Ruffle&Riley: From Lesson Text to Conversational Tutoring

Robin Schmucker, Meng Xia, Amos Azaria, Tom M. Mitchell

Abstract: Conversational tutoring systems (CTSs) offer learning experiences driven by natural language interactions. They are recognized for promoting cognitive engagement and improving learning outcomes, especially in reasoning tasks. Ruffle&Riley is a novel type of CTS that explores the potential of LLMs for efficient AI-assisted content authoring and for facilitating structured free-form conversational tutoring. This interactive event enables participants to engage with the LLM-based CTS introduced in our recent AIED2024 paper in two ways: (1) Attendees will interact with the web application using their personal devices. (2) Attendees will learn how to import learning materials into the system and generate custom tutoring scripts through a detailed tutorial. Ruffle&Riley is an extendable, open-source framework that promotes research on effective instructional design of LLM-based learning technologies. The interactive event will foster related discussions.