Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Assessment for Learning (AfL) to Improve Learning and Teaching in 21st Century (AI4AfL)

Understanding how to engage in learning is crucial for 21st-century learners. Since 2010, Norwegian schools have prioritised Assessment for Learning (AfL) as a strategy to foster such understanding. However, educational practice reveals that AfL requires significant time and resources. Teachers also need to develop a deep understanding of the AfL approach in order to design effective learning activities. The "Artificial Intelligence for Assessment for Learning to Improve Learning and Teaching in the 21st Century" (AI4AfL) project aims to create AI – powered Essay Assessment Technology (EAT) capable of analysing student texts and providing feedback on language, content, structure and organisation. This personalised feedback can help improve student writing and assist teachers in facilitating the writing process. The project examines how students interact with EAT, how they respond to the feedback, and how teachers organise and support student learning with the AI tool. Through this exploration, the project generates new insights into how students learn with AI and develop their learning-to-learn skills. AI4AfL is an interdisciplinary initiative that brings together pedagogy and IT researchers and the Hypatia Learning company to achieve its goals. This collaboration aims to bridge the gap between educational technology developers, teachers, and students. Additionally, one PhD candidate and one post-doctoral researcher are involved in the project, further enriching this collaboration. Together, the project’s participants contribute to advancing our understanding of how AI can enhance pedagogical practices and student learning in Norwegian classrooms.

The AI4AfL project aims to develop new Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that is able to analyse written texts and provide syntactic, semantic and sentimental automatic feedback. The project will also develop new knowledge about how teachers organise and facilitate AfL practices with AI technology to enhance students’ capacity in learning to learn. The research in the project will provide a broader insight among teachers, school owners and teacher educators into how AfL practices supported by AI technology may contribute to the development of students’ understanding about what it means to learn in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) writing classes. In doing so, the project will offer an approach to develop students’ capacity in learning to learn. AI4AfL is a collaborative interdisciplinary project combining the efforts of Educational and IT researchers, a private actor (Hypatia), school owner (Halden municipality), teachers and students in the lower secondary schools. The project consists of five work packages and adopts a mixed methods approach to gradually develop the target AI technology and to examine AfL learning and teaching practices in the target (with AI technology) and the comparison (without AI technology) classes in lower secondary schools in Halden municipality. AI4AfL will make empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of computer sciences (by developing new AI technology able to provide individually tailored syntactic, semantic and sentimental feedback on the written text) and to the field of pedagogy (by examining learning and teaching with AI technology, development teachers’ and students’ digital competence, competence building in technology enhanced AfL practices and students’ capacity in learning to learn). This knowledge is much needed to ensure a research-based development of teachers’ PDC, competence building in technology enhanced AfL practices to educate lifelong learners in the 21st century.