New AI features in Microsoft’s Learning Accelerators

A few weeks back I mooted that what better way to start this academic year’s blog then where we left off last June, discussing generative AI in the classroom and a quick review of what’s been covered since shows that it’s most definitely the hottest topic in digital learning currently and I suspect it will remain so for the foreseeable. So not to go off topic, I wanted to revisit Microsoft’s Learning Accelerators, covered previously here but this time to look specifically at how these learning tools form Microsoft have been further enhanced with the power of AI.

Learning Accelerators PDF Guide screenshot
Learning Accelerators Quick Start Guide (PDF)

To recap, Learning Accelerators are a suite of tools designed to help personalise learning through independent practice with instant feedback. They focus on developing digital literacy, speaking, presentation, maths and literacy skills. Each accelerator includes a coach tool for students and a progress monitoring tool for teachers. Currently there are three Coach tools available namely Reading Coach, Search Coach & Speaker Coach with a Math(s) Coach coming soon. Search, Speaker (and soon to be released Maths) Coaches are included in Microsoft 365 Education (Free to all schools) whilst Reading Coach has been available as a standalone app (In preview form) since January. All Learning Accelerators are continually evolving with new AI-powered capabilities designed to help teachers prepare, review, and analyse assignments more efficiently. Read on for a list of some of the highlights….

Support reading comprehension with Reading Progress

Reading Progress tracks your students’ reading skills, provides insights quickly, and identifies specific areas for improvement. It’s latest AI features include:

  • Passage generation: Generate a passage directly in Reading Progress and use insights to personalise it based on the needs of your class and individual students. Select a topic, age, length, and language, and easily adjust the complexity of the passage once it has been generated.
  • Comprehension questions: Generate comprehension questions based on specific reading passages. Specify the number of questions you want to generate and customise the passage complexity. Reading Progress uses AI to draft an initial question set that you can review and tailor to your students’ needs.

Personalise reading practice with Reading Coach

Reading Coach provides personalised, AI-powered reading fluency practice for all learners. It helps students develop literacy skills by earning achievements and unlocking new story elements as they read. The AI features in Reading Coach include:

  • AI-generated stories: Students can create their own stories by choosing a character, setting, and reading level, and follow their own path through the story by choosing what happens in each chapter.  
  • Passage library and adding your own content: Students can choose from a reading level-appropriate library of passages from ReadWorks. They can also add their own content to practice reading.
  • Personalised and engaged practice: For every 20 minutes of reading any content, students can unlock a new character for their next story. Each reading session is also followed by targeted practice and coaching session on challenging words.

Develop communicaton skills with Speaker Progress

Speaker Progress coaching tool that can help your students develop their communication and speaking enabling them to practice in private so removing the pressures of speaking in front of the whole class The AI-powered features in Speaker Progress sinclude:

  • Realtime presentation evaluation: AI helps evaluate the presenter with realtime feedback on their presentation skills, including pace, pitch, filler words and body language, helping students make adjustments on the fly.
  • Personalised rehearsal report: An AI-generated rehearsal report provides detailed analysis of each presentation. This report allows students to review their performance and improve their verbal delivery with each attempt.
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