Born out of Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Learning has been on the cusp of cutting-edge educational technology for nearly a quarter-century. It has been fine-tuning products to help students learn mathematics via years of data analytics and software improvements.
It’s no surprise that the group’s latest tool combines three of today’s hottest trends in tech. It uses influencers, streaming, and generative AI to support math teachers. The result, MATHstream, is a personalized math video platform for grades 6-12.
The adaptive program includes a library of streamable videos. They are accompanied by AI-powered avatars that can nudge students with questions, hints, and rewards. The tool also includes “stream statistics” of skill assessments that track students’ performance.
To build MATHstream’s video library, Carnegie Learning scoured platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for today’s best influencer educators. The group then partnered with them to create high-quality student-friendly videos. MATHstream features:
- Deidre Kelly, a 6th-grade math teacher from Texas, is known to her 1.4 million TikTok followers as “@the_mrskelly.”
- Robert Ahdoot, a math teacher and founder of the online math platform YayMath.org.
- Howie Hua, a college math instructor at Fresno State, is known for his online mental health challenges on Twitter and TikTok.
MATHStream was recently selected by the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI) as one of seven teams harnessing the potential of AI and machine learning to double the rate of middle school math progress for low income students by 2027. LEVI is supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
MATHstream has proven an effective and engaging way to offer AI-based tutoring. It pairs engaging lessons from Kelly, Ahdoot, and Hua with real-time questions, prompts, and feedback. This can be especially helpful for low-income classroom settings that often lack access to traditional tutoring and classroom support.
The game-based learning program delivers questions and videos for a 1:1 learning experience from streamer to student. If students answer correctly, they proceed to the next set of questions and videos. The AI tutor offers adaptive suggestions, feedback, and personalized instruction when students make an error.
“When we’re using MATHstream, we’re able to see a student struggling on a certain lesson and get them immediate support. Then, as a teacher, you’re able to help them with that lesson they were struggling with,” MATHstreamer Deidre Kelly said.
The tool uses detectors to gauge if a student is bored, confused, frustrated, or gaming the system. To help, the tutor can suggest mindfulness exercises such as deep breathing.
Overall, MATHstream can help scale tutoring accessibility and combat teacher fatigue and strain as a result of the ongoing teacher shortage. And it helps struggling students achieve higher proficiency levels and conceptual learning.
Carnegie Learning’s initial pilots of MATHstream had over 2,200 active learners by the end of the 2022-2023 school year. What’s more, a larger catalog of content is now available. An additional 2,279 students have been assigned content. And another 7,815 students have committed to MATHstream trials. Since August 2023, MATHstream has reported 23,054 active users. By 2027, Carnegie Learning aims to improve math outcomes for 447,500 students.
“Math software can be challenging for certain student demographics because of the significant amounts of text students have to read and the learning gaps still attributed to the pandemic,” said Carnegie Learning’s VP of Product, CL Next (Innovation), Jamie Sterling.
“This is an amazing example of using generative AI for good in the classroom because it showcases the best of learning science research and how we can personalize it for students in a way that has never been possible before. We can create content based on students’ interest from the fly and bring it to life for them.”
