There’s a push among AI developers to create an AI tutor, and some see that as a key use case for tools like ChatGPT. But one longtime edtech expert sees an even better fit for new AI chatbots in education: helping educators design course materials for their students.

So all year Michael Feldstein has been leading a project to build an AI assistant that’s focused on learning design.

After all, these days colleges and other education institutions are hiring a growing number of human instructional designers to help create or improve teaching materials — especially as colleges have developed more online classes and programs. And people in those roles follow a playbook for helping subject-matter experts (the teachers they work with) organize their material into a series of compelling learning activities that will get students the required knowledge and skills on a given subject. Feldstein thinks new AI chatbots might be uniquely suited to guiding instructors through the early stages of that learning-design process.

He calls his system the AI Learning Design Assistant, or ALDA. And for months he has been leading a series of workshops through which more than 70 educators have tried versions of the tool and given feedback. He says he’s built a new version of the system about every month for the past five months incorporating the input he’s received. He argues that if AI could serve as an effective instructional design assistant, it could help colleges significantly reduce the time it takes to create courses.

Feldstein is not completely convinced it will work, though, so he says he has invited plenty of people to test it who are skeptical of the idea.

“The question is, can AI do that?” he says. “Can we create an AI learning design assistant that interviews the human educator, asks the questions and gathers the information that the educator has in their heads about the important elements of the teaching interaction and then generates a first draft?”

EdSurge has been checking in with Feldstein over the past few months as he’s gone through this design process. And he’s shared what has gone well — and where early ideas fell flat. You can hear highlights of those conversations on this week’s EdSurge Podcast.

Even if it turns out that AI isn’t a fit to help build courses, Feldstein says the project is yielding lessons about where generative AI tools can help educators do their jobs better.

Check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on the player below.