Engaging Undergraduate Students in an Introductory A.I. Course through a Knowledge-Based Chatbot Workshop

Abstract

In this paper we share interim results of an ongoing mixed method evaluative study of 43 students enrolled in an elective course “Doing Business with A.I.” at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB), Singapore Management University. A key component of the course design is an experiential chatbot workshop that provides non-STEM students with an opportunity to acquire basic skills to build a chatbot prototype using the ‘Dialogflow’ program. The workshop and the experiential learning activity were designed to impart students with relevant knowledge and skills such as conversation and user-centric design know how and know why that are transferrable to other situational contexts beyond the course. Based on ongoing class surveys and qualitative interviews with students, we are trying to corroborate a conceptual model developed from learning theories and models related to technology mediated learning (TML) aimed at measuring the effects of a hands-on knowledge-based chatbot workshop designed by the authors on students’ engagement and motivation as drivers of acquiring AI-related competencies such as natural language processing skills (NLP). One important didactical aspect during the design and roll-out of the chatbot workshop is that novice learners with no or very little knowledge about A.I. recognize and create the important linkage between knowledge inputs and outputs of NLP-powered conversational agents (chatbots) so that user queries are effectively addressed. The knowledge-based chatbot workshop design as described in the paper provides useful practical information for instructors interested in designing educational chatbot prototypes for effective digital teaching and learning in a business school (higher education) context that can be transferred to other organizational units beyond the university (e.g. quality customer service) in order to make learners future-ready.