July 29, 2025 • 24 mins
Prof. Dr. paed. Dipl.-Math. Mike Altieri is a professor of Media Didactics in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Media, and Computer Science at Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden (OTH Amberg-Weiden) in Bavaria in Germany. He teaches in the Master's programme in Educational Technology and leads the research project Dreiklang.
Projekt Dreiklang is funded by Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre and contributes to the improvements in using portfolios in Germany in higher education.
In this interview Mike shares how he uses the artificial intelligence reflection bot Riff with his students to encourage deeper and more meaningful reflection in their portfolios and how he incorporates his students' work in their portfolios into his lectures.
Resources
- Mike's OTH web page
- Sign-up for free access to the Dreiklang ePortfolio starter kit (some information is in English)
- Publications by the Dreiklang project team
- Map of institutions using portfolios in Germany (and beyond). This map is in the early stages. Get in touch with Mike if you want to be listed.
- Blog post introducing Riff: 'Reflecting with AI: A Tool to Develop Human Intelligence'
Recordings of the AAEEBL AI webinar series, including recording 'Supporting reflection through an AI powered reflection bot'
Related episodes
- Christina Stollner & Romy Hösl: Portfolio support for educators and learners
- Dr Leticia Britos Cavagnaro: Make learning visible
- Prof Dr Paul Libbrecht and Prof Dr Wolfgang Müller: Support your portfolio learning with AI
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:27):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today, my guest is Prof Dr MikeAltieri from Ostbayerische
Technische HochschuleAmberg-Weiden (OTH
Amberg-Weiden). If you listenedto Episode 69 with Christina
Stollner and Romy Hösl, youwould have already heard his
(00:48):
name. Christina mentioned thathe is using the reflection bot
Riff with his students in theirportfolio work. I wanted to
learn more about that and thusinvited him. Thank you very much
for sharing your experience,Mike.
Mike Altieri (01:02):
You're very welcome.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:04):
What do you do at OTH Amberg-Weiden?
Mike Altieri (01:08):
I'm a professor of Media Didactics in the Faculty
of Electrical Engineering,Media, and Computer Science. My
work focuses on designing andresearching innovative forms of
digital and hybrid teaching.
This includes areas like digitalexercises, of course,
(01:28):
ePortfolios, and the integrationof AI in education. One of my
main areas of focus here is theEducational Technology
Programme, which can be studiedentirely online or on campus, so
hybrid. Overall, I'm passionateabout using technology to
(01:49):
enhance learning and to supportstudents in developing
reflective, future ready competencies.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:56):
You also have a project, the Projekt
Dreiklang, where Christina andRomy are also members, which is
funded by the StiftungInnovation in der
Hochschullehre.
Mike Altieri (02:12):
Yes, that's right.
Now we transferred the outcomeof this project into our
university to make itcontinuously available.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:23):
That's fantastic that you do have the
opportunity to create thatsustainable practice, embed the
practice of portfolios at yourinstitution, and that you can
also continue with that work.
Mike Altieri (02:37):
That was very important from the beginning
that we use the moneyresponsibly. Now we have it
integrated into our daily workat university. This was a great
advantage to have this project,and now we can use the outcome
of the project and continue thework.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:58):
And also work together with other institutions
as Romy and Christina hadalready told us, which is great
to have that network available.
Mike Altieri (03:06):
Yes, we also set up a website where people can
connect using ePortfolios inGermany or even outside of
Germany. So we have a lot ofconnections, and there is a very
vivid community here in Germany.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:25):
You came across portfolios five years
ago. How did that come about?
Mike Altieri (03:30):
I started working with ePortfolios, I think it was
2019. I introduced them into myteaching because I wanted to
address three specific goals.
First, I wanted to encouragestudents to ask more questions.
I had noticed that during myformer lectures or traditional
(03:51):
lectures, students rarely askquestions, not because they
didn't have any but because theyneeded time to process the
material first. By adding adedicated space for questions in
the ePortfolio, the number ofstudent questions increased
dramatically, in a positivesense, in some courses, up to
(04:14):
tenfold. This is the reason whytoday, I reserve the first 30
minutes of each lecture just torespond to these questions from
the ePortfolios.
