Coding theory is a major component of Applied Algebra. It has many applications in the mathematics of communications and has many links with other scientific disciplines, such as electrical engineering and computer science. Coding theory arises in almost every imaginable digital communications and storage system. In UCD, it is taught at the undergraduate level in the module MATH30180 An Introduction to Coding Theory.
Initiative
TutorScale: Trialling A New Elective Module In Which Engineering Students Conduct Structured Dialogues With Large Language Models To Deepen Their Technical Knowledge
About this initiative
Expected outcomes for students:
This module will make students better engineers. They will identify gaps in their theoretical understanding, fix false intuitions, and stitch together technical concepts from across their programme that have never been explicitly connected. We expect this learning uplift to manifest in the grades they earn in the other technical modules they’ll be taking alongside this elective.
These are ambitions, not guarantees. Deploying technology in education deserves scepticism, and this experimental module is our attempt to find out, carefully and honestly, what structured AI tutoring actually achieves for student learning.
This module will deliver on UNESCO Learning Competencies:
- AI Literacy and Agency: students interrogate AI dialogue, verify what it tells them against primary sources, and demonstrate understanding through work completed independently away from the screen
- Digital Literacy and Judgement: students decide how AI accelerates their learning and when it is
getting in the way
Students will also produce public-facing assessed posters, to be exhibited in a travelling campus roadshow, putting authentic, unmediated student voice in front of colleagues across UCD.
Key deliverables:
- An experimental Level 3 elective module, piloted twice with iterative refinement between offering.
- A pre-registered data analysis plan, ethics-approved collection of grades and survey data, and an honest answer to the question: does structured AI tutoring improve student learning? We do not know yet. We will share the results openly across UCD whether they support our hypothesis or not.
- All curriculum materials and assessment frameworks packaged as reusable resources for adoption across UCD and beyond.
| Project Leads | Associate Professor Paul Cuffe & Dr John Healy |
|---|---|
| College | UCD College of Engineering and Architecture |
| School | UCD School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering |
Lead organisations
Affiliated organisations
Linked open educational resources
Contributors
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