How Personify Works - for Instructors

How Personify Works

Rather watch a video? Check out this quick getting started video!

With Personify, the instructor creates a course tutor by creating one or more assignments, each of which consists of one or more pairs of questions and instructor-provided answers. When a course tutor is shared with a student, the student can then take the assignments in the course in a chat format. When the student is presented with a question and enters an answer, a message is sent to an LLM with the instructions for the LLM to act as a tutor, evaluate the student’s answer with reference to the instructor’s answer, and classify the student’s answer as correct or incorrect. The student can continue discussing with the AI tutor until the student’s answer is counted as correct. The student can also reset and retry a question as many times as desired, and then submit the assignment when ready. In the Gradebook, instructors can see the student’s score on a submitted assignment, and the student’s chat conversations for the submitted version (and the submitted version only) of an assignment.

Getting Started

Follow these steps to create your first course:

Click on the new course button in the upper right, and after naming and describing the course, create your first assignment.
To create your first question in your first assignment, use the question text entry box to enter the question/problem/exercise prompt that will be seen by the student. Then in the answer text entry box, input an answer (or solution, explanation, or set of evaluation criteria), and hit Save. What you write in the answer text entry box will guide the AI Tutor’s conversation with your students on this question.

For questions in which there is a determinate correct answer, we suggest the following general format for your instructor-provided answer:

The correct answer is: [insert the correct answer]

Here are some additional facts about the question: [This is where, if needed, you can insert additional explanation, the steps used to solve the problem, or further instructions to the AI about how to respond to the student.]

Err on the side of writing a shorter answer rather than a longer one, but then test the AI Tutor’s performance on the question by clicking on View on the right). Sometimes you’ll discover that you have to fine-tune your instructor-provided answer to get good performance from the AI Tutor. Test the performance by giving a correct answer and at least two different types of an incorrect or inadequate answers.
When the tutor is set to Socratic mode and the student answers incorrectly, the AI Tutor is instructed not to immediately tell the student the right answer, but instead to guide the student to the right answer by asking leading questions. When the tutor is set to straightforward mode and the student answers incorrectly, the AI tutor will state and briefly explain the right answer.

Different Types of Questions

Question Type 1 - Many possible right answer with objective criteria:

Some questions have many possible correct answers and yet there are objective criteria for what counts as a right answer. For example, suppose the student was set this problem:
1. ```
“Give an example of a prime number.” In this case your instructor-provided answer might simply say: “Any prime number counts as a correct answer.”
```

Question Type 2 - Solve this problem and explain the steps in your reasoning:

You may include questions of the form: “Solve this problem and explain the steps in your reasoning: [statement of problem]”. For questions of this form, structure your instructor-provided answer as follows:

For the student’s answer to be classified as fully correct, the student must do 2 things: 

First, state that the correct answer is [insert answer].
 
Second, explain the reasoning the student used to arrive at this answer.

Here is some additional information about the question:

The steps to figure this out are as follows: [insert steps]

For example:

Question:

Suppose that in a sample of 45 owls, there are 20 juveniles and 25 adults. Of the 20 juveniles, 14 are red in color and the rest are gray. Of the adults, 15 are red and the rest are gray. In this sample, is being red correlated with being an adult owl? 

Please answer and also explain the steps in your reasoning.

Answer: 

For the student's answer to be fully correct, the student must do two things: First, give the correct final answer that being red is not correlated with being an adult owl. Second, explain the steps to figure this out.

Here are some additional facts about the question:

The steps to figure this out are as follows:

First, remember the definition of correlation: A is correlated with B if and only if the proportion of As among Bs is greater than the proportion of As among non-Bs.

Second, apply that definition here. Substituting "being red" for "A" and "being an adult" for "B", we get: Being red is correlated with being an adult if and only if the proportion of red owls among all adult owls is greater than the proportion of red owls among all juvenile owls.

Third, calculate the proportion of red owls among adults (15 / 25 = 60%) and the proportion of red owls among juveniles (14 / 20 = 70%).

Fourth, compare these proportions, to see which is bigger. Since the proportion of red owls among juveniles is greater than the proportion of red owls among adults, being red is not correlated with being an adult owl.

Question Type 3 - Multiple Choice

If you are using a multiple choice question, consider using this format:

The correct answer is: [insert correct answer, e.g. C].

Here are some additional facts about the question:

Answer A is incorrect because: [insert explanation]
Answer B is incorrect because: [insert explanation]
Answer C is correct because: [insert explanation]
Answer D is incorrect because: [insert explanation]

Or this format:

The correct answer is: [insert correct answer, e.g. C].

Here are some additional facts about the question:

If the student answers A, explain to the student that…
If the student answers B, explain to the student that…
If the student answers D, explain to the student that…

Question Type 4 - Reading Comprehension and Engagement

To make reading assignments interactive or to provide students with help understanding a reading assignment, you can enter in the question box a passage of text for the student to read, plus a question about that passage. In the answer box, include information that will guide the AI Tutor’s Socratic questioning. For example:

Question:

Nicomachean Ethics Book II begins with this passage:

"Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit." (W. D. Ross translation)

What does Aristotle mean when he says that "none of the moral virtues arise in us by nature"? And what is his argument for this claim?

Answer:

The correct answer is: Aristotle means that we don't just naturally come to possess a moral virtue (in the way we naturally tend to fall asleep when tired, to pick one example). His argument is: if the moral virtues did arise in us by nature then we could not form a habit contrary to the moral virtues. But we can form a habit contrary to a moral virtue. Thus, moral virtues do not arise in us by nature.

Here are some additional facts about the question:

some examples of a moral virtue are courage and generosity. One does not become courageous simply because one is human; and one can develop habits contrary to courageousness, like cowardice or recklessness.

Input Formatting (Equations, Images, and Tables)

If you compose your question in Microsoft Word, and then cut and paste into the question text editor box, line breaks and tabs from your question will be preserved in the student view. If you are typing directly into the text editor box on Personify, hitting Enter will create a new line, and hitting "Shift + Enter" will create a new line with smaller spacing between lines.
Equations, images, and tables can be inserted into a question by clicking on the plus symbol located directly above the text entry box for the question. If the plus symbol is clicked and Insert Equation is selected, two choices are available: write the equation or expression in natural language, or draw it with your mouse or other drawing tool.
Equations can also be created using Katex syntax, which looks daunting but is easy to learn. For example, to create a question that displays:
```
You would enter this in the question text entry box:
Solve for x: $x^2 = \frac{1}{4}$

