Imagine a classroom where student teams are learning with a computer simulation, planning a scientific expedition to Mars. They might be challenged to think about the tools they need or the clothing and food they will bring.

As the students make decisions about their voyage to the red planet, the simulation changes until each group is following a storyline all their own.

That level of personalized learning is just one vision of researchers who are harnessing artificial intelligence to improve education. They’re getting a boost through 11 grants of $20 million each that the National Science Foundation has awarded to establish new AI research programs for education and other fields.

Jeremy Roschelle and his colleagues at the grantee AI Institute for Engaged Learning will have five years to develop an artificial intelligence program that can guide students through narrative-based STEM lessons. In other words, researchers will combine one of the newest technologies being applied to education with one of the oldest techniques: storytelling.

“How did people learn for 2,000 years? They told stories,” Roschelle explains. “With this level of funding, we didn’t want to just patch up the way school is today. Let’s take something that is deeply embedded in what it means to be a human … and let’s bring that back using AI that can create stories and can listen to kids' stories. Let’s tap into something really fundamental about how people learn.”

Roschelle is executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise