In March 2026, eight faculty members shared their AI work at an MSU AI Ambassador meeting. The presentations ranged widely — redesigned exams, custom research chatbots, AI-assisted literature reviews, new approaches to academic integrity.
Then three of them described the same thing.
Each had built what’s sometimes called a Socratic AI tutor — a custom chatbot that asks students questions instead of answering them. The bot pushes back on their reasoning. It prompts them to defend their thinking, forcing the kind of deliberate engagement that supports meaningful learning with AI.
Anwar Bou Mosleh in Finance and Economics built one for investment case studies. Andy Parra Martinez in Educational Psychology and Statistics built one for research methods. Amin Amirlatifi in Chemical Engineering did the same.
A key question for all faculty is how do you use a tool that produces answers instantly to develop students who can actually think? Carefully designed tutor bots are one approach all faculty can try.
That conversation is still going. No doubt, many more faculty are creating similar tools for their classes. If you aren’t sure how to do this, join the Team and simply ask a question to the group.