Creating a customisable Socratic AI physics tutor

TL;DR

This paper presents a role engineering approach to customize Large Language Models into a Socratic physics tutor, enabling interactive, pedagogical dialogue and problem-solving support for students.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of role engineering using Google's Gemini Gems to create specialized AI tutors with pedagogical behaviors for physics education.

Findings

Role-engineered Gemini successfully facilitates Socratic dialogue.

Standard Gemini models tend to give direct solutions, not engaging in Socratic questioning.

The approach enhances active reflection in student interactions.

Abstract

This paper explores role engineering as an effective paradigm for customizing Large Language Models (LLMs) into specialized AI tutors for physics education. We demonstrate this methodology by designing a Socratic physics problem-solving tutor using Google's Gemini Gems feature, defining its pedagogical behavior through a detailed 'script' that specifies its role and persona. We present two illustrative use cases: the first demonstrates the Gem's multimodal ability to analyze a student's hand-drawn force diagram and apply notational rules from a 'Knowledge' file; the second showcases its capacity to guide conceptual reasoning in electromagnetism using its pre-trained knowledge without using specific documents provided by the instructor. Our findings show that the 'role-engineered' Gem successfully facilitates a Socratic dialogue, in stark contrast to a standard Gemini model, which tends to immediately provide direct solutions. We conclude that role engineering is a pivotal and accessible method for educators to transform a general-purpose 'solution provider' into a reliable pedagogical tutor capable of engaging students in an active reflection process. This approach offers a powerful tool for both instructors and students, while also highlighting the importance of addressing the technology's inherent limitations, such as the potential for occasional inaccuracies.