WSM Athenas

Many students struggle to learn using repetitive study platforms, which diminishes their interest in the material. Although artificial intelligence is already part of students' daily lives, using it without pedagogical guidance can hinder the development of critical thinking by providing ready-made answers. This project presents WSM Athenas, an educational platform I created that uses AI to guide students via the Socratic method, personalizing the learning experience without providing direct answers. The platform features a Socratic AI tutor, automatic grading for open-ended questions, dashboards for students and teachers, a monitored internal chat, and an exam mode with anti-cheating mechanisms. To evaluate its effectiveness, a scientific test was conducted with an 8th-grade class, comparing the performance of a group using WSM Athenas against a group using ChatGPT freely; both groups were assessed using the same exam on sustainability. The results showed similar performance between the groups, but spontaneous positive reactions were observed among students in the WSM Athenas group—reactions that did not occur in the ChatGPT group. These results indicate that an educational AI incorporating pedagogical safeguards can offer a more engaging learning experience without compromising academic performance.

As next steps, I plan to conduct further tests with larger samples across different subjects and grade levels, as well as collect additional quantitative data—such as study time and the number of AI interactions—that were not recorded during this initial implementation. Future goals also include expanding WSM Athenas to other subjects, starting with Biology, and seeking institutional partnerships with municipal, state, and private school networks to facilitate the platform's adoption in classrooms on a larger scale.

And for this project to come to fruition, my advisor Vivian and my co-advisor Marco Aurélio were essential during the production phase. Every idea they offered and all the support they provided were invaluable. I never imagined I would reach this point. Thank you very much.