arXiv subjects

Bodong Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Bodong Chen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Beyond Tools: Generative AI as Epistemic Infrastructure in Education

AI systems are increasingly embedded in practices where humans have traditionally exercised epistemic agency, the capacity to actively engage in knowledge formation and validation. This paper argues that understanding AI's impact on epistemic agency requires analyzing these systems as epistemic infrastructures rather than as neutral tools. Drawing on theories of technological mediation and distributed cognition, I advance a framework that foregrounds how AI systems reconfigure the conditions under which epistemic agency can be exercised. The framework specifies three analytical conditions: affordances for skilled epistemic actions, support for epistemic sensitivity, and implications for habit formation. I apply this framework to AI systems deployed in education, a domain where epistemic agency is both professionally essential and ethically significant. Analysis of AI lesson planning and feedback tools reveals patterns of epistemic substitution: while useful for efficiently handling teaching tasks, these systems perform cognitive operations without sustaining skilled epistemic actions, epistemic sensitivity, or virtuous habit formation, potentially preventing the cultivation of professional judgment that relies on these practices. The findings contribute to philosophical debates about AI and human agency by specifying mechanisms through which infrastructural embedding shapes epistemic possibilities, and offer design principles for AI systems that sustain rather than supplant human epistemic agency.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2023

The Synthesis Lab: Empowering Collaborative Learning in Higher Education through Knowledge Synthesis

The ability to synthesize information has emerged as a critical skill for success across various fields. However, within the field of education, there is a lack of systematic understanding and well-defined design infrastructures that address the mechanisms and processes of knowledge synthesis in collaborative learning settings. In this poster, we introduce a design innovation - The Synthesis Lab, which aims to support students in synthesizing ideas from their online discussions in higher education classrooms. The tool offers structured work-spaces for students to decompose the synthesis process into intermediate synthesis products and features two key iterative processes of knowledge synthesis in collaborative settings: categorizing peers' ideas into conceptual building blocks and developing a synthesis of the discussions. Future implementation and evaluation of the design will make significant contributions to both research and practice.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Understanding Idea Creation in Collaborative Discourse through Networks: The Joint Attention-Interaction-Creation (AIC) Framework

In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, ideas generated through collaborative discourse are informative indicators of students' learning and collaboration. Idea creation is a product of emergent and interactive socio-cognitive endeavors. Therefore, analyzing ideas requires capturing contextual information in addition to the ideas themselves. In this paper, we propose the Joint Attention-Interaction-Creation (AIC) framework, which captures important dynamics in collaborative discourse, from attention and interaction to creation. The framework was developed from the networked lens, informed by natural language processing techniques, and inspired by socio-semantic network analysis. A case study was included to exemplify the framework's application in classrooms and to illustrate its potential in broader contexts.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2019

Towards Value-Sensitive Learning Analytics Design

To support ethical considerations and system integrity in learning analytics, this paper introduces two cases of applying the Value Sensitive Design methodology to learning analytics design. The first study applied two methods of Value Sensitive Design, namely stakeholder analysis and value analysis, to a conceptual investigation of an existing learning analytics tool. This investigation uncovered a number of values and value tensions, leading to design trade-offs to be considered in future tool refinements. The second study holistically applied Value Sensitive Design to the design of a recommendation system for the Wikipedia WikiProjects. To proactively consider values among stakeholders, we derived a multi-stage design process that included literature analysis, empirical investigations, prototype development, community engagement, iterative testing and refinement, and continuous evaluation. By reporting on these two cases, this paper responds to a need of practical means to support ethical considerations and human values in learning analytics systems. These two cases demonstrate that Value Sensitive Design could be a viable approach for balancing a wide range of human values, which tend to encompass and surpass ethical issues, in learning analytics design.

cs.HC↗