Title:  AI-assisted tutoring for CS1

Speaker:  Dr. Amey Karkare, IIT Kanpur

ABSTRACT:

In the realm of introductory programming courses (CS1), providing timely and personalized feedback to individual students is a challenging task. Traditional teaching assistants often fall short due to unintentional bias and delays. Enter PRUTOR, a cloud-based web application designed to revolutionize CS1 tutoring. PRUTOR offers instant, useful feedback to students as they tackle programming problems. By capturing snapshots of students’ attempts at regular intervals, Prutor provides instructors with insights into their problem-solving approaches. Additionally, PRUTOR collects valuable data, including time taken, compile and execution events, and errors made. This system serves as both a tutoring platform and a rich data source for researchers. PRUTOR helps us explore the intersection of AI, education, and programming in CS1.

BIO:

Dr. Amey Karkare completed his PhD from IIT Bombay in 2009 and his B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur in 1998. His areas of interest include Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Program Analysis, Compiler Optimization, and Functional Programming. He has more than seven years of industrial experience, most of which is in Compiler Optimization. He is currently Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professor and Head in the Department of CSE at IIT Kanpur. The PRUTOR software he developed has been used at several premier institutes in India, like IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IISc Bangalore, IIT Goa, and IISER Bhopal, to name a few. Dr Karkare has also received several awards in recognition of his excellence in the use of innovation and technology to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching.