TeachLM: six key findings from a study of the latest AI model fine-tuned for teaching & learning.
TeachLM: six key findings from a study of the latest AI model fine-tuned for teaching & learning.
LLMs are great assistants but ineffective instructional designers and teachers. This week, researchers at Polygence + Stanford University published a paper on a new model — TeachLM — which was built to address exactly this gap.
In my latest blog post, I share the key findings from the study, including observations on what it tells us about AI’s instructional design skills.
Here’s the TLDR:
🔥 TeachLM outperformed generic LLMs on six key education metrics, including improved question quality & increased personalisation
🔥TeachLM also outperformed “Educational LLMs” - e.g. Anthropic’s Learning Mode, OpenAI’s Study Mode and Google’s Guided Learning - which fail to deliver the productive struggle, open exploration and specialised dialogue required for substantive learning
🔥TeachLM flourished at developing some teaching skills (e.g. being succinct in its comms) but struggled with others (e.g. asking enough of the right sorts of probing questions)
🔥 Training TeachLM on real educational interactions rather than relying on prompts or synthetic data lead to improved model performance
🔥TeachLM was trained primarily for delivery, leaving significant gaps in its ability to “design the right experience”, e.g. by failing to define learners’ start points and goal
🔥Overall, human educators still outperform all LLMs, including TeachLM, on both learning design and delivery
Learn more & access the full paper in my latest blog post (link in comments).
Phil 👋