By Amy Townsend
On October 28, 2021, Carnegie Learning Inc. announced that it has been awarded a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education – to be received over a five-year period.
This blog gives some more information about this grant and evaluates what this means for intelligent education.
What Was the Grant For?
This grant was awarded to field test improvements to Carnegie Learning’s MATHia software and boost equity in mathematics education. MATHia is an AI-powered software that personalizes just-in-time feedback to give students their own personal math coach.
Carnegie Learning will use grant to field test improvements to MATHia
Carnegie Learning’s Plan
With this grant, Carnegie Learning will join SEERnet, a research network comprised of five research teams. Each team plans to leverage existing, well-known digital learning platforms to perform education research and ultimately contribute to changing policies and improving student outcomes. The research team will integrate MATHia with UpGrade, in anticipation to help teachers better guide learning both on MATHia, and in the classroom.
Carnegie Learning Founder and Chief Scientist, Dr. Steven Ritter, stated, “This grant expands our opportunity to accelerate student learning for all by testing a wide range of improvements to MATHia, and it further advances best practices in mathematics classrooms. It also allows us to collaborate with other researchers, so we can more efficiently innovate in the digital learning space with multiple strands of research.”
Bottom Line
We are all aware that the pandemic propelled the shift to digital in many, if not all, industries. This grant is just one example of the investment industries are making to digitally transform. When schools were forced to function online, it opened doors to new possibilities in education. By using intelligent software to give students a personalized approach, it enables students to learn at their own pace and get extra help in troubling areas. This is just one example of the way that artificial intelligence is empowering change in our everyday lives.