It’s 1:47 a.m. in a Georgia Tech dorm room. A bleary-eyed student is staring down a homework problem that refuses to make sense. The professor is asleep. Classmates aren’t texting back. Even the caffeine has lost its jolt.

It’s the kind of late-night dead end that pushed the instructors of one particularly tough class to build their own backup: a custom artificial intelligence (AI) tutor created specifically for that course.

They call it the SMART Tutor, short for Scaffolded, Modular, Accessible, Relevant, and Targeted. It guides students through each problem step by step, checks their reasoning, references class notes, and flags mistakes. Instead of handing over solutions, it shows students how to work through them.

That distinction matters most to Ying Zhang, senior associate chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who created the tool.

“Unlike ChatGPT, the tutor doesn’t just give answers,” Zhang said. “We want to teach students how to approach the problem, think critically, and become self-regulated learners.”

Born From One Infamously Tough Class

The idea for the SMART Tutor came from a course that had challenged students for years: Circuit Analysis (ECE 2040). It’s a foundational class for electrical engineering undergraduates and historically one of the most difficult in the curriculum.

Zhang saw the same pattern semester after semester. Students often needed help at the exact moment it wasn’t available.

“Many students study late into the evening,” she said. “They cannot really attend office hours during the day because of either class or work schedules. So, basically, when students work at night on their homework and get stuck, they have no one to go for help.”

Students were working late into the night; support wasn’t. Zhang and her colleagues set out to change that.

Office Hours, Upgraded

Their solution: The SMART Tutor which relies solely on course materials, NOT the open internet. When students upload their completed work, the tutor checks the calculations, the reasoning, and whether the solution holds up in practice, not just on paper. It also provides constructive feedback and shares insights with instructors, helping them identify common misconceptions and adjust in-class instruction.

Students select a homework problem and watch the system break it down step by step. It also answers broader conceptual questions using lectures and notes.

“The students, the SMART Tutor, and the instructor work as a team to help students learn,” Zhang said.

Student-Tested, Professor-Approved

During a semester-long pilot with 50 students, Zhang did not require anyone to use the tutor. But nearly everyone did.

“Most students felt the AI tutor helped them learn more effectively and at their own pace,” she said. “They valued the immediate feedback and the chance to learn from mistakes in real time.”

Nidhi Krishna, a computer engineering major, used the tutor as a sounding board when she got stuck.

“What helped most was being able to show my work and ask, ‘Where did I go wrong?’” Krishna said.

She approached it like she would a teaching assistant, working through problems independently and asking for guidance rather than solutions. Students also valued something else: help that showed up at the right moment.

Teaching Students to Think

What stood out to Zhang wasn’t improved grades. It was what the tutor revealed about how students learn.

By analyzing interaction data, she saw two patterns: students who asked questions to understand, and those who used the system to confirm answers. The difference revealed a deeper gap in learning strategies.

“Some students, especially those who need help most, lack strong learning skills,” Zhang said. “Students with lower academic preparation were more likely to ask guess-and-check questions instead of seeking deeper explanations.”

That insight is already shaping the next version of the tutor.

The SMART Tutor is now part of a broader vision called NEAT: Next-Generation Engineering Education with AI Tutoring. Zhang plans to expand the NEAT framework across Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and eventually to partner institutions.

One factor fueling that growth is affordability. The system costs about $300 per semester for a class of 50 students, a price Zhang believes most programs can absorb. The academic return, she said, far outweighs the cost.

Always Awake, Always Ready

There will always be a 1:47 a.m. somewhere on campus.

When everything stops making sense, students won’t have to give up or wait for the next day’s office hours. The SMART Tutor won’t solve the problem for them, but it will remind them they can solve it themselves.

After midnight, that may be far more useful than another cup of coffee.