Second, I aim to strengthenstudents' reflective skills by
(04:35):
making structured reflection aregular part of their learning
processes. And third, I wantedto create a way for students to
preserve and revisit theirknowledge over time. This is
something that traditionallecture formats often don't
support. I experienced thatePortfolios have proven to be a
(04:58):
very effective tool forachieving all these three goals.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:03):
I find it fascinating that you use the
first 30 minutes of the nextclass to answer your students'
questions. How long are yourclasses?
Mike Altieri (05:14):
They are two times 90 minutes.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:16):
You also mentioned that your students are
asking way more questions thanthey did in the past. Are they
then also asking more questionsduring those 30 minutes? And
then do you get into aconversation with them?
Mike Altieri (05:30):
There is some conversation, but the main part
is to answer all thesequestions, and then the lecture
goes on in the usual way.
Afterwards, they have tosummarise the lecture in their
ePortfolio, and when theysummarise and reflect on it,
they automatically producequestions, a lot of questions,
(05:52):
and they write it down in theePortfolio. Then I pick it up,
present it within the next classor lecture, and discuss this
with them.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:06):
Since your students continue asking
questions, I assume they enjoythis practice and working this
way and being able to ponder thecontent that they have absorbed,
that they are learning, and thenasking questions afterwards,
before the next class?
Mike Altieri (06:22):
Yes, they feel that they get deeper than
before.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:27):
In the episode with Christina and Romy,
Christina had mentioned that youare using Riff, the AI powered
reflection bot. That wasdeveloped by Dr Letitia Britos
Cavagnaro at the d.school atStanford University. How do you
incorporate the reflection botinto your practice?
Mike Altieri (06:48):
Reflection is one part of the ePortfolio. My
students have to create a siteafter each lecture that contains
five subsections. First acontent summary. Second, a
reflection. Third, questions.
The fourth part is 'The mostimportant thing I learned
(07:10):
today,' and the fifth part istheir homework. I think most of
the questions arise inconnection with filling out this
reflection part, but maybe alsoby filling out the content
summary.
I use Riff as a tool to supportmy students in developing their
(07:32):
reflection skills, which areoften a little bit
underdeveloped at the beginningbecause many students tend to
confuse reflection with summary.
Their so called 'reflections'are often just a repetition of
the course content, rather thana deeper engagement with their
learning process. Here Riffreally helps and changes that
(07:56):
immediately because it providesprompts, AI-generated prompts
and questions, that guidestudents toward meaningful
reflection, encouraging them tothink critically, make
connections, and expresspersonal insights. For example,
it might ask 'What challengedyou today?' or 'How could this
(08:20):
be applied in a differentcontext?' These nudges shift
students away from a puresummary toward reflective
thinking.
In my lectures, the use of Riffis voluntary, and indeed,
students engage with it indifferent ways. Some use it once
(08:44):
and never again, others use itoccasionally, and some, after a
first experience, use itcontinuously.
Kristina Hoeppner (08:53):
What do you have to provide to the students
who want to use Riff?
Mike Altieri (08:59):
I only give them the link to the Riff bot, and
then they can start reflectingabout what they have learned.
There is an initial introductionby the Riff bot, and after this,
the conversation starts.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:16):
Do you customise that initial prompt
for the students, or do you usethe standard question that Riff
offers?
Mike Altieri (09:25):
I customised it a little bit. The Riff bot
introduces himself and tells thestudents why he is here and what
is his aim. After this, the botasks the first question.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:42):
That's a very interesting use case of
generative AI because typicallythe chatbots give us answers,
but in the case of riff, it'sactually only asking questions.
Mike Altieri (09:54):
Yes, there is a new option for lecturers in Riff
that I think is very excitingand interesting because
lecturers can now choose betweendifferent types of bots. There
are now eight available bots. Itried them out. For me, the most
interesting one was a bot thatasked questions from the
(10:19):
student's self in the future. Itwill be a discussion between the
student and the student a fewyears later.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:30):
I like Riff very much because it does have
the theory on reflection and howto reflect built into it. You
had mentioned that typicallywhen students initially think
about reflection, it is just asummary, just a description of
what they had done. And that iswhere Riff is really helping
because it takes you deeper intothat reflection, following the
(10:53):
reflection framework of 'What?
