From Misunderstandings to Learning Opportunities: Leveraging Generative AI in Discussion Forums to Support Student Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Pozdniakov, Stanislav, Brazil, Jonathan, Poquet, Oleksandra, Krusche, Stephan, Berrezueta-Guzman, Santiago, Sadiq, Shazia, Khosravi, Hassan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Pozdniakov, Stanislav
Brazil, Jonathan
Poquet, Oleksandra
Krusche, Stephan
Berrezueta-Guzman, Santiago
Sadiq, Shazia
Khosravi, Hassan
author_facet Pozdniakov, Stanislav
Brazil, Jonathan
Poquet, Oleksandra
Krusche, Stephan
Berrezueta-Guzman, Santiago
Sadiq, Shazia
Khosravi, Hassan
contents In the contemporary educational landscape, particularly in large classroom settings, discussion forums have become a crucial tool for promoting interaction and addressing student queries. These forums foster a collaborative learning environment where students engage with both the teaching team and their peers. However, the sheer volume of content generated in these forums poses two significant interconnected challenges: How can we effectively identify common misunderstandings that arise in student discussions? And once identified, how can instructors use these insights to address them effectively? This paper explores the approach to integrating large language models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to tackle these challenges. We then demonstrate the approach Misunderstanding to Mastery (M2M) with authentic data from three computer science courses, involving 1355 students with 2878 unique posts, followed by an evaluation with five instructors teaching these courses. Results show that instructors found the approach promising and valuable for teaching, effectively identifying misunderstandings and generating actionable insights. Instructors highlighted the need for more fine-grained groupings, clearer metrics, validation of the created resources, and ethical considerations around data anonymity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_11150
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Misunderstandings to Learning Opportunities: Leveraging Generative AI in Discussion Forums to Support Student Learning
Pozdniakov, Stanislav
Brazil, Jonathan
Poquet, Oleksandra
Krusche, Stephan
Berrezueta-Guzman, Santiago
Sadiq, Shazia
Khosravi, Hassan
Human-Computer Interaction
In the contemporary educational landscape, particularly in large classroom settings, discussion forums have become a crucial tool for promoting interaction and addressing student queries. These forums foster a collaborative learning environment where students engage with both the teaching team and their peers. However, the sheer volume of content generated in these forums poses two significant interconnected challenges: How can we effectively identify common misunderstandings that arise in student discussions? And once identified, how can instructors use these insights to address them effectively? This paper explores the approach to integrating large language models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to tackle these challenges. We then demonstrate the approach Misunderstanding to Mastery (M2M) with authentic data from three computer science courses, involving 1355 students with 2878 unique posts, followed by an evaluation with five instructors teaching these courses. Results show that instructors found the approach promising and valuable for teaching, effectively identifying misunderstandings and generating actionable insights. Instructors highlighted the need for more fine-grained groupings, clearer metrics, validation of the created resources, and ethical considerations around data anonymity.
title From Misunderstandings to Learning Opportunities: Leveraging Generative AI in Discussion Forums to Support Student Learning
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11150