PReMTA

NSF-funded research · Award #2236164

Practicing responsive math teaching with AI

We design AI-enhanced simulations where preservice teachers practice attending to, interpreting, and responding to children’s mathematical thinking — in a low-risk, interactive environment.

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Simulation · Comparing fractions
Grade 3

  1. Virtual student

    1/3 is bigger than 1/2, because 3 is bigger than 2.

  2. You (teacher)

    Interesting! Could you draw both fractions and show me how you compared them?

  3. Virtual mentor

    Nice move — your question invites the student to explain their reasoning instead of correcting them right away.

Illustrative example of a practice session

Overview

Helping future teachers build on students’ ideas

Our research team studies how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to support teachers’ development of responsive mathematics teaching. Responsive teaching allows teachers to promote students’ mathematical reasoning by attending students’ mathematical ideas, interpreting their reasoning, and responding in ways that clarify, extend, and build on their thinking.

We design AI-enhanced simulations that provide preservice teachers with opportunities to practice these skills in low-risk, interactive environments. In our simulations, preservice teachers interact with a virtual student who expresses mathematical ideas or misconceptions and receive support from a virtual mentor that provides feedback on their questioning and instructional responses.

Our work brings together research in mathematics education, teacher education, instructional technology, and AI in education. Through design-based research, we aim to understand how AI-enhanced learning experiences can be designed to support meaningful teacher learning and how these tools can be effectively integrated into teacher preparation programs.

What we do

A design-based research cycle that moves from building simulations to sharing what we learn.

  1. 01

    Design

    We develop AI-enhanced simulation modules that represent authentic situations of mathematics teaching.

  2. 02

    Study

    We investigate how preservice teachers interact with AI agents and how these experiences influence their responsive teaching practices.

  3. 03

    Refine

    We use findings from each implementation to improve the simulations, instructional activities, and AI agents.

  4. 04

    Share

    We disseminate research findings and instructional materials that we developed for teacher educators and researchers.

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Explore Our Materials

Learn about our NSF-funded project and access instructional resources developed through the project.

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See Our Impact

Explore publications, conference presentations, workshops, and other ways our work has contributed to research and practice.

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Meet the Team

Learn about our research team and advisory board members supporting this work.

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