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.