About AIPLA

Generative AI in upper-secondary physics education

The premise

Danish upper-secondary students already use generative AI — mostly through consumer chatbots, mostly without explicit teaching about appropriate use. AIPLA engages with the current condition rather than a future hypothetical: the interface, the model, and the pedagogical layers between them all matter.

The project investigates how generative AI can be meaningfully integrated into upper-secondary (stx) physics education in Denmark — for teaching and for formative and summative assessment. The goal is not to maximise AI use, nor to suppress it, but to find configurations where AI productively supports learning rather than substituting for it.

A core design principle: the most interesting tasks are those that AI cannot fully solve but can productively support a student in solving. Designing assignments and bot configurations that hit that target is much of the project’s research substance.

Method

AIPLA follows an ADDIE cycle over three years:

flowchart LR
    A[Analyze<br/>curriculum, AI capability,<br/>teacher dialogues] --> D[Design<br/>scaffolding,<br/>bot configs,<br/>infrastructure]
    D --> Dev[Develop<br/>bot infra,<br/>sim/game tools,<br/>eval instruments]
    Dev --> I[Implement<br/>classroom<br/>deployment]
    I --> E[Evaluate<br/>interactions,<br/>perspectives,<br/>outcomes]
    E -.iterate.-> A

The unit of analysis is classroom practice. Research instruments include teacher dialogues, classroom observations, anonymised student–AI chat logs, and pre/post measures of student understanding.

Research questions

How can generative AI support students in:

  1. Solving exam problem sets — productive tutoring without just producing solutions; what scaffolds work?
  2. Making experiments — supporting design, troubleshooting, and data interpretation in ways that strengthen rather than displace experimental reasoning. Danish physics teaching places strong emphasis on experimental work.
  3. Exploring physics conceptually — can AI act as a Socratic counterpart in conceptual dialogue?
  4. Making presentations — oral and written communication are part of how Danish physics is assessed; what is AI’s appropriate role?

Outputs

The project’s outputs are intended for multiple audiences:

  • Peer-reviewed research — papers on the analysis, the technical evaluation, and the classroom findings
  • Teacher seminars and resources — material that supports Danish physics teachers in integrating AI into their practice
  • Stakeholder engagement — with DASG, the Danish national physics-education subject consultant, and the Ministry of Education
  • Open-source tooling — software and documentation released under permissive licences at end of project, where compatible with GDPR and institutional considerations

Context

The project is hosted by the Center for Digital Education at the University of Copenhagen, working with Danish upper-secondary (stx) physics teachers and the national subject community.