Student struggles in math remain a major area of concern in K-12 schools as educators search for ways to get students on track with academic recovery and keep them engaged in learning overall.
The recent bleak results from “the nation’s report card” revealed that student performance in math remains below pre-pandemic levels. The data show lackluster results in both 4th and 8th grade, and district and school leaders are searching for the support and the insights that could produce academic breakthroughs.
Some educators see technology, including fast-evolving forms of artificial intelligence, as having the potential to alleviate learning loss and provide targeted assistance to teachers and students.
The role of artificial intelligence, however, is deeply unsettled in school systems. Many district administrators and classroom educators see the technology as having enormous potential to streamline teachers’ work and customize content delivery. Yet they also have many doubts about whether it will undermine students’ critical thinking and reinforce biases.
EdWeek Market Brief recently conducted a survey among K-12 leaders to gauge their overall views of AI’s potential in math instruction, as well as what they would want AI to accomplish if it were woven into a math product.
The nationally representative online survey was conducted by the EdWeek Research Center in November and December of 137 district leaders and 217 school leaders. It was published as part of an EdWeek Market Brief special report, “What’s Next for the K-12 Math Market,” detailing district spending priorities and top classroom needs in that subject.
One aspect of the special report looked at the kind of impact K-12 officials expect AI to have, overall, on math teaching and learning over the next five years. The results were largely optimistic about the burgeoning technology.
A strong majority of respondents (69%) said they believe the tech will have either a somewhat or very positive impact on math instruction. Just 13% said it will be somewhat or very negative, and 17% said that it will be neutral or have no impact.
The district and school leaders were also asked in the survey what kinds of AI features in a math resource would lead them to recommend it for adoption in their district or school.
According to the results, district and school leaders would be most likely to recommend a math product if it uses AI to help them identify where students need extra support or are falling behind in math. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they would recommend math products that accomplish those things.
This was followed closely by 61% who said they would recommend math resources that use AI to help teachers create lessons or classroom resources, and 59% who want AI-enabled ways to encourage students to understand why they get an answer wrong and how they can improve.
The K-12 leaders surveyed were not as inclined to tout a math resource that uses AI to help students with their homework (28%), and if it reduces or eliminates biases from lessons (21%).
Jie Chao, a learning scientist at the Concord Consortium, said the survey results reflect the potential that K-12 leaders see in using AI to create individualized approaches to instruction.
“Students are losing interest in math,” said Chao, whose research and development organization aims to improve STEM education through the use of technology. “All these instruction-support needs, in terms of feedback and guiding, tutoring, and personalization — AI could really help.”
A lot of education occurs outside of schools, Chao said. There are opportunities for AI to help not only classroom educators, but also community leaders and parents, to help students’ understanding of concepts.
The potential is strong among parents who may not have the background knowledge or resources to put into extracurricular math programs or personalized tutoring, she said.
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Even within traditional classrooms, the use of artificial intelligence can help reframe curriculum to fit into the context of a student’s community, she added.
For example, a smaller district in a rural farming town with access to fewer resources can use AI to personalize curriculum to concepts that students have grown up around. It may be difficult and time-consuming for teachers to manually tailor each lesson, but AI can help contextualize content to relevant examples like ranching and farming.
The survey reveals that leaders from smaller districts find more value than those from larger K-12 systems in artificial intelligence capabilities that help teachers create math lesson plans and classroom resources.
Seventy-four percent of these respondents were district and school leaders from K-12 systems with fewer than 2,500 students, compared to 52% from districts of between 2,500 and 9,999 students; and 41% from districts with enrollments of 10,000 or more.
Solving Through Modeling
Chao said her research has also shown that students are more engaged with math learning when the instruction is centered in solving open-ended, real-world problems.
Artificial intelligence can help teachers create lessons that are engaging and practical, and reflect the “modeling” students will be asked to do in everyday contexts, she said.
With many math classroom resources today, “there are word problems, and students have to use linear functions to solve [them], but that’s not what math modeling is,” she said. “Math modeling is about planning for a day trip or party — all of these problems in real life that you need to solve, and there’s no written word problem for you.”
Students embrace the opportunity to apply themselves to lessons on topics that mirror practical problems, she said.
“We’ve had teachers do this and tell us that they see a very different side of their students in math classrooms,” Chao said.
The burden on providers of math curriculum and related products, she said, is to develop technology responsibly to alleviate the problems that districts are trying to solve, Chao added.
Education companies “must understand the ecosystem within the school and the community in developing the technology, she said. “That means bringing [educators] alongside as developers and designers to understand their needs and concerns.”