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  1. Kinnis Gosha
  2. Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Morehouse College
  1. Naja Mack
  2. Research Scientist
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Morehouse College

Excellence in Research: Evaluating the Use of Virtual Mentoring for HBCU Unde...

NSF Awards: 1831964, 1742942

2019 (see original presentation & discussion)

Undergraduate

Conversational agents such as Alexa and Siri have brought this type of technology to the everyday household. However, these agents also provide a unique opportunity to provide mentoring and advisement to individuals in ways that can not be accomplished by traditional human-to-human interactions.  This video presentation will provide details on multiple projects that leverage various types of conversational agents to address issues in the area of broadening participation in computing.

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Discussion from the 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase (20 posts)
  • Icon for: Brian Drayton

    Brian Drayton

    Researcher
    May 13, 2019 | 12:22 p.m.

    This is an interesting idea, which I can see has potential to help some people.

        I am still a little unclear about where the knowledge being used by the chatbot is coming from — and how it will be kept current.  

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:07 p.m.

    The knowledge comes from multiple subject matter experts. It is compiled and reviewed, then added to the chatbot's knowledgebase. 

  • Icon for: Monae Verbeke

    Monae Verbeke

    Facilitator
    Senior Research Associate
    May 13, 2019 | 02:42 p.m.

    This type of tech is really interesting. Do you happen to have a preliminary results on the impacts this work? 

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:10 p.m.

    This grant is fairly new, however there are several papers about my virtual mentoring research here

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Sarah Dunton
  • Icon for: Gregory Rushton

    Gregory Rushton

    Facilitator
    Director, TN STEM Education Center
    May 14, 2019 | 06:33 a.m.

    Thanks for sharing your work with us...how is this different than doing a web search and does it have any AI features built in? 

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:13 p.m.

    A few problems with a web search. One, there is no peer review of the content. Second, the info may be outdated. Third, it is not intelligent (ie it will give anyone the same info regardless of their background or situation.  

    Yes, AI is built in thanks to the chatbot framework we are using. 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Sarah Dunton
  • Angelicque Blackmon

    Researcher
    May 14, 2019 | 10:17 a.m.

    Is the chat bot available on the APP store yet? I'd like to share this with my son.

     

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:15 p.m.

    Thanks for the interest, however the chatbot won't be live until 2020. We just received our funding 8 months ago and it's a LOT of work to put in to it.

  • Icon for: Terri Norton

    Terri Norton

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 14, 2019 | 05:19 p.m.

    Thank you for sharing your video. Is the Chatbot available to underrepresented students from non-HBCU institutions? Is a subscription required? Will the mentor component be a Q&A format or something more formal?

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:23 p.m.

    1. They could use it if they wanted to. 2. Nope 3. Q and A plus other proactive-type updates. Mentors may have things to share that students may not know to ask, so it is important to get them that information when it is applicable to them. 

  • Icon for: Becca Schillaci

    Becca Schillaci

    Facilitator
    Research Associate
    May 17, 2019 | 11:17 a.m.

    I think your response to #3 is really important. When I watched your video I wondered, how do students know what questions to ask. I imagine many young students don't know what they don't know about career paths (for example, that going to conferences is even a thing to do!) How does Chatbot "read between then lines" of students' questions to give them information they don't know they need? Can you provide an example?

  • Icon for: Becca Schillaci

    Becca Schillaci

    Facilitator
    Research Associate
    May 14, 2019 | 08:58 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing! In what ways are you measuring success of the Chatbot? I'd love to also hear about what student users are saying about the Chatbot!

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 10:25 p.m.

    Right now, three ways: a) preliminary indicators (i.e. job interview, REU, GRE score, internship offer, etct), b) psychosocial measures (how they feel, confidence, etc.) and c) what they know (things about careers or graduate school that they didn't know before). 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Becca Schillaci
  • Icon for: Monae Verbeke

    Monae Verbeke

    Facilitator
    Senior Research Associate
    May 15, 2019 | 12:06 a.m.

    I wonder, have you considered something like Science Capital as a framework? 

    I'm also interested to hear about how you think it does influence their self-efficacy and or interests.

  • Icon for: Melissa Demetrikopoulos, Ph.D.

    Melissa Demetrikopoulos, Ph.D.

    Researcher
    May 16, 2019 | 07:30 a.m.

    Hi Kinnis, 

    It is great to see the progress in this project.  How do you plan to let students and faculty know about the Chatbot once it goes live? 

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 16, 2019 | 03:27 p.m.

    We will contact department chairs to share with their students. 

  • Icon for: Carol Fletcher

    Carol Fletcher

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 16, 2019 | 12:37 p.m.

    This is a really interesting idea. I like the strategy of reaching young students using technology they are familiar with. It seems like the success of this approach will really hinge on your capacity to disseminate this tool broadly to high school and college students. Are you developing a marketing and dissemination plan along with the technology?

  • Icon for: Kinnis Gosha

    Kinnis Gosha

    Lead Presenter
    Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor
    May 16, 2019 | 03:28 p.m.

    Not yet. I was planning to ask for a supplement once we go some positive data on its effectiveness. 

     

  • Icon for: Pauline Lake

    Pauline Lake

    Informal Educator
    May 18, 2019 | 08:34 a.m.

    As an educator/researched who has focused on mobile app development to get students engaged in learning Computer Science (Mobile CSP Project) I was drawn to this. What a fantastic idea! I, personally, think that it fits into the realm of "peer recruiting" as shown in our video - one of our students actually shares there how she spread the word through facetime and texting with friends. There is potential for it to fill the void of when an interested student feels "no one else is around" to talk to and ask questions. Along the lines of Carol's question, do you have a vision/idea on how this will be disseminated more broadly? That is, in an ideal world in which you have the funding already, how do you see a student finding out about this and using the technology for the first time?

  • Icon for: Sarah Dunton

    Sarah Dunton

    ECEP Alliance Director
    May 18, 2019 | 10:42 a.m.

    Kinnis, great project. Thanks for posting a video about your work and for developing a tool that will support recruitment and retention of diverse students in CS education pathways. In BPC work there are a lot of requests for tools, your virtual mentoring chatbot is a model that I will point people to. Thanks for sharing the link to your virtual mentoring research papers too.

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.