How Do Teachers Create Pedagogical Chatbots?: Current Practices and Challenges

Abstract: AI chatbots have emerged as promising educational tools for personalized learning experiences, with advances in LLMs enabling teachers to create and customize these chatbots for their specific classroom needs. However, there is a limited understanding of how teachers create pedagogical chatbots and integrate them into their lessons. Through semi-structured interviews with seven K-12 teachers, we examined their practices and challenges when designing, implementing, and deploying chatbots. Our findings revealed that teachers prioritize developing task-specific chatbots aligned with their lessons. Teachers engaged in various creation practices and had different challenges; novices in chatbot creation struggled mainly with initial design and technical implementation, while experienced teachers faced challenges with technical aspects and analyzing conversational data. Based on these insights, we explore approaches to supporting teachers' chatbot development and opportunities for designing future chatbot creation systems. This work provides foundational insights from teachers that can empower teacher-created chatbots, facilitating AI-augmented teaching.