By Daniel Strain

Principal investigator
Sidney D’Mello

Funding
National Science Foundation (NSF)

Collaboration + support
Brandeis University; Colorado State University; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of California, Berkeley; University of Colorado Boulder College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), Institute of Cognitive Science, and School of Education; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Artificial intelligence in classrooms could add up to real advances in education

Take a seat in the classroomof tomorrow—where intelligentcomputers work side-by-side withgroups of students to support theirengagement in meaningful andproductive learning experiencesdesigned by their teachers.

That’s the vision of a new $20 millionresearch collaboration led by CUBoulder called the U.S. NationalScience Foundation (NSF) AI Institutefor Student-AI Teaming. The effort isexploring the role artificial intelligencecould play in the future of educationand workforce development, especiallyin providing new learning opportunitiesfor students from historicallyunderrepresented populations.

Sidney D’Mello, an associateprofessor in the Institute of CognitiveScience (ICS) and the Department ofComputer Science, leads the newinstitute. The five-year project willbring together a team of researchersfrom nine universities in closecollaboration with two public schooldistricts and many private companiesand community leaders. It will alsotap researchers from across the CUBoulder campus.

“We aim to advance a new science ofteaming,” D’Mello said. “We have a lotof knowledge of what makes effectivehuman-human teams. The next phaseis understanding what underlieseffective human-agent teams. In ourcase, that means students, AI andteachers working together.”

The project team hopes that its workwill also inspire kids from Coloradoand beyond to get excited abouttopics like AI and computer science.

“This center aligns with our visionof producing research that quicklytranslates into meaningful societalimpact,” said Keith Molenaar, interimdean of the College of Engineeringand Applied Science.

D’Mello explained that his team’s worktouches on a problem that’s familiar toanyone who’s set foot inside a K–12classroom recently.

“Researchers and educatorshave talked about how importantcollaboration is to effective learningfor a long time,” D’Mello said. “It’s justreally hard to do that in a classroombecause the teacher can’t beomnipresent.”

Imagine an intelligent agent that couldfollow what groups of students aretalking about, then ask questions orprovide feedback to enhance theirlearning. At the same time, the agentworks with teachers, helping themorchestrate more effective classroominteractions, such as by providingsummaries of the small groupdiscussions.

To make such a reality happen, thenew institute focuses on three mainchallenges: In the first, researcherswork to develop new advances in thefundamental science of how machinesprocess human language, gesturesand emotions.

“Our AI partner needs to engageseamlessly with multi-party, studentledconversations in noisy classroomsettings,” said Martha Palmer, coprincipalinvestigator on the projectand professor in the Department ofLinguistics. “This poses many novelchallenges for speech recognitionas well as dialogue understanding,making iSAT the most daunting andthe most exciting project any of ushave ever been involved in.

Next, the team strives to betterunderstand how students, AI andteachers can collaborate effectively inboth classrooms and remote learningcontexts. Last, researchers will go toclassrooms in Denver Public Schoolsand other school partners to askstudents and teachers to help themthink up new ideas for technologies.

The idea of intelligent machines inschools might make some parentsuneasy. The project, however, drawson an approach to research called“responsible innovation” to developtools that schools actually need.

“Community members must beincluded from the very beginningwhen it comes to designing anddeveloping technology that will bedeployed in schools—this includesinvolving students, teachers, parentsand other community leaders,”said Tamara Sumner, who is part ofthe new institute’s leadership teamand the director of ICS, as well as aprofessor of computer science.

William Penuel, a member of theleadership team and professor in theSchool of Education, added that AI isonly going to become a bigger part ofour world in the next few decades—so kids need to know how it worksand how it can work responsibly.

“Students need to understandhow AI functions in the world now,including its potential role in buildinga ‘surveillance economy,’ and how itcan help communities design togetherfor a more just future,” he said.