Professor Wiseman
An always-available course tutor that guides students toward answers instead of handing them over.
The problem
Students hit their hardest moment at 11pm, not during office hours. General-purpose AI will happily do the assignment for them, which solves the wrong problem.
The idea
A course-scoped tutor constrained to Socratic behavior: it asks, hints, and checks — it does not produce submittable work.
What it does
- Answers questions within the boundaries of the course material.
- Responds with hints and counter-questions before explanations.
- Refuses to generate deliverable answers for graded work.
How it works
- 1
Scoped
Grounded in the actual course content and vocabulary.
- 2
Socratic
Hint-first response policy.
- 3
Bounded
Declines to write the assignment.
Research connection
Student Learning through on-demand support; Academic Integrity through deliberate constraint.
See the research pillarsDesign decisions
- Hint-first is a policy decision, not a model limitation.
- Course-grounded so it does not confidently teach something the course never covered.
Behavioral design
Productive friction: a small delay before the answer is where the learning happens.
Classroom use
In development for use alongside analytics courses.
What I learned
- Students test the boundary within minutes; the constraint has to be explained, not just enforced.
Related work