Project Profile

The rapid advances in large language models (LLMs) have presented tremendous opportunities to create interactive, personalized learning resources on a large scale. To fully harness the educational potential of these technologies, it is crucial that teachers - who are at the forefront of daily student interaction and possess indispensable knowledge and expertise - serve as key contributors in the process. This time-sensitive project addresses the urgent need for viable mechanisms to empower teachers to harness the capabilities of LLMs through a teacher-AI collaboration paradigm in the context of learning through video. The research team will partner with WGBH Educational Foundation (GBH), Boston?s PBS station, to support teachers in creating and customizing an intelligent tutor that accompanies the STEM learning resources available on PBS LearningMedia, a platform already popular among teachers nationwide, with a comprehensive library of over 5,000 high quality STEM-focused videos and millions of users. This proposal was received in response to the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL): Rapidly Accelerating Research on Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education in Formal and Informal Settings (NSF 23-097) and funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.

Intelligent tutors will be incorporated into videos and pose comprehension questions to students and provide personalized feedback during video viewing. The team will iteratively design and develop a teacher-AI collaborative platform that allows teachers to oversee the intelligent tutors? generation of question sequences and feedback. The platform will provide "LLM building blocks" for teachers to steer LLMs to generate desirable outputs. Thus, teachers maintain control over the tutors' instructional dialogue with students, ensuring such dialogue aligns with teachers? instructional objectives and the unique needs of their students. The team will then generate evidence demonstrating the feasibility and potential effectiveness of the proposed mechanism and specific design strategies that enable non-technical domain experts to have significant involvement in the development of AI-based educational resources. This project has the potential for a substantial broader impact, as it builds upon the existing PBS LearningMedia platform. This ensures the sustainability of the proposed platform and reach a large number of educators. By making the platform publicly available, this research will enable educators to continue generating interactive videos that cater to their specific educational needs. This work holds the promise of democratizing access to AI for teachers and promoting their active involvement in the production of AI-based learning resources.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.