So what? Now what?' So thatinitially there is that summary,
and then it is going into the'So what?' So how did you feel?
What have you learned? And thenlooking forward into the future.
Now, what are you going to takewith you for future classes or
future explorations?
Mike Altieri (11:16):
Whenever students use Riff, even just once, the
quality of their reflectionstends to improve significantly.
Their writing becomes morefocused, more personal, and more
reflective, not only in thereflective part of the
portfolio. Instead of simplysummarising content, they begin
to ask themselves deeperquestions, connect ideas, and
(11:40):
think more critically abouttheir learning.
I've also noticed that studentswho use Riff often develop a
more consistent and structuredreflection habit, and so their
ePortfolio entries show moredepth over time and often reveal
a clearer awareness of their ownlearning process. What's
(12:01):
especially interesting is thatthis happens without any direct
instruction or grading pressurefrom me. Riff acts as a kind of
reflective mirror, guidingstudents gently but effectively
toward better thinking. For somestudents, this is a turning
point in how they understand anduse reflection as a learning
(12:25):
tool.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:26):
Do you then, for those that don't use the
tool, give specific reflectivequestions that they should be
answering?
Mike Altieri (12:35):
I actually started using fixed reflection
questions. I provided studentswith guiding prompts to help
them structure their reflectionsand think more deeply about the
learning. But in my experience,this didn't work very well. Some
students may not even havenoticed those suggestions, and
(12:58):
others didn't really engage withthem. For me, it was essentially
a one way communication. I wasproposing questions they might
ask themselves, but there was noreal interaction.
A bot like Riff changes that. Itactively requires engagement.
That means students write theirreflections and immediately
(13:21):
receive tailored follow-upprompts based on what they
actually wrote. This makes theprocess interactive, adaptive,
and, of course, much more effective.
There are students that don'tuse these fixed questions and
don't use Riff. What about them?
Then we talk about reflectivecompetencies. Some have very
(13:45):
good reflective competencies,and they don't need tools like
Riff, and they don't need theseguiding questions. But I would
say this is a minority. Themajority is not really aware
what reflection means and how itworks. For those students, it's
(14:06):
very important to have somescaffolding, and here,
scaffolding by Riff is much moreeffective than a scaffolding by
fixed questions. This part ofthe students, their reflection
competencies are quite poor, Iwould say. If they don't use
tools like Riff, it alwaysremains some kind of summary,
(14:30):
summary of the content when theyshould reflect about the
content.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:39):
Yeah, the adaptive questions, I find, are
what makes a big difference sothat students can think about
their specific context. Because,of course, while in your case,
your students sit in the samelecture so get the same initial
input from you, they are stilltaking it on differently, have
different experiences, and withfixed questions, you might get
(15:03):
more similar answers, whereasRiff can pick up on those
experiences because what ittypically does is it mirrors
back the response from thestudent and then asks another
question.
Mike Altieri (15:15):
This kind of flexibility is especially
valuable in higher educationwhere I teach because here
students vary widely inexperience and also in
self-awareness. Riff canchallenge each learner
appropriately, not too littleand not too much, and help
(15:36):
create a learning experiencethat is both personal and
cognitively engaging.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:43):
Do students encounter portfolios only in
your lectures or are portfoliosbuilt throughout their entire
study programme?
Mike Altieri (15:53):
Yes, indeed, portfolios are a part of the
entire study programme, but asfar as I know, I'm the only one
that uses Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:02):
You had said that you are changing the
initial prompt that Riff gives.
So it does have an interface foreducators where you can see all
the responses, and there havealso been made additions, where
you can now filter responses andlook for certain categories. Are
you making use of any of thesefeatures that you see on the
(16:24):
back-end of it?
Mike Altieri (16:28):
No, I don't use this educator interface. I make
this very, very clear to mystudents. The conversation
between the students and theRiff bot can be very personal. I
want to protect this privatespace. If I read their
conversations, some studentsmight hesitate, or it could also
(16:51):
lead to answers that sound morelike what they think I want to
hear. That's why I completelystay out of it. Instead,
students can decide what theywant to share. They are asked to
summarise their reflection intheir ePortfolio, and some write
(17:12):
it in their own words, otherscopy the whole chat with Riff.
