ConvoLearn: A Learning Sciences Grounded Dataset for Fine-Tuning Dialogic AI Tutors

TL;DR

ConvoLearn is a new dataset of 2,134 semi-synthetic tutor-student dialogues grounded in knowledge-building theory, designed to improve dialogic AI tutors in education.

Contribution

The paper introduces ConvoLearn, a novel dataset for training dialogic AI tutors, and demonstrates its effectiveness in enhancing pedagogical dialogue behaviors.

Findings

Classifier trained on ConvoLearn correlates with expert-rated instructional quality.

Fine-tuning Mistral-7B on ConvoLearn yields dialogic behavior rated as competitive by teachers.

Dimension-labeled data captures meaningful pedagogical signals beyond semi-synthetic domain.

Abstract

Despite their growing adoption in education, LLMs remain misaligned with the core principle of effective tutoring: the dialogic construction of knowledge. We introduce ConvoLearn, a dataset of 2,134 semi-synthetic tutor-student dialogues operationalizing six dimensions of dialogic tutoring grounded in knowledge-building theory, situated in a middle school Earth Science curriculum. We show that dimension-labeled dialogic training data captures meaningful pedagogical signal that generalizes beyond its semi-synthetic domain: scores from a classifier trained on ConvoLearn correlate significantly with expert-coded instructional quality in authentic classrooms across multiple subscales. As a proof of concept, we fine-tune Mistral-7B on ConvoLearn and show that dimension-level fine-tuning can steer a 7B open-weight model toward dialogic tutoring behavior that credentialed teachers rate as competitive with a strong proprietary baseline. With this work, we support the development of AI tutors capable of more dialogic interactions.