Award-Winning Instructional AI Platform Launches New Product to Teach All Students How to Write with Confidence

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Aug 18, 2023, 09:00 ET

Available to students across the globe, Packback's Writing Lab builds on research-backed AI writing and engagement platform to bring the writing center to students' fingertips, providing powerful real-time feedback to boost critical thinking

CHICAGO, Aug. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Packback, whose award-winning Instructional AI platform for student writing and engagement is used at over 600 institutions in the U.S and Canada, today announced the launch of Writing Lab, a direct-to-student AI writing platform that provides interactive writing coaching to help students improve their writing and build AI literacy skills. With the launch of Writing Lab, Packback will incorporate structured GPT-powered feedback while maintaining its foundations in student-centered pedagogy, student privacy, and academic honesty.

"Our faculty and academic leadership recognize that AI isn't going away, and if we want our students to use it academically honestly, we must lead by example and embrace it progressively and constructively. As our partner in generative AI, Packback enables us to provide our learners with supportive tools that fulfill AI's potential as a coach and a tutor, instead of a last-minute shortcut," said Jeffrey Alexander, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Truckee Meadows Community College. "With the advent of Writing Lab, we will soon be able to help all of our students to write more effectively, which enables instructors to focus on teaching and grading more substantial themes across a variety of disciplines. In this way, TMCC is demonstrating to students that AI can be a legitimate and powerful support for the creative process, rather than a substitute."

Writing Lab is Packback's first tool designed for every student to access a personalized AI Writing Assistant on all of their academic writing, regardless if their instructor has added it to their course. The platform extends Packback's current feedback capabilities by integrating Generative AI to offer more in-depth feedback on students' content, including detecting logical fallacies in the student's work, finding any unsupported factual claims, suggesting possible counterpoints to claims, checking for correct academic tone, detecting and suggesting improvements to the structure of essays, and more.

Using Generative AI, the feedback in Writing Lab supports students' ability to "chat" with their AI writing assistant, allowing students to ask for holistic feedback, ask follow-up questions, work through writer's block, and get explanations about any piece of feedback they've received. To help teach students how to effectively interact with Generative AI, Writing Lab will suggest questions to students to ask their AI Writing Assistant, which are dynamically updated based on what students are writing at that time.

"Writing Lab offers a new paradigm for using AI in a structured, academic way that both takes full advantage of the benefits of AI for student feedback and builds AI literacy by teaching students how to engage with AI tools in responsible ways," said Jessica Tenuta, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Packback. "The Writing Lab platform never 'writes' for the student using AI; it teaches students how to use AI to improve their writing and develop their own unique voice. At a time when AI detection tools are coming under greater scrutiny due to equity and accuracy concerns, we're working to prevent academic dishonesty from happening in the first place — by building students' foundational writing skills and giving them the confidence they need to write their own words and express their unique voice."

Writing Lab integrates with every major LMS, allowing districts and universities that partner with Packback to extend access to every student. In addition, students can access Writing Lab themselves through a subscription service if it isn't offered at their institution.

"I just love the feedback. I am a very hesitant writer and I always seek someone to constantly look over my work," said a student from the University of Illinois who has used Packback's AI writing platform since fall 2022. "With Packback's AI I do not have that fear anymore and have become a much more confident writer."

Packback, which recently announced a trailblazing partnership with the AVID Center, has been building more engaging and motivating classrooms through instant AI writing coaching for students and AI grading assistance for instructors since 2016. Research shows that use of Packback leads to 32% more As and over 50% fewer Ds, Fs, and Ws, and helps faculty save over 30% of their time spent grading writing assignments.

On September 14th at 11:30 AM CT, Packback Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Jessica Tenuta, and Packback CTO, Dr. Craig Booth, are co-hosting a webinar for the launch of Writing Lab. Register Here.

About Packback
Packback is a digital writing and research tutor for every student, along with a digital grading assistant for every teacher. Packback's mission is to help every student discover their unique voice and the writing skills to express it. Packback's AI-enabled platform helps students build and master foundational skills such as critical thinking, writing, and research. Packback's proprietary AI and machine learning technology provides inquiry-based online discussion and long-form writing support to over 8,000 instructors and over 1.5 million students, and is being used in hundreds of K-12 and higher education courses. To learn more, visit http://www.packback.co.

SOURCE Packback