AfterRain Cottage | 雨后小筑
A space for my research, reflections, and photography
Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California
Hi! I'm Yuqing Kyra Xing (she/her), welcome to AfterRain Cottage!
I’m a researcher by training, educator by calling, mystery reader and amateur photographer for balance.
My work explores how people learn, create, and grow with AI.
I study personal and proxy agency in higher education, focusing on how students engage with generative AI not just as a tool, but as a collaborator. I also investigate the use of conversational AI in early childhood math learning, especially through storytelling as a pedagogical bridge. In addition, I examine the evolving role of AI-assisted writing in higher education, where questions of authorship, support, and self-efficacy are being redefined.
Our goal is to investigate the influence of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI on children's education, particularly in the context of story-based learning. As a first step, we've launched a research study where children co-create STEM-oriented narratives with either a conversational AI agent or a human partner.
ABE is designed to support critical thinking and process-based writing through multi-stage, coach-guided activities. Students work on a live-editable version of their paper (e.g., Google Docs). The system works comparably with different general-purpose LLMs (e.g., GPT 4o-min, Gemini Pro 1.5 and 2), with GPT 4o-min as a default. ABE emphasizes deeper writing processes, rather than surface-level editing or suggesting direct fixes.
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Copyright ©️ Yuqing Kyra Xing | Last update: May 30, 2025