The general pattern is:
$ [katex syntax here] $
```
A full list of Katex functions can be found here.
Because the $ symbol is used to bracket the Katex syntax for equations (see above), you may encounter some formatting problems when using the dollar sign in its ordinary meaning multiple times in a single question. If this occurs, try using the abbreviation USD instead of $ to symbolize dollars.

Sharing your AI Course Tutor with Students or Other Instructors

To share your AI Course Tutor, go to your home screen (which shows "Manage" and "Learn" near the top left). On the row for the course tutor you wish to share, click on the Action menu at the extreme right (three dots). Clicking on the three dots will reveal a dropdown Actions menu. Pick Share, and select the access level:

Pick “Student” if you want to generate a link to share a course tutor with one or more students. Anyone clicking the link will be given permission to take the assignments in your course, and their submitted assignments will appear in your Gradebook for that course. Students cannot see your instructor-provided answers or share the course with others.
Pick “Importer” if you want to generate a link to share a copy of the course tutor with another instructor. Anyone clicking on the link will be able to import a copy of the current version of your course tutor (seeing both questions and instructor-provided answers), and will be able to edit their copy. They will not be able to edit your original.
Select “Editor” only if you want anyone clicking on the link generated to be able to edit your original course. This access level is appropriate for multiple individuals who co-teach a single course. Everyone with “Editor” permission to a course can see the Gradebook for that course, as well as edit the original version.

Gradebook

To view the performance of students in one of your courses, navigate to your home screen (the Manage/Learn page), and click on the three dots symbol on the right for the relevant course. Then select “Grades” in the dropdown Actions menu that appears when you click on the three dots. Cells in the Gradebook table show progress in the case of assignments not submitted, and in the case of an assignment that has been submitted, they show the score on the assignment, displayed in a purple oval. The presence of the purple oval means that the student has submitted the assignment, and the instructor can therefore click on the oval to view the final set of student conversations with the AI course tutor.

How Personify Works - for Students

How Personify Works

Personify allows students to work on homework assignments, practice tests, or in-class exercises in an interactive way that simulates a one-on-one tutoring experience. With Personify, an instructor creates a course tutor by creating one or more assignments, each of which consists of one or more pairs of questions and instructor-provided answers. When a student accepts a course invitation (via a link sent from the instructor), the course tutor is shared with the student, who can then take the assignments in the course in a chat format. When the student is presented with a question and enters an answer, a message is sent to an LLM with the instructions for the LLM to act as a tutor, evaluate the student’s answer with reference to the instructor’s answer, and classify the student’s answer as correct or incorrect. The student can continue discussing with the AI tutor until the student’s answer is counted as correct. The student can also reset and retry a question as many times as desired, and then submit the assignment when ready. Instructors cannot see student conversations with the AI tutor until the student submits an assignment. Instructors can see the student’s score on the submitted assignment as well as the student’s chat conversations for the submitted version (but only for the submitted version…instructors do not have access to any earlier chats).

Getting Started

To complete assignments in Personify, accept a course tutor invitation (via link sent by the instructor). The course will then appear as a row in your home screen (which says "Learn", or "Manage" and "Learn, near the top left). Click on the row for the course, and you will be taken to a screen that shows the assignments in that course. Click “Start” or “Continue” to answer questions in an assignment. When you are ready to share your results with your instructor, hit the “Submit” button (located on the bottom when you are answering the last question in the assignment). Once you hit the submit button for a given assignment, you will not be able to chat further for any of the questions in that assignment.