What Teachers Would Expect from a Pedagogical Agent System Working at a Classroom Level: A Focus Group Study

Abstract

Applications of pedagogical agent (PA) systems incorporating animated characters in school settings have mainly addressed students at an individual level. However, how these systems could be used and designed for supporting teachers while taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is an open question. Therefore, we carried out a focus group to understand what teachers would expect and need from such a system at a classroom level. Our focus group protocol sought to discover design and practical considerations in four dimensions. 1) System design considerations, where teachers expect the system to incorporate speech recognition and to “learn” from them while doing their practice. 2) System collaboration, teachers wanted support in their pedagogy by considering students’ achievement profiles, and by finding and sorting learning material as needed. 3) PA role in the classroom, we identified the following roles: annotator, scaffolder, peacekeeper, and substitute. 4) PA ethical considerations, teachers perceive PA as a possible replacement threat and controversial opinions on the use and meaning making of this technology. We discuss our findings and present future research directions to develop a PA that could empower teachers with AI pedagogy in the classroom, hence, indirectly supporting learning.