THE ONLINE PBL (PROJECT-BASED LEARNING) EDUCATION SYSTEM USING AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)

The importance of problem-based learning and project-based learning (both abbreviated to PBL) is perceived in engineering education and in addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). PBL should be collaborative, constructive, contextual and self-directed. Students form small groups to discuss real-life problems, find out solution cooperatively and learn practical knowledge through PBL. They sometimes collaborate with local communities. However, in order to prevent COVID-19 infection, students cannot go to school and take lectures in classrooms. Instead, the web meeting tools such as Zoom and Webex are used to take lectures at home. Group discussion in the classroom indispensable for PBL became impossible. To advance an educational reform, introduction of the online education system is promoted. In recent years, the classes based on lectures can be taken on-line. MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) has spread all over the world. Other than MOOC, the flipped learning with e-learning or e-Syllabus is carried out widely using PC. Furthermore, the trial which uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) and chatbot for education is studied. Chatbot which combined text-mining technology and AI has also come to be utilized in many companies. The authors are investigating the online PBL education system which uses AI instead of teachers’ direct instruction or TA’s (Teaching Assistant’s) support. At first the system survey focused on digitalized design platform which students can use together to design online. There are several web-based design platforms available. These tools may be useful when the design objects are clear. However, we have noticed that more common communication tools are effective for our PBL programs. There are many free communication and collaboration tools: students use SNS more than e-mail. Chatbots are used increasingly to reply to questions automatically using AI technology. We propose the on-line PBL education system using Slack and chatbots with AI. Since the system is still under the development phase, we introduce the outline and the feature of the system.