Openai unveiled a new mode yesterday, baptized Etodier In Chatgpt, the latter is offered as an educational alternative to the passive use of generative AI tools. According to a study dating from 2023 of the Pew Research Center, a quarter of American teenagers aged 13 to 17, would use Chatgpt for their homework. With the study mode, l‘OPENAI Objective is to transform the conversational assistant into an interactive tutor, capable of guiding user learning instead of simply deliver ready -made answers.
This mode offers a structured approach based on the scaffoldinga method from the educational sciences, which consists in supporting the student in stages in his understanding. Concretely, the user is offered diagnostic questions (school level, objectives, prior knowledge), then receives answers organized in stages, with prompt reflection, quiz or reformulation, as many alternatives intended to promote active understanding and memorization. The fact remains that the student can deactivate this mode at any time to find the classic operation of chatgpt.
If this solution opens an interesting educational path, the central question arises: Can an AI really teach?
A modeled pedagogy, but what about the reliability of the solution?
The Etudier mode is based on algorithmic behavior inspired by cognitive sciences with encouragement to metacognition, adaptation to the student level, progressive explanations, incentive to formulate their own ideas.
“” Rather than doing the work in their place, the mode To study Encourages students to show critical thinking. Features like these constitute a positive advance towards effective use of AI for learning purposes. Even in the AI era, learning is more effective when students are interested in what they learn and actively interact with information. “Indicates Robbie Torney, Director of AI programs at Common Sense Media in the OPENAI press release
However, the reliability of the tool remains a major limit, as a probabilistic model, Chatgpt can produce erroneous or approximate responses, especially since nothing prevents the student from bypassing the proposed educational approach by deactivating the mode to immediately access a answer to his questions.
Differentiated uses according to age, context, supervision
Initially designed for higher students, Etudier mode is also accessible to high school students (from 13 years old with parental authorization).
In its promotional narrative, Openai shares we share different testimonies of students particularly favorable to the solution and therefore to weight:
“I would say that it is like a teacher of permanence who is always available and knows absolutely everything”, Noah Campbell, student
“The Estader mode really helped me to break down very dense information into clear and adapted explanations at my own pace”, Caleb Masi, student
“I put the mode of testing by using it to work on a concept that I have already tried to understand many times: sinusoidal positional encodings. I felt like I was facing a teacher who never tired of my questions. After a 3 hour work session, I ended up understanding this concept enough. », Maggie Wang, student
The fact remains that without adequate supervision, the tool may accentuate learning inequalities, some students will be able to take advantage of it to deepen their knowledge, while others will use it to avoid effort or bypass the educational requirements more discreetly. The real impact of the Etudier mode will largely depend on the context of use and the prior training of pupils and students.
Of course, Openai indicates to collaborate with researchers in educational sciences and universities (notably Stanford) to assess the effects of Etudier mode and with which the startup currently conducts studies to analyze how the design of its models influences the cognitive mechanisms of learners, results that we will not fail to dissect once made public.
With Study, Openai accelerates in the race for educational AI
After launching in May 2024, the Chatgpt Edu initiative, which aims to provide higher education establishments with framed and personalized access to the advanced Chatgpt capacities. The Etudier mode, now integrated into this offer, strengthens the OPENAI offer on this strategic market.
However, the Sam Altman company is not the only solution of AI to occupy the education market, other platforms such as Khanmigo (Khan Academy), Co -pilot (Microsoft) or Gemini (Google) have already integrated conversational educational assistants.
Mistral AI announced, during the World Summit for Action on AI, the establishment of a collaboration with eleven higher education establishments, including the University of Haute-Alsace, the University of Nîmes, the University of Rennes, the University of Paris-Est Créteil, the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, the Paris Mines school, the University of Montpellier, the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès Picardy Jules Verne and Sorbonne University.
As part of a partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education and Research as well as the Universities and Establishment Communalization Agency (Amue), the French start-up will also develop a conversational agent intended to meet the specific needs of universities. A test phase will be launched with 3,000 users in around twenty establishments in France.
The educational AI race accelerates, and each actor measures the strategic issue of winning. The positions vary, some rely on tools integrated into closed ecosystems, others on open platforms or services designed in close connection with existing school infrastructures.