So this is completely up tothem.
I want them to feel free and incontrol of their own reflection
process. Reflection competencysounds abstract, but reflection
is not abstract. It's very, verypersonal, or it can be very,
(17:37):
very personal. The students getinto deeper discussions with the
bot, also comparing theirlearning process with former
learning process in theirschools, and they mention
personal experiences. So I wouldlike that it's up to them to
share this part of theirconversation with me in the
(18:00):
ePortfolio or not.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:03):
Do you sometimes use Riff yourself for
your own reflections?
Mike Altieri (18:08):
Yes, not very often, but whenever I have to
bring ideas forth, for example,when writing an application,
then I use Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:19):
How does it help you in that practice? Does
it help you brainstorm?
Mike Altieri (18:23):
Yes, I use it for brainstorming.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:26):
I'll have to give that a go. Mike, have you
asked your students how theyfeel using Riff, the ones that
are using it and the studentswho are not using it, do you
know why they are not using it?
Mike Altieri (18:41):
The students who use Riff continuously, they
regard Riff as a conversationalpartner or a conversational
agent, and they really like it,and they see the benefits. Of
course, there are some studentswho don't like this kind of
conversation, and this issimilar to the case some
(19:04):
students don't like to writetexts.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:08):
Yeah, because Riff does rely on you typing
responses. I did see one versionof it where Leticia was also
experimenting with voicecontrol. That, of course, is
also very interesting to see howthat then changes the reflection
altogether.
Mike Altieri (19:26):
Yes, this is interesting. I tried it out, but
it does not work with Germanlanguage so good. Maybe we have
to wait a little bit.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:35):
Are there some other ways of how you would
like to use AI in your portfoliopractice? Because we've now been
talking about the reflection andstudents getting more
personalised prompts. Is thereanything else that you are maybe
already currently exploring orthat you want to look into more?
Mike Altieri (19:52):
With respect to Riff, I already mentioned that I
would like to try out thesedifferent types of bots that are
now available. Another very bigtopic is AI-based feedback. We
all know giving good feedback onePortfolios takes a lot of time,
especially in large classes. Ithink it's one reason why some
(20:18):
lecturers who would like to useePortfolios, don't use them
because they have classes withmore than 100 students, and it
takes a lot of time, even ifthey use peer feedback, to have
a look on all these ePortfolios.
We are currently experimentingwith using AI to support this
(20:38):
process, and what we have seenso far is that the quality of
the prompts really matters, andthe quality of the feedback
differs extremely betweendifferent large language models.
We are learning a lot at themoment, and we put a lot of
(21:00):
effort in this topic, and wewill share our first results at
the conference soon.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:08):
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that
conference room. Thank you somuch for sharing all that you do
with Riff in regards toreflection as part of your
portfolio practice, Mike. Itwill be interesting to see how
your students continue to use itand then hopefully also in other
parts of your study programme,so that they can continue with
(21:31):
their good reflection practice.
Now to our last three questions,and the first one is, which
words or short phrases do youuse to describe portfolio work?
Mike Altieri (21:44):
I would describe portfolio work as reflective,
personal, and a great use casefor AI in education.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:56):
What tip do you have for learning designers
or instructors who createportfolio activities?
Mike Altieri (22:03):
Give students a clear structure to start with,
but also enough freedom to makethe portfolio their own. If
possible, integrate regularmoments for feedback or sharing,
even if it's peer feedback. Beaware that reflection doesn't
come naturally to everyone. Sostudents often need support in
(22:27):
learning how to reflect, andthis is where tools like Riff
can be very helpful.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:34):
Last but not least, what advice do you have
for portfolio authors, for yourstudents?
