Mountain ridge rising above a sea of clouds at sunrise
PhD defense · TU Delft

Sequences in Data to Represent Learning Processes

Manuel Valle Torre
7 October 2026

It’s not about arriving first, but knowing how to arrive.Jose Alfredo Jiménez

Snow-capped volcano half hidden in cloud

What have you
tried until now?

The problem, long before AI

We teach the process. We grade the product.

In the lab

“What have you
tried until now?”

Homework, exams, automated graders

“Did you get the right answer?”

Then AI arrived

Same homework. Very different learning.

Struggles through it tries, fails, asks why, tries again ? ? ? Asks the AI one prompt, one paste </> homework.py
The question

If the finished work tells us nothing, what do we look at instead?

The process. We can identify what a student needs, and when.

Calm inland sea with islands at dusk
Phase 1 of 3 · Look

Can existing data show how students work?

It missed the errors, and it had no AI in it.

Field of frailejón plants in thick fog
Phase 2 of 3 · Build

A tutor that sees the process as it happens

Built into the notebooks students already use, so it can respond to how they work.

Jagged granite peaks with glaciers under a clear blue sky
Phase 3 of 3 · Support

Help students ask better questions

In classrooms and online, while the work is still happening.

What we saw

From rubber duck to solution vending machine

Before
Student
explains
Rubber duck

Explaining the problem is how you find it.

With AI
Student
explains
AI

The answer arrives. The thinking doesn’t.

Empty sand dunes under a blue sky
What we found

Left alone, bad habits with AI don’t fix themselves.

Students who started with “fix this for me” kept asking that way, week after week.

The hopeful part

We can see these habits, support them, and change them.

A short lesson

Changed how students asked for help

A small acknowledgment

Noticing a better question kept them trying

One lever. There are more to find.

Early results, from small groups.

What this means

Three things we can do now

Teachers

Teach how to ask a good question, not only how to find the answer.

Toolmakers

Design for restraint: a hint before the answer.

Institutions

Measure the journey, not only the finished product.

A loaded touring bicycle on a long empty road across the Patagonian steppe

When the final answer reveals nothing about the learning that occurred to produce it, the process is all we have left.

Thank youManuel Valle Torre
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