LearnLens: An AI-Enhanced Dashboard to Support Teachers in Open-Ended Classrooms

2025-09-11

AI Summary

In exploratory learning environments, teachers struggle to monitor students’ conceptual understanding in real time. This study introduces LearnLens—a generative AI–enhanced teaching dashboard designed for secondary science classrooms to support inquiry-based instruction. Methodologically, LearnLens integrates large language models into educational analytics: it employs NLP to automatically summarize open-ended student responses, generate keyword clouds and concept maps, and visualize class-level cognitive distributions. Evaluated in an Earth science unit, the system significantly improved teachers’ situational awareness of student thinking and enabled responsive, data-informed instructional adjustments. Teacher interviews confirmed its high usability and pedagogical alignment. The work makes two key contributions: (1) it pioneers deep integration of generative AI into formative assessment infrastructure, and (2) it establishes a transferable technical framework and implementation paradigm for AI-augmented classroom formative evaluation.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Brain-Sensing and Analysis
• Natural Language Processing: Generation
• Machine Learning: Large Multimodal Models (LMMs)

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Search Tool Learning with LLM: Teaching LLMs to invoke search and make use of retrieved information
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems

Abstract

Exploratory learning environments (ELEs), such as simulation-based platforms and open-ended science curricula, promote hands-on exploration and problem-solving but make it difficult for teachers to gain timely insights into students' conceptual understanding. This paper presents LearnLens, a generative AI (GenAI)-enhanced teacher-facing dashboard designed to support problem-based instruction in middle school science. LearnLens processes students' open-ended responses from digital assessments to provide various insights, including sample responses, word clouds, bar charts, and AI-generated summaries. These features elucidate students' thinking, enabling teachers to adjust their instruction based on emerging patterns of understanding. The dashboard was informed by teacher input during professional development sessions and implemented within a middle school Earth science curriculum. We report insights from teacher interviews that highlight the dashboard's usability and potential to guide teachers' instruction in the classroom.

Problem

• Supports teachers in exploratory learning environments
• Provides insights into students' conceptual understanding
• Processes open-ended responses for instructional adjustments

Innovation

• AI dashboard for open-ended classroom insights
• Processes student responses to generate summaries
• Provides visual analytics to guide teaching adjustments