Large language models (LLMs) have been employed in various intelligent educational tasks to assist teaching. While preliminary explorations have focused on independent LLM-empowered agents for specific educational tasks, the potential for LLMs within a multi-agent collaborative framework to simulate a classroom with real user participation remains unexplored. In this work, we propose SimClass, a multi-agent classroom simulation framework involving user participation. We recognize representative class roles and introduce a novel class control mechanism for automatic classroom teaching, and conduct user experiments in two real-world courses. Utilizing the Flanders Interactive Analysis System and Community of Inquiry theoretical frame works from educational analysis, we demonstrate that LLMs can simulate traditional classroom interaction patterns effectively while enhancing user's experience. We also observe emergent group behaviors among agents in SimClass, where agents collaborate to create enlivening interactions in classrooms to improve user learning process. We hope this work pioneers the application of LLM-empowered multi-agent systems in virtual classroom teaching.

翻译：大语言模型（LLMs）已被应用于多种智能教育任务中以辅助教学。尽管初步探索主要集中在针对特定教育任务的独立LLM赋能智能体，但LLM在多智能体协作框架内模拟真实用户参与的课堂的潜力仍有待探索。在本工作中，我们提出了SimClass，一个涉及用户参与的多智能体课堂模拟框架。我们识别了典型的课堂角色，引入了一种新颖的课堂控制机制以实现自动化课堂教学，并在两门真实课程中进行了用户实验。利用教育分析领域的弗兰德斯互动分析系统和探究社区理论框架，我们证明LLMs能够有效模拟传统课堂互动模式，同时提升用户体验。我们还观察到SimClass中智能体之间涌现的群体行为，智能体通过协作创造出生动的课堂互动以改善用户学习过程。我们希望这项工作能开创LLM赋能的多智能体系统在虚拟课堂教学中的应用先河。