Language
English (en)
Date Uploaded
Summer 6-12-2026
Activity source
Original
Summary
Students will upload draft versions of laboratory reports to a specially designed chatbot trained on course guidelines and instructor preferences. The chatbot gives structured feedback on the submission, and then students update their work and write a reflection about the experience.
Extended Summary
A custom chatbot (a Gemini Gem that is FERPA protected) was trained on course materials for a lab course. These materials included a writing manual, rubrics, exemplar reports, and lecture notes. The bot was then instructed to evaluate a submitted draft report against these criteria, with special attention given to aspects that the instructor finds most important. The bot then gives structured, guided output on how to improve the draft. Students are welcome to continue interacting with the bot to get further feedback or clarification. Afterwards, students revise their report and write a reflection. The reflection includes a copied-and-pasted version of the chatbot initial feedback summary, a description of 3 types of gaps the bot found in their draft and how they plan to resolve them, and a critical evaluation of the chatbot's feedback.
Student Learning Objectives
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Critique (Evaluation Level): Evaluate your own technical writing draft against strict course rubrics to document structural, stylistic, and logic gaps within a self-assessment log.
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Revise (Creation Level): Formulate an action plan based on AI-generated formative feedback to independently restructure and refine your technical lab reports or memos.
Assignment Type
Out-of-Class
Course level
Multiple Course Levels Apply
Used in course?
yes
If yes, enter name of course in box
Unit Operations Laboratory
Type of Student-AI Collaboration Required
Human-generated with AI assistance or revision
Type of AI Task(s)
Academic Writing
Second Type of AI Task
Literature Review/Bibliography
Third Type of AI Task
Data Analysis
Uploader/Author Affiliation
Faculty
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Document Type
Teaching Material
Recommended Citation
Brennan, Janie, "Chatbot-based feedback + revision and reflection for lab reports" (2026). Generative AI Teaching Activities. 13.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/ai_teaching/13