A University of Washington College of Education program that uses AI and chatbots to assist K-12 teachers was selected this week as a national center for research and development into the use of generative artificial intelligence as a teaching tool.
The U.S. Department of Education named four centers under an initiative called Using Generative Artificial Intelligence to Augment Teaching and Learning in Classrooms (U-GAIN). The UW will receive a $10 million grant to support the creation of the AmplifyGAIN center.
The new center’s work will focus on a chatbot assistant called Colleague AI that UW researchers released free to K-12 teachers earlier this year. Colleague AI helps educators craft lesson plans. Its initial focus was math and it is expanding to add science instruction.
The grant will support the development of new product features, the launch of a pilot study of Colleague AI’s impact on teacher productivity and student outcomes, training teachers and administrators in the use of the product, and other efforts.
AmplifyGAIN will be housed within the college’s existing AmplifyLearn.AI center. The overarching program secured multiple grants from the National Science Foundation totaling about $3.8 million that will fund improvements to Colleague AI and work on data science training for professionals.
The new national center is unique for bringing together higher education, private companies, the K-12 school systems and a think tank “to enhance the nation’s capacity in AI research, product development and implementation in teaching and learning,” said Min Sun, director of Artificial Intelligence for Education in the UW’s College of Education and leader of the Colleague project, by email.
About 1,300 teachers and administrators are using Colleague AI, and the UW is working with six Washington school districts to study its impact.
Related news: Chatbots for teachers: Univ. of Washington releases free AI tool for quicker, better lesson plans
https://ift.tt/YU2cTS6 September 19, 2024 at 11:19PM GeekWire
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