The latest in AI-powered pedagogy: Three great new capabilities on the way for AVA

# LMS

# AI

8 minute read

The conversation around AI in higher education is evolving. As captured in this reflection from our VP of Academic Transformation, Dr. Lisa Clark , attendees at our recent Building Blackboard Together conference expressed a more nuanced view of AI than in previous years; one that has moved beyond hype to look at grounded evidence of pedagogical impact.

We continue to expand the capabilities in Blackboard LMS: AVA in line with this trend, informed by feedback from hundreds of institutions that have experimented with AVA to date. As announced in our recent Blackboard LMS roadmap , there are three exciting additions set to go into production before the end of the year.

AVA Pulse Quiz: Personalized AI Quizzes (Now: 1-3 months)

The AI Conversation continues to be a favorite feature for many Blackboard LMS institutions. Included within the core license, the Socratic Questioning and Role Play activities have combined to enrich the learning journeys of more than 380,000 students, with leading schools like the University of South Carolina adopting it to teach practical skills in a digital setting.

AVA institutions will soon have exclusive access to a third AI Conversation activity: Pulse Quiz. This uses the course context to set a personalized quiz for each student, then provides immediate feedback based on their responses. This is a great way for students to test their own knowledge, identify areas where they need to dedicate additional time, and prepare for more formal assessments.

The new Pulse Quiz activity, coming soon to Blackboard LMS: AVA. Existing AI Conversation activities – Socratic Questioning and Role Play – remain part of the core Blackboard LMS license.

AVA Virtual Assistant: AI Support for Students (Next: 3-6 months)

Among the foundational features of AVA is Responses to Student Messages , wherein AI assists instructors by responding to common inquiries received from the student. Answers are based exclusively on information included in course content, with more complex questions left for the instructor to respond to. This functionality has seen students receive important information up to two hours faster , while also reducing the administrative burden weighing down faculty.

Feedback from our Community highlighted a key opportunity to further strengthen this capability: by bringing it out of messages and making it available to students across the LMS. The AVA Virtual Assistant will do just this, via a new window that students can access at any time and move around the screen as they work. Institutions and instructors maintain control over which courses have the AVA Virtual Assistant enabled, and responses are still based exclusively on information within the course.

The AVA Virtual Assistant is coming soon to Blackboard LMS, replacing AVA Responses to Messages.

AVA Formative Feedback: AI-powered Formative Assessment (Next: 3-6 months)

Over the last twelve months, our Future of Assessment Working Group has provided a forum for hundreds of our partner institutions to discuss the challenges and opportunities for assessment in the AI era. A key theme here has been feedback; more specifically, how AI might be able to final unlock something that educators have long dreamed of – formative feedback at scale. A new whitepaper on this theme is coming soon, as previewed here .

These insights have been directly incorporated into our development of AVA. In the coming months we’ll be releasing AVA Formative Feedback, which allows students to check their work against the grading rubric prior to submission, developing self-assessment and independent learning skills. Instructors still grade and provide feedback on the final submission, while also allowing them to review how the student’s draft has evolved over time.

AVA Formative Feedback, coming soon to Blackboard LMS

If you haven’t yet purchased an AVA license, you will still be able to try these capabilities in your test/stage environment until the end of 2026. Existing AVA features like AVA Feedback and AVA Playground are available there today, while the above capabilities will enter test environments upon release.

Want to see the new AVA capabilities in action? Speak with your Blackboard account representative or click here to book a demo .

*Note – release timings and details for features are subject to change. Monitor monthly release notes for the latest information.

FAQs

What is Blackboard LMS: AVA?

The AI Virtual Assistant (AVA) is a set of premium AI capabilities available for Blackboard LMS. These are focused on advancing pedagogy, via improved feedback, engagement AI-powered tasks, and equitable access to a range of AI models for instructors and students.

How does Blackboard use AI in education?

Blackboard LMS uses AI to make education more efficient and engagement. This includes our AI Design Assistant, which provides instructors inspiration for course structure, content, assessment, and grading rubrics; our exclusive AI Conversation, which allows real world scenarios to be replicated in a safe, digital environment; and AVA, our premium suite of AI tools for advancing pedagogy.

All these capabilities are backed by the Blackboard Trustworthy AI Approach to ensure responsible application in education.

What is AVA Pulse Quiz?

AVA Pulse Quiz is a new activity type within Blackboard LMS, coming soon exclusively for institutions with an AVA license. Using the AI Conversation workflow that faculty and students already know and love, the Pulse Quiz delivers a personalized quiz for every student to test their knowledge on key concepts. Institutions are excited to use this for test preparation and other valuable revision tasks within courses.

What is the AVA Virtual Assistant?

The AVA Virtual Assistant allows students to quickly access information about their courses. It is embedded natively within the LMS, allowing students a permanent virtual assistant for common inquiries such as due dates and where to access key content. Responses are based exclusively on information available within the course.

This will replace the existing AVA Messages functionality.

How does AVA Formative Feedback work?

AVA Formative Feedback allows students to check their work against the grading rubric prior to submission. This not only allows them to strengthen their final response, but also promotes skills of self-assessment. When grading the final submission, the instructor has full visibility on what was submitted to AVA Formative Feedback and the suggestions that were provided by AI.

How can AI support formative assessment?

AI supports formative assessment by making it scalable. Many institutions and instructors have longed believed the in the benefits of formative assessment, however found it time consuming and difficult to extend to every learner. As AVA Formative Feedback demonstrates, AI offers an opportunity to embrace formative assessment practices – without the instructor ceding the control of their course.

For more information in this area, check out our recent white paper.

How can AI provide personalized feedback to students?

AI can assist with the personalization of feedback, however not at the expense of instructor oversight. AVA Feedback provides suggestions to instructors on how they might be able to improve feedback to learners, but everything is reviewed and approved by the instructor before it goes to the student. Similarly, AVA Formative Feedback helps students develop their work prior to submission, but the grading and feedback process from the instructor remains unchanged.

How does Blackboard LMS: AVA support instructors?

Blackboard LMS: AVA supports instructors in a variety of ways. It provides suggestions to strengthen their feedback to learners, it saves them time by handling a lot of common inquiries from students, it allows them exciting activities to add engagement to their courses, and it provides them with access to a range of AI models for their own experimentation and related tasks they might wish to set for their students.

None of these capabilities require the instructor to cede control. They maintain full transparency on when AI is used, and AI suggestions are only applied in courses with the instructor’s approval.

Is Blackboard LMS: AVA included with Blackboard LMS?

Blackboard LMS: AVA is designed to perfectly complement Blackboard LMS. It applies consistent workflows that are familiar to users and can be easily implemented within administrator settings.

As of 1^st July 2026, AVA is a premium capability that requires a specific license. Institutions who haven’t purchased an AVA license can still experiment with the tools in their test/stage environment until the end of 2026.

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