of Hong Kong | Faculty of Education | hongyundeng@connect.hku.hk | 95856908 | Doctoral Programme | Year 1 |
Section C: Project Details
The inspiration for our project was born out of the need to enhance the writing skills of Chinese students, leveraging technology that aligns with their educational context. Traditional feedback methods in writing education often hinge on exhaustive teacher intervention, which, while beneficial, is time-consuming and sometimes lacks immediacy and individualization. In classrooms with high student-to-teacher ratios, providing personalized, timely, and detailed feedback becomes a formidable challenge. Our project aims to address these issues by integrating AI into the student feedback loop, particularly in the context of Chinese language education.
Our underlying hypothesis is twofold: first, that AI-enhanced feedback can improve student engagement and writing skills by providing immediate, detailed guidance; second, that a blended feedback approach, where teachers provide high-level guidance and AI fills in specific details, will produce superior outcomes than either purely human or purely AI feedback. We believe this approach will succeed because it combines the strengths of human insights with the efficiency and scalability of AI, ensuring personalized and comprehensive feedback even in large classrooms.
Historically, writing skills improvement has shown a strong correlation with detailed and timely feedback. Our method hypothesizes that by automating part of the feedback process, we can ensure that students receive the level and depth of feedback necessary for substantial improvement. Furthermore, the use of AI in a culturally relevant and linguistically specific context holds the potential to revolutionize traditional educational methodologies, providing a model that can be adapted and expanded upon both within and beyond Chinese language education settings. By addressing these core educational challenges through AI integration, our project seeks to pioneer an innovative path for language learning in high-density classroom environments.
Our solution leverages state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) technologies, including ChatGPT-4o, OpenAI-o1, and etc., to analyze student writing and generate detailed, context-aware feedback. Specifically, we utilize large language models (LLMs) for the nuances of the Chinese language to accurately assess and critique student compositions.
Validation of market demand will involve partnerships with educational institutions, piloting programs in select classrooms, and gathering feedback from both educators and students to refine our product's alignment with their needs.
The core functionalities of our platform include: automatic feedback generation on student submissions, categorization of writing based on identified strengths and areas for improvement, and a user-friendly interface for both teachers and students to interact with feedback results. We ensure a positive user experience by emphasizing intuitive design and instant feedback capabilities, allowing for seamless integration into existing classroom workflows.
To evaluate the platform's effectiveness, we will track performance metrics such as student writing improvement over time, user engagement rates, feedback accuracy as compared to teacher assessments, and overall satisfaction levels from both teachers and students. By continuously analyzing these metrics, we aim to iteratively improve upon our technology, ensuring the platform's responsiveness to user needs and its impact on educational outcomes.
We choose Stream 2.
Our project showcases innovation and creativity by pioneering a hybrid feedback model that integrates human expertise with AI’s analytical power, providing a unique solution to the challenges of writing education in Chinese classrooms. This approach stands out by bridging the gap between traditional teacher feedback, which is often thorough but time-consuming, and automated systems that may lack contextual depth and cultural sensitivity.
A significant innovation of our platform is its ability to provide immediate, detailed feedback tailored to the specific linguistic and stylistic features of Chinese writing. By leveraging advanced NLP technologies for the Chinese language, our system can accurately identify nuanced elements such as different description techniques and expressions, poetic devices, and traditional cultural references that are crucial for effective writing in a Chinese context. This cultural and linguistic specificity makes our platform both innovative and highly relevant, setting it apart from more generalized feedback systems.
Furthermore, our creative use of GenAI to augment rather than replace teacher input illustrates a novel approach that respects and enhances the role of educators. By allowing teachers to provide overarching guidance and direction with the AI supplementing detailed insights, we ensure that the feedback is both holistic and precise. This synergy maximizes the strengths of both human intuition and machine efficiency, leading to improved writing outcomes and more engaged learners.
The creativity embedded in our project also extends to user experience design. We have developed an interface that simplifies the interaction process for both students and teachers, making the technology accessible and easy to integrate into daily classroom activities. This user-centric design ensures that our innovative solution effectively meets educational challenges, offering a scalable model that enhances learning experiences and outcomes for a wide range of users. Through these creative elements, our project not only addresses current educational needs but also anticipates future possibilities for AI in education.
To ensure scalability, our strategy involves leveraging cloud-based infrastructure that can dynamically allocate resources based on demand. This approach enables us to accommodate a growing number of users without compromising performance. We also plan to partner with educational institutions and technology companies to expand our reach and integrate our platform within existing educational ecosystems.
To foster long-term user engagement, we will implement a feedback loop with educators and students to continuously refine our platform based on user experiences and needs. We currently use publicly available models for our services and plan to fine-tune our own models with educational data we collect, pending user permission. Regular updates and feature enhancements based on user input will ensure our solution remains relevant and effective in addressing educational challenges. Moreover, we plan to incorporate adaptive learning technologies that personalize feedback over time, catering to individual student progress and evolving learning objectives.
Our platform is designed with flexibility in mind, allowing it to adapt to changes in educational standards, curriculums, and pedagogical methods. Through ongoing research and development, we will ensure our solution not only meets current demands but also evolves to address future educational needs, creating a sustainable, impactful tool for language learning.
Our solution addresses several critical social issues, primarily educational inequality. By providing high-quality, personalized feedback on Chinese writing, our platform democratizes access to effective language education, even in under-resourced schools where individualized teacher feedback may be limited. This contributes to bridging the educational gap, offering students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds an opportunity to improve their writing skills equitably.
Our platform enhances the lives of its primary beneficiaries—students and teachers—by streamlining the feedback process. Teachers benefit from reduced workloads, allowing them to focus on personalized instruction and mentorship, while students gain access to detailed, immediate feedback that fosters their writing development. Moreover, by supporting students in mastering their native language, we empower them to confidently engage in academic and professional environments, thereby aligning with broader social goals of equity and inclusion.
To measure the social impact of our solution, we will track metrics such as improvement in student writing proficiency, participation rates among diverse student demographics, and user satisfaction levels across different educational contexts. Surveys, interviews, and academic performance records will serve as data sources for evaluating these metrics. Additionally, we plan to assess our contribution to reducing the teacher-student feedback gap and increasing the quality of education in underprivileged areas.
Ensuring responsiveness to the community's evolving needs involves ongoing engagement with educators, students, and stakeholders through workshops, feedback sessions, and collaborative research initiatives. By fostering an open dialogue, we can adapt our platform to address emerging educational challenges and continuously refine our approach. Furthermore, we are committed to ethical AI development, ensuring that our technology respects user privacy and cultural nuances, thereby maintaining trust and maximizing social good. Through these efforts, our project aims to make a sustainable, positive impact on education and society at large.
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