Ten West Australian Catholic schools will take part in an Australian-first pilot of an AI teaching assistant aimed at improving student outcomes by supporting teachers with research-led use of AI.
Catholic Education Western Australia has partnered with Nurture to trial an AI-powered Teaching Assistant which closes ‘the feedback loop’ between teachers and students enabling consistent, structured, and actionable feedback tied to learning outcomes.
The efficiency gains when using AI within Nurture will allow teachers to get back hours each week to reinvest into direct interaction with their students in ways only teachers can.
Nurture is a research-driven technology, developed using a framework from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and with ongoing research collaborations with Stanford University.
The technology is embedded within Microsoft Teams, providing quick, simple and safe access for teachers. It is designed to work directly with a school’s curriculum and is aligned to CEWA’s obligations through the School Curriculum and Standards Authority, and its Vision for Learning.
Catholic Education Western Australia Executive Director Wayne Bull said any decisions made about introducing new technology into schools and classrooms are made to ensure students are receiving the highest quality teaching in a modern learning environment.
“The introduction of Nurture’s AI-powered teaching assistant is intended to increase the depth of feedback every student receives and reduce teacher workload so that they can spend more classroom time focused on teaching and improving outcomes for their students,” Mr Bull said.
“I look forward to seeing the results of the Pilot as it progresses over the first part of the year,” he said.
CEO of Nurture, David Neville, said the partnership with Catholic Education Western Australia marks a first-of-its-kind deployment of the Nurture AI Teaching Assistant within a major school system together with Microsoft.
“Combining best practices from a pedagogical standpoint with the industry-leading data protection and technical standards of a system like CEWA is something we as a team are incredibly excited about,” Mr Neville said.
“We’re confident that this pilot will demonstrate how AI-enabled teachers can provide feedback that transforms learning outcomes at scale while reducing teacher workload on low-impact tasks” he concluded.
The ten schools taking part in the Pilot are: Emmanuel Catholic College; Iona Presentation College; Kolbe Catholic College; Lumen Christi College; Mandurah Catholic College; Mater Dei College; Prendiville Catholic College; Sacred Heart College; Seton Catholic College; CEWA’s Virtual School Network (ViSN).