IES, Carnegie Learning Study Exploring the Use of AI to Help Students with Reading Disabilities

  • By Kate Lucariello
  • 02/26/24

Ed tech company Carnegie Learning has partnered with the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to research the use of AI to improve learning outcomes for math students with reading disabilities. The goal: to "develop and evaluate reading supports that can be embedded into a variety of digital and/or adaptive math tools to decrease reading challenges and thus increase students' ability to engage effectively with math."

The project is funded by a $2 million, 3.5-year IES grant to the nonprofit Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), which is working with Carnegie Learning to improve the company's MATHia digital middle school math curriculum. In a trial involving more than 116,000 participating middle school students, researchers have used both generative AI (ChatGPT) and humans to revise MATHia math word problems and compare them to determine whether the AI versions are able to help reduce reading challenges by helping students understand the "semantic and conceptual structure of a word problem," according to a news announcement.

"In 2022-2023, the research team demonstrated that humans can successfully revise word problems in ways that lead to improvements in student performance, including students with disabilities," Carnegie Learning said. "The challenge is in trying to train generative AI to reproduce the kinds of revisions humans make. While generative AI has so far been unevenly successful in making revisions that similarly lead to improvements in student outcomes, the researchers are not ruling out the use of generative AI in revising word problems in MATHia."

The project has also partnered with specialists in math and reading and math/reading disabilities, an educator advisory panel, special educators, and graduate students working in a related study with the MATHia curriculum, using metacognition to increase middle school students' confidence in math, the release said.

Currently, as an alternative to math word problem text simplification revisions, the team is now devising a "systematic reading and problem-solving approach" to test "the effect of adding instructional support within MATHia for some word problems," Carnegie Learning said.

"It's an example of how partnerships can strengthen cutting-edge research using AI to improve outcomes for students with disabilities," said Eden Bloss, vice president of communications at Carnegie Learning. "The ED team contacted us to bring attention to this important issue and to highlight why it matters for student learning and society, particularly in the dawn of AI."

About the Author

Kate Lucariello is a former newspaper editor, EAST Lab high school teacher and college English teacher.

Featured

  • teacher and students in geometric shapes with a glowing holographic tablet and flowing digital lines in a futuristic classroom setting

    Research Teams to Explore and Scale Tech-Supported Learning Approaches

    A new network of technology, school systems, and researchers is forming to "better understand and scale innovative learning acceleration approaches" and improve student outcomes.

  • silhouetted human figures stand opposite a glowing digital brain, surrounded by abstract circuits and shadowy shapes

    Tech Execs Expect AI Advancements to Increase Security Threats

    Forty-one percent of tech executives in a recent international survey said they believe advancements in AI will significantly increase security threats. NetApp's second annual Data Complexity Report points to 2025 as "AI's make or break year."

  • A child surrounded by glowing, fluid virtual patterns and holographic shapes, illuminated in a dark gradient environment of blue, purple, and pink.

    ClassVR Gets Expanded VR/AR Content Library

    Avantis Education has announced a new content library for its ClassVR virtual and augmented reality platform. Dubbed Eduverse+, the library features four content suites — EduverseAI, WildWorld, STEAM3D, and CareerHub — that can be tailored to suit a variety of educational levels.

  • interconnected glowing nodes and circuits in blue and green, forming a neural network on a dark background with a futuristic design

    Tech Giants Launch $100 Billion National AI Infrastructure Project

    OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have announced a new venture, Stargate, through which they aim to build a massive AI infrastructure network across the United States. The initiative, which was announced at the White House with President Donald Trump, has been described as the "largest AI infrastructure project in history."