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Title
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Practice Without Pressure: Using a Teacher-Trained AI Agent to Build Exam Writing Skills in a Year 12 Girls' VCE Visual Arts Classroom
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Author
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Perri Winter
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Year Published
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2026
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Description
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Over many years of teaching senior art, I noticed a persistent gap: students demonstrating genuine artistic sophistication in studio work were frequently unable to reproduce the same depth of thinking in written exam responses. This action research study investigated how a teacher-trained AI feedback agent, “Agent Art,” shaped ten Year 12 girls' independent exam preparation and analytical writing at Presbyterian Ladies' College (PLC) in Melbourne. I designed Agent Art as an exam practice partner trained on subject-specific content, rubrics, and Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) assessment criteria language. Using a mixed-methods, qualitative-led approach encompassing AI conversation logs, pre- and post-intervention surveys, a focus group, individual conversations, practice exam artefacts, and a reflexive researcher journal, I applied polyangulation and analysed data inductively through open, axial, and selective coding. I identified four themes as answers to the research question: girls engaged with Agent Art because they trusted the teacher behind it; they used it as a low-stakes space for checking and rehearsing rather than for high-stakes judgement; reading the conversation logs reshaped my teaching and in turn how girls prepared; and when the tool produced generic or inaccurate output, girls disengaged unless they had been taught to evaluate feedback critically. The findings suggest that a teacher-trained AI agent can meaningfully support girls' analytical writing when implemented with visible teacher oversight, relational trust, and explicit teaching of critical feedback literacy.
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Tags
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Technology, Teaching and Learning