Mike Altieri (22:40):
Take your portfolio seriously, not for the
grade, but for yourself. It'snot just a task to complete, but
a space to think, to question,and to grow. Don't just describe
what you did. Try to make senseof why it mattered, what you
learned from it, and how itconnects to your goals and other
(23:03):
topics. At the beginning,reflection can feel very
unusual, but the more regularlyyou do it, the more valuable it
becomes. And at last, rememberyour portfolio is not for your
lecturer, it's for you, so makeit something that you would want
to look back on in a year ortwo.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:27):
Thank you so much for all these tips for
everybody who's been listeningto this episode. Mike, I also
look very much forward to seeingyou and your colleagues in a few
weeks in person, and maybe wecan take a look at how you're
using AI for feedback.
Mike Altieri (23:47):
Thank you, Kristina, for the interview and
for the invitation.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:54):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with Prof DrMike Altieri. Head to our
website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
Our next episode will air in twoweeks. It would be wonderful if
(24:18):
you told a colleague, so theycan listen as well. Until then,
create, share, and engage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:27):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today, my guest is Prof Dr MikeAltieri from Ostbayerische
Technische HochschuleAmberg-Weiden (OTH
Amberg-Weiden). If you listenedto Episode 69 with Christina
Stollner and Romy Hösl, youwould have already heard his
(00:48):
name. Christina mentioned thathe is using the reflection bot
Riff with his students in theirportfolio work. I wanted to
learn more about that and thusinvited him. Thank you very much
for sharing your experience,Mike.
Mike Altieri (01:02):
You're very welcome.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:04):
What do you do at OTH Amberg-Weiden?
Mike Altieri (01:08):
I'm a professor of Media Didactics in the Faculty
of Electrical Engineering,Media, and Computer Science. My
work focuses on designing andresearching innovative forms of
digital and hybrid teaching.
This includes areas like digitalexercises, of course,
(01:28):
ePortfolios, and the integrationof AI in education. One of my
main areas of focus here is theEducational Technology
Programme, which can be studiedentirely online or on campus, so
hybrid. Overall, I'm passionateabout using technology to
(01:49):
enhance learning and to supportstudents in developing
reflective, future ready competencies.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:56):
You also have a project, the Projekt
Dreiklang, where Christina andRomy are also members, which is
funded by the StiftungInnovation in der
Hochschullehre.
Mike Altieri (02:12):
Yes, that's right.
Now we transferred the outcomeof this project into our
university to make itcontinuously available.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:23):
That's fantastic that you do have the
opportunity to create thatsustainable practice, embed the
practice of portfolios at yourinstitution, and that you can
also continue with that work.
Mike Altieri (02:37):
That was very important from the beginning
that we use the moneyresponsibly. Now we have it
integrated into our daily workat university. This was a great
advantage to have this project,and now we can use the outcome
of the project and continue thework.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:58):
And also work together with other institutions
as Romy and Christina hadalready told us, which is great
to have that network available.
Mike Altieri (03:06):
Yes, we also set up a website where people can
connect using ePortfolios inGermany or even outside of
Germany. So we have a lot ofconnections, and there is a very
vivid community here in Germany.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:25):
You came across portfolios five years
ago. How did that come about?
Mike Altieri (03:30):
I started working with ePortfolios, I think it was
2019. I introduced them into myteaching because I wanted to
address three specific goals.
First, I wanted to encouragestudents to ask more questions.
I had noticed that during myformer lectures or traditional
(03:51):
lectures, students rarely askquestions, not because they
didn't have any but because theyneeded time to process the
material first. By adding adedicated space for questions in
the ePortfolio, the number ofstudent questions increased
dramatically, in a positivesense, in some courses, up to
(04:14):
tenfold. This is the reason whytoday, I reserve the first 30
minutes of each lecture just torespond to these questions from
the ePortfolios.
Second, I aim to strengthenstudents' reflective skills by
(04:35):
making structured reflection aregular part of their learning
processes. And third, I wantedto create a way for students to
preserve and revisit theirknowledge over time. This is
something that traditionallecture formats often don't
support. I experienced thatePortfolios have proven to be a
(04:58):
very effective tool forachieving all these three goals.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:03):
I find it fascinating that you use the
first 30 minutes of the nextclass to answer your students'
questions. How long are yourclasses?
Mike Altieri (05:14):
They are two times 90 minutes.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:16):
You also mentioned that your students are
asking way more questions thanthey did in the past. Are they
then also asking more questionsduring those 30 minutes? And
then do you get into aconversation with them?
Mike Altieri (05:30):
There is some conversation, but the main part
is to answer all thesequestions, and then the lecture
goes on in the usual way.
Afterwards, they have tosummarise the lecture in their
ePortfolio, and when theysummarise and reflect on it,
they automatically producequestions, a lot of questions,
(05:52):
and they write it down in theePortfolio. Then I pick it up,
present it within the next classor lecture, and discuss this
with them.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:06):
Since your students continue asking
questions, I assume they enjoythis practice and working this
way and being able to ponder thecontent that they have absorbed,
that they are learning, and thenasking questions afterwards,
before the next class?
Mike Altieri (06:22):
Yes, they feel that they get deeper than
before.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:27):
In the episode with Christina and Romy,
Christina had mentioned that youare using Riff, the AI powered
reflection bot. That wasdeveloped by Dr Letitia Britos
Cavagnaro at the d.school atStanford University. How do you
incorporate the reflection botinto your practice?
Mike Altieri (06:48):
Reflection is one part of the ePortfolio. My
students have to create a siteafter each lecture that contains
five subsections. First acontent summary. Second, a
reflection. Third, questions.
The fourth part is 'The mostimportant thing I learned
(07:10):
today,' and the fifth part istheir homework. I think most of
the questions arise inconnection with filling out this
reflection part, but maybe alsoby filling out the content
summary.
I use Riff as a tool to supportmy students in developing their
(07:32):
reflection skills, which areoften a little bit
underdeveloped at the beginningbecause many students tend to
confuse reflection with summary.
Their so called 'reflections'are often just a repetition of
the course content, rather thana deeper engagement with their
learning process. Here Riffreally helps and changes that
(07:56):
immediately because it providesprompts, AI-generated prompts
and questions, that guidestudents toward meaningful
reflection, encouraging them tothink critically, make
connections, and expresspersonal insights. For example,
it might ask 'What challengedyou today?' or 'How could this
(08:20):
be applied in a differentcontext?' These nudges shift
students away from a puresummary toward reflective
thinking.
In my lectures, the use of Riffis voluntary, and indeed,
students engage with it indifferent ways. Some use it once
(08:44):
and never again, others use itoccasionally, and some, after a
first experience, use itcontinuously.
Kristina Hoeppner (08:53):
What do you have to provide to the students
who want to use Riff?
Mike Altieri (08:59):
I only give them the link to the Riff bot, and
then they can start reflectingabout what they have learned.
There is an initial introductionby the Riff bot, and after this,
the conversation starts.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:16):
Do you customise that initial prompt
for the students, or do you usethe standard question that Riff
offers?
Mike Altieri (09:25):
I customised it a little bit. The Riff bot
introduces himself and tells thestudents why he is here and what
is his aim. After this, the botasks the first question.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:42):
That's a very interesting use case of
generative AI because typicallythe chatbots give us answers,
but in the case of riff, it'sactually only asking questions.
Mike Altieri (09:54):
Yes, there is a new option for lecturers in Riff
that I think is very excitingand interesting because
lecturers can now choose betweendifferent types of bots. There
are now eight available bots. Itried them out. For me, the most
interesting one was a bot thatasked questions from the
(10:19):
student's self in the future. Itwill be a discussion between the
student and the student a fewyears later.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:30):
I like Riff very much because it does have
the theory on reflection and howto reflect built into it. You
had mentioned that typicallywhen students initially think
about reflection, it is just asummary, just a description of
what they had done. And that iswhere Riff is really helping
because it takes you deeper intothat reflection, following the
(10:53):
reflection framework of 'What?
So what? Now what?' So thatinitially there is that summary,
and then it is going into the'So what?' So how did you feel?
What have you learned? And thenlooking forward into the future.
Now, what are you going to takewith you for future classes or
future explorations?
Mike Altieri (11:16):
Whenever students use Riff, even just once, the
quality of their reflectionstends to improve significantly.
Their writing becomes morefocused, more personal, and more
reflective, not only in thereflective part of the
portfolio. Instead of simplysummarising content, they begin
to ask themselves deeperquestions, connect ideas, and
(11:40):
think more critically abouttheir learning.
I've also noticed that studentswho use Riff often develop a
more consistent and structuredreflection habit, and so their
ePortfolio entries show moredepth over time and often reveal
a clearer awareness of their ownlearning process. What's
(12:01):
especially interesting is thatthis happens without any direct
instruction or grading pressurefrom me. Riff acts as a kind of
reflective mirror, guidingstudents gently but effectively
toward better thinking. For somestudents, this is a turning
point in how they understand anduse reflection as a learning
(12:25):
tool.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:26):
Do you then, for those that don't use the
tool, give specific reflectivequestions that they should be
answering?
Mike Altieri (12:35):
I actually started using fixed reflection
questions. I provided studentswith guiding prompts to help
them structure their reflectionsand think more deeply about the
learning. But in my experience,this didn't work very well. Some
students may not even havenoticed those suggestions, and
(12:58):
others didn't really engage withthem. For me, it was essentially
a one way communication. I wasproposing questions they might
ask themselves, but there was noreal interaction.
A bot like Riff changes that. Itactively requires engagement.
That means students write theirreflections and immediately
(13:21):
receive tailored follow-upprompts based on what they
actually wrote. This makes theprocess interactive, adaptive,
and, of course, much more effective.
There are students that don'tuse these fixed questions and
don't use Riff. What about them?
Then we talk about reflectivecompetencies. Some have very
(13:45):
good reflective competencies,and they don't need tools like
Riff, and they don't need theseguiding questions. But I would
say this is a minority. Themajority is not really aware
what reflection means and how itworks. For those students, it's
(14:06):
very important to have somescaffolding, and here,
scaffolding by Riff is much moreeffective than a scaffolding by
fixed questions. This part ofthe students, their reflection
competencies are quite poor, Iwould say. If they don't use
tools like Riff, it alwaysremains some kind of summary,
(14:30):
summary of the content when theyshould reflect about the
content.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:39):
Yeah, the adaptive questions, I find, are
what makes a big difference sothat students can think about
their specific context. Because,of course, while in your case,
your students sit in the samelecture so get the same initial
input from you, they are stilltaking it on differently, have
different experiences, and withfixed questions, you might get
(15:03):
more similar answers, whereasRiff can pick up on those
experiences because what ittypically does is it mirrors
back the response from thestudent and then asks another
question.
Mike Altieri (15:15):
This kind of flexibility is especially
valuable in higher educationwhere I teach because here
students vary widely inexperience and also in
self-awareness. Riff canchallenge each learner
appropriately, not too littleand not too much, and help
(15:36):
create a learning experiencethat is both personal and
cognitively engaging.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:43):
Do students encounter portfolios only in
your lectures or are portfoliosbuilt throughout their entire
study programme?
Mike Altieri (15:53):
Yes, indeed, portfolios are a part of the
entire study programme, but asfar as I know, I'm the only one
that uses Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:02):
You had said that you are changing the
initial prompt that Riff gives.
So it does have an interface foreducators where you can see all
the responses, and there havealso been made additions, where
you can now filter responses andlook for certain categories. Are
you making use of any of thesefeatures that you see on the
(16:24):
back-end of it?
Mike Altieri (16:28):
No, I don't use this educator interface. I make
this very, very clear to mystudents. The conversation
between the students and theRiff bot can be very personal. I
want to protect this privatespace. If I read their
conversations, some studentsmight hesitate, or it could also
(16:51):
lead to answers that sound morelike what they think I want to
hear. That's why I completelystay out of it. Instead,
students can decide what theywant to share. They are asked to
summarise their reflection intheir ePortfolio, and some write
(17:12):
it in their own words, otherscopy the whole chat with Riff.
So this is completely up tothem.
I want them to feel free and incontrol of their own reflection
process. Reflection competencysounds abstract, but reflection
is not abstract. It's very, verypersonal, or it can be very,
(17:37):
very personal. The students getinto deeper discussions with the
bot, also comparing theirlearning process with former
learning process in theirschools, and they mention
personal experiences. So I wouldlike that it's up to them to
share this part of theirconversation with me in the
(18:00):
ePortfolio or not.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:03):
Do you sometimes use Riff yourself for
your own reflections?
Mike Altieri (18:08):
Yes, not very often, but whenever I have to
bring ideas forth, for example,when writing an application,
then I use Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:19):
How does it help you in that practice? Does
it help you brainstorm?
Mike Altieri (18:23):
Yes, I use it for brainstorming.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:26):
I'll have to give that a go. Mike, have you
asked your students how theyfeel using Riff, the ones that
are using it and the studentswho are not using it, do you
know why they are not using it?
Mike Altieri (18:41):
The students who use Riff continuously, they
regard Riff as a conversationalpartner or a conversational
agent, and they really like it,and they see the benefits. Of
course, there are some studentswho don't like this kind of
conversation, and this issimilar to the case some
(19:04):
students don't like to writetexts.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:08):
Yeah, because Riff does rely on you typing
responses. I did see one versionof it where Leticia was also
experimenting with voicecontrol. That, of course, is
also very interesting to see howthat then changes the reflection
altogether.
Mike Altieri (19:26):
Yes, this is interesting. I tried it out, but
it does not work with Germanlanguage so good. Maybe we have
to wait a little bit.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:35):
Are there some other ways of how you would
like to use AI in your portfoliopractice? Because we've now been
talking about the reflection andstudents getting more
personalised prompts. Is thereanything else that you are maybe
already currently exploring orthat you want to look into more?
Mike Altieri (19:52):
With respect to Riff, I already mentioned that I
would like to try out thesedifferent types of bots that are
now available. Another very bigtopic is AI-based feedback. We
all know giving good feedback onePortfolios takes a lot of time,
especially in large classes. Ithink it's one reason why some
(20:18):
lecturers who would like to useePortfolios, don't use them
because they have classes withmore than 100 students, and it
takes a lot of time, even ifthey use peer feedback, to have
a look on all these ePortfolios.
We are currently experimentingwith using AI to support this
(20:38):
process, and what we have seenso far is that the quality of
the prompts really matters, andthe quality of the feedback
differs extremely betweendifferent large language models.
We are learning a lot at themoment, and we put a lot of
(21:00):
effort in this topic, and wewill share our first results at
the conference soon.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:08):
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that
conference room. Thank you somuch for sharing all that you do
with Riff in regards toreflection as part of your
portfolio practice, Mike. Itwill be interesting to see how
your students continue to use itand then hopefully also in other
parts of your study programme,so that they can continue with
(21:31):
their good reflection practice.
Now to our last three questions,and the first one is, which
words or short phrases do youuse to describe portfolio work?
Mike Altieri (21:44):
I would describe portfolio work as reflective,
personal, and a great use casefor AI in education.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:56):
What tip do you have for learning designers
or instructors who createportfolio activities?
Mike Altieri (22:03):
Give students a clear structure to start with,
but also enough freedom to makethe portfolio their own. If
possible, integrate regularmoments for feedback or sharing,
even if it's peer feedback. Beaware that reflection doesn't
come naturally to everyone. Sostudents often need support in
(22:27):
learning how to reflect, andthis is where tools like Riff
can be very helpful.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:34):
Last but not least, what advice do you have
for portfolio authors, for yourstudents?
Mike Altieri (22:40):
Take your portfolio seriously, not for the
grade, but for yourself. It'snot just a task to complete, but
a space to think, to question,and to grow. Don't just describe
what you did. Try to make senseof why it mattered, what you
learned from it, and how itconnects to your goals and other
(23:03):
topics. At the beginning,reflection can feel very
unusual, but the more regularlyyou do it, the more valuable it
becomes. And at last, rememberyour portfolio is not for your
lecturer, it's for you, so makeit something that you would want
to look back on in a year ortwo.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:27):
Thank you so much for all these tips for
everybody who's been listeningto this episode. Mike, I also
look very much forward to seeingyou and your colleagues in a few
weeks in person, and maybe wecan take a look at how you're
using AI for feedback.
Mike Altieri (23:47):
Thank you, Kristina, for the interview and
for the invitation.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:54):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with Prof DrMike Altieri. Head to our
website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
Our next episode will air in twoweeks. It would be wonderful if
(24:18):
you told a colleague, so theycan listen as well. Until then,
create, share, and engage.
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