AI for Education: Individualized Code Feedback for Thousands of Students

This post is authored by Matthew Calder, Senior Business Strategy Manager, and Ke Wang, Research Intern at Microsoft. There are more than 9,000 students enrolled in the Microsoft Introduction to C# course on edX.org. Although course staff can't offer the type of guidance available in an on-campus classroom setting, students can receive personalized help, thanks to a project from Microsoft Research. When a student's assignment contains mistakes, that student--within seconds--receives a message specific to their code submission. Beyond just informing the student that their program doesn't work, Microsoft has created a tool which automatically generates feedback that precisely identifies errors and even hints at how to correct them.