The app watches [students’] preferences for different kinds of materials, different kinds of resources, and we map that back to our understanding about where you might need more conceptual help or where you might need more computational help. We try to make sure that we have all the appropriate resources for you get what you need in that context.
Interview with John Behrens
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Today in the United States, thousands of well-paying jobs go unfilled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Educators are recognizing that a barrier to entry may be a basic STEM requirement, calculus. Nearly every STEM job requires at least one semester of the subject, but a third of calc students drop or fail the course. Now, an AI-powered tutor app from Pearson could help those students solve for success.
Aida Calculus uses multiple artificial intelligence algorithms to tutor students, teaching them how to solve problems and demonstrating why calculus is a useful tool outside the classroom. The algorithms can analyze students’ homework, even reading handwritten solutions, and provide feedback in the forms of hints, extra practice problems, or videos showing how mathematical concepts apply in the real world.
“In math, people often focus on doing the problem part of it. We think of that as the computational set of skills. But there’s also conceptual understanding that helps you bridge the different pieces of those computations, and sometimes students get that, and sometimes they don’t,” explains John Behrens, vice president, product development, AI products and solutions, at Pearson.
“What we do is we watch through the data and through the interaction the student has with the app,” says Behrens, who has published more than 50 scholarly works in the areas of AI and data science, learning science, and technology for learning and assessment, and was professor of psychology in education at Arizona State University.
“We watch [students’] preferences for different kinds of materials, different kinds of resources, and we map that back to our understanding about where you might need more conceptual help or where you might need more computational help,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “We try to make sure that we have all the appropriate resources for you to align to get what you need in that context. We serve them up as recommendations so that you have your choice and have your control.”
