Building a School AI: Encouraging Critical Thinking, Not Just Answers

Hello everyone,

I’m an educator and technology coordinator at a K-12 school, and I’m looking to build a custom AI model that serves as the go-to assistant for my students. However, I don’t want just another AI that provides answers—I want to create an AI that challenges students to think critically, question information, cross-check sources, and continue investigating beyond the initial response.

In essence, I’d like to develop an AI that not only responds but also acts as a mentor, prompting students with follow-up questions, suggesting alternative perspectives, and guiding them toward deeper learning. Ideally, this model would be hosted locally at my school, ensuring privacy and full customization to fit our educational approach.

Some key aspects I’m considering:

  • LLM choice: Which open-source models would be best suited for this kind of interaction?
  • Fine-tuning: What approaches would be most effective for training the AI to challenge students rather than just answering directly?
  • Implementation: Would it be better to deploy this as a chatbot, an interactive learning assistant, or something else?
  • Ethics & Bias: How can I ensure that the AI remains balanced and promotes genuine inquiry without reinforcing biases?

I’d love to hear from anyone who has worked on similar projects or has insights into how I might approach this. Any advice, recommendations, or resources would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

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I think it’s called the so-called Reasoning LLM. I think a lot of knowledge is being gathered.

I think it is also closely related to Chain Of Thought (CoT).