skip to main content


Title: A spatiotemporal analysis of teacher practices in supporting student learning and engagement in an AI-enabled classroom
Research indicates that teachers play an active and important role in classrooms with AI tutors. Yet, our scientific understanding of the way teacher practices around AI tutors mediate student learning is far from complete. In this paper, we investigate spatiotemporal factors of student-teacher interactions by analyzing student engagement and learning with an AI tutor ahead of teacher visits (defined as episodes of a teacher being in close physical proximity to a student) and immediately following teacher visits. To conduct such integrated, temporal analysis around the moments when teachers visit students, we collect fine-grained, time-synchronized data on teacher positions in the physical classroom and student interactions with the AI tutor. Our case study in a K12 math classroom with a veteran math teacher provides some indications on factors that might affect a teacher’s decision to allocate their limited classroom time to their students and what effects these interactions have on students. For instance, teacher visits were associated more with students’ in-the-moment behavioral indicators (e.g., idleness) than a broader, static measure of student needs such as low prior knowledge. While teacher visits were often associated with positive changes in student behavior afterward (e.g., decreased idleness), there could be a potential mismatch between students visited by the teacher and who may have needed it more at that time (e.g., students who were disengaged for much longer). Overall, our findings indicate that teacher visits may yield immediate benefits for students but also that it is challenging for teachers to meet all needs - suggesting the need for better tool support.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2119501
NSF-PAR ID:
10470772
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Editor(s):
Wang, N.; Rebolledo-Mendez, G.; Matsuda, N.; Santos, O.C.; Dimitrova, V.
Publisher / Repository:
Springer
Date Published:
Edition / Version:
Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2023
Page Range / eLocation ID:
450-462
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Spatial analytics Temporality Teaching Student Engagement Human-AI Partnership Multimodality
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Cham
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Viberg, O. ; Jivet, I. ; Muñoz-Merino, P. ; Perifanou, M. ; Papathoma, T. (Ed.)
    Past research shows that teachers benefit immensely from reflecting on their classroom practices. At the same time, adaptive and artificially intelligent (AI) tutors are shown to be highly effective for students, especially when teachers are involved in supporting students’ learning. Yet, there is little research on how to support teachers to reflect on their practices around AI tutors. We posit that analytics built on multimodal data from the classroom (e.g., teacher position, student-AI interaction) would be beneficial in providing effective scaffolding and evidence for teachers’ collaborative reflection on human-AI hybrid teaching. To better understand the design opportunities and constraints of a future tool for teacher reflection, we conducted storyboarding sessions with seven in-service teachers. Our analysis revealed that certain modalities (e.g., position v. video) might be more beneficial and less constrained than others in identifying reflection-worthy moments and trends. We discuss teachers’ needs for reflection in classrooms with AI tutors and their boundaries in using multimodal analytics. 
    more » « less
  2. Blikstein, P. ; Van Aalst, J. ; Kizito, R. ; Brennan, K. (Ed.)
    Past research shows that teacher noticing matters for student learning, but little is known about the effects of AI-based tools designed to augment teachers’ attention and sensemaking. In this paper, we investigate three multimodal measures of teacher noticing (i.e., gaze, deep dive into learning analytics in a teacher tool, and visits to individual students), gleaned from a mixed reality teacher awareness tool across ten classrooms. Our analysis suggests that of the three noticing measures, deep dive exhibited the largest association with learning gains when adjusting for students’ prior knowledge and tutor interactions. This finding may indicate that teachers identified students most in need based on the deep dive analytics and offered them support. We discuss how these multimodal measures can make the constraints and effects of teacher noticing in human-AI partnered classrooms visible. 
    more » « less
  3. null (Ed.)
    Orchestration tools may support K-12 teachers in facilitating student learning, especially when designed to address classroom stakeholders’ needs. Our previous work revealed a need for human-AI shared control when dynamically pairing students for collaborative learning in the classroom, but offered limited guidance on the role each agent should take. In this study, we designed storyboards for scenarios where teachers, students and AI co-orchestrate dynamic pairing when using AI-based adaptive math software for individual and collaborative learning. We surveyed 54 math teachers on their co-orchestration preferences. We found that teachers would like to share control with the AI to lessen their orchestration load. As well, they would like to have the AI propose student pairs with explanations, and identify risky proposed pairings. However, teachers are hesitant to let the AI auto-pair students even if they are busy, and are less inclined to let AI override teacher-proposed pairing. Our study contributes to teachers’ needs, preference, and boundaries for how they want to share the task and control of student pairing with the AI and students, and design implications in human-AI co-orchestration tools. 
    more » « less
  4. As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly enters K-12 classrooms, what do teachers and students see as the roles of human versus AI instruction, and how might educational AI (AIED) systems best be designed to support these complementary roles? We explore these questions through participatory design and needs validation studies with K-12 teachers and students. Using human-centered design methods rarely employed in AIED research, this work builds on prior findings to contribute: (1) an analysis of teacher and student feedback on 24 design concepts for systems that integrate human and AI instruction; and (2) participatory speed dating (PSD): a new variant of the speed dating design method, involving iterative concept generation and evaluation with multiple stakeholders. Using PSD, we found that teachers desire greater real-time support from AI tutors in identifying when students need human help, in evaluating the impacts of their own help-giving, and in managing student motivation. Meanwhile, students desire better mechanisms to signal help-need during class without losing face to peers, to receive emotional support from human rather than AI tutors, and to have greater agency over how their personal analytics are used. This work provides tools and insights to guide the design of more effective human–AI partnerships for K-12 education. 
    more » « less
  5. Bringing Research into the Classroom (BRIC) engaged rural K-12 science teachers in sustained, mentored science research. BRIC’s goal was to equip teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to provide high-quality biomedical research opportunities for K-12 students and teachers. Programmatic elements included authentic, place-based, microbiology outreach in K-12 classrooms, summer teacher research academies focused on content knowledge and research, and a capstone symposium. Over 9,000 Montana students collected and tested environmental samples to isolate new-toscience bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). University scientists, faculty, and students mentored K-12 teachers and students during classroom outreach visits and teacher research academies. BRIC aimed to increase teacher and student bacteriophage content knowledge and research skills through meaningful, mentored research projects. BRIC researchers hypothesized greater program impacts from intensive teacher professional development combined with classroom outreach, compared to classroom outreach visits alone. Program evaluation compared two cohorts of teachers, which each received all programmatic elements through a four-year, staggered rollout. Teachers and students were assessed for gains in knowledge, skills, and science attitudes. A subset of our evaluation instruments and outcomes, program dissemination, lessons learned, and recommendations for replicating the BRIC model are discussed. 
    more » « less