Making algebra as easy as 1, 2, 3: WPI researcher using AI to aid middle school teachers

Worcester Polytechnic Institute research Erin Ottmar was awarded a $700,000 grant to develop technology to help middle school math teachers.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute research Erin Ottmar was awarded a $700,000 grant to develop technology to help middle school math teachers.

WORCESTER — Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Erin Ottmar hopes that when she is finished with her project, middle school teachers may be able to better understand how their students think of math and solve math problems.

After receiving a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Ottmar will spend the next five years designing and developing real-time artificial intelligence tools that will allow teachers to better help their students in algebra by using data collected from digital math programs.

"My research generally is really focused on perceptual learning and understanding how students solve strategies," Ottmar said. "Finding new ways to get the teachers to be the real changemakers and help them do their job better, more efficiently is a really big focus of this project, as opposed to having technology take the place of the teacher."

Surprised and excited about being awarded the grant, she said that the technology will help teachers by collecting data from problem-solving technology students use in the classroom to, "make those patterns that are invisible in the data more visible to teachers."

She said teachers would be presented with information about their students problem-solving thought processes as they work with the technology.

"This project can help them focus more on working directly with the students and talking with the students as opposed to grading or doing more of the more cognitively demanding tasks," Ottmar said.

She said that her experience from her time as an elementary school teacher, as well as her research from her doctorate work, helped inspire the new technology.

"I focused a lot on math education and teacher discussions and discourse in the classroom," Ottmar said. "The transition from fourth to eighth grade is where a lot of kids really struggle with changing from more elementary mathematics to more abstract thinking and so my research has always focused on that transition and that shift to algebra."

Math game

This is not the first piece of education technology Ottmar has developed as she has also developed a digital math game called "From Here to There," with funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

The digital math game used Graspable Math, a technology Ottmar helped develop, and which, "are the tools that were used to collect the data," from the math game.

She said the data collected from that program, which included a study involving 4,000 students playing the game during the pandemic, will be used as a starting point for the new project.

"We have data from tens of thousands of hours of kids using those tools and solving problems," she said. "We're using that data to really understand how kids think about math problem solving."

The program, "should make it more visible for teachers so that they can better support students when they're using tools in the classroom," she said.

It will also be piloted by teachers in classrooms. Although still too early to know where, Ottmar said, she would like to involve local school districts if possible.

"One thing about this project is it's a co-design project, so the idea would be to work closely with local teachers throughout the whole design process," she said. "My hope is that I would be able to work with teachers from Worcester and surrounding areas."

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Erin Ottmar receives science grant