The Smartest Tutor
Students in a Bar-Ilan study space.
Faculty of Humanities
Learning & Teaching Division
The Smartest Tutor
A lecturer-trained tutor for every course. Personalized learning assistance that meets each student’s needs. How a Bar-Ilan historian’s assistive-technology tool heralds the future of pedagogy—and the pride of place granted to teaching in Bar-Ilan’s research faculties.
Meet Your New Copilot
Some people might find it ironic that Bar-Ilan’s new assistive-learning technology was created not by a computer scientist, but by a scholar of the Middle Ages. But Prof. Yaniv Fox, historian and new vice dean for teaching in the Faculty of Humanities, thinks it makes perfect sense. “History is full of great stories that help us imagine a different world than the one we live in,” says Fox. “It’s only natural, then, that a historian imagine a different way of learning and teaching every subject.”
Fox’s interest in assistive-learning technology began several years ago, when he realized that his students weren’t fully absorbing the material in his course “Introduction to the Middle Ages.” What he needed, he thought, was a tutor who knew the material as well as he did, and who could work with each student to close his or her gaps in knowledge.
So he built one.
Using the large-language-model (LLM) technology made famous by ChatGPT, Fox developed a digital “tutor,” similar to Microsoft’s Copilot software, that draws from a course-specific database. By inputting only those texts, media, and lectures related to a course syllabus, Fox ensured that students’ prompts would return reliable and relevant content, vetted by the professors themselves. And now, thanks to the assistance of his partners in the Learning and Teaching Division—most notably Dr. Lihi Telem, leader of learning processes and the Digital Development Department —the digital tutor can also adapt its answers to individual knowledge levels, bringing Bar-Ilan one step closer to what Yuval Shraibman, chief learning officer and deputy director of the division, calls the “holy grail of education”: personalization.
“A student can enter the prompt, ‘Ask me questions until you’re sure I understand the material,’ and the tutor will adjust its questions to the student’s learning style and level of understanding,” says Shraibman. “In this way, we’re able to not only ensure students’ proficiency in the course itself, but also in harnessing the potential of new technologies. Perhaps more than anything else, this will set individuals apart in tomorrow’s workplace and economy.”
And from proficiency in content and learning strategies comes the ability, believes Fox, to do anything. “Our digital tutor ensures that Bar-Ilan students have the foundation on which to create new knowledge, make new discoveries, and innovate in every field. Even history.”
Prof. Yaniv Fox (top), lecturer and vice dean of teaching in the Department of General History and Yuval Shraibman, chief learning officer.
Coming Soon to a Course Near You
In the first stage of the digital-tutor pilot, five courses’ material was used to test the bot’s ability to provide relevant information based on researchers’ input. In its next stage, the six-month pilot will recruit 15 new researchers—each with 30 students—with the goal of improving the bot further in advance of its launch throughout the University. The courses included:
- Prof. Yaniv Fox, the Department of General History
- Dr. Aya Yadlin, the Department of Communications
- Dr. Auria Eisen-Enosh, the School of Optometry and Vision Science
- Dr. Yossi Ben-Zion, the Department of Physics
- Prof. Adi Ayal, the Faculty of Law