From Crafting Text to Crafting Thought: Grounding AI Writing Support to Writing Center Pedagogy
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the pedagogical risks posed by AI writing tools, which, while enhancing linguistic productivity, may undermine students’ authorial voice and critical thinking due to insufficient alignment with educational principles. To bridge this gap, the authors systematically integrate the student-centered tutoring philosophy of university writing centers into AI-assisted writing design. Drawing on interviews with ten writing tutors, they formulate a set of design principles and develop Writor—a non-generative prototype that supports student-driven revision through goal setting, balanced feedback, and dialogic interaction, deliberately avoiding direct content generation. Evaluation by 30 writing instructors, tutors, and AI researchers confirms Writor’s pedagogical soundness, philosophical coherence, and practical integrability, offering design insights for fostering trust in educational AI contexts.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
As AI writing tools evolve from fixing surface errors to creating language with writers, new capabilities raise concerns about negative impacts on student writers, such as replacing their voices and undermining critical thinking skills. To address these challenges, we look at a parallel transition in university writing centers from focusing on fixing errors to preserving student voices. We develop design guidelines informed by writing center literature and interviews with 10 writing tutors. We illustrate these guidelines in a prototype AI tool, Writor. Writor helps writers revise text by setting goals, providing balanced feedback, and engaging in conversations without generating text verbatim. We conducted an expert review with 30 writing instructors, tutors, and AI researchers on Writor to assess the pedagogical soundness, alignment with writing center pedagogy, and integration contexts. We distill our findings into design implications for future AI writing feedback systems, including designing for trust among AI-skeptical educators.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
AI writing tools
student voice
critical thinking
writing pedagogy
educational impact
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
writing center pedagogy
AI writing support
student voice preservation
dialogic feedback
trustworthy AI design
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2024-02-13arXiv.orgCitations: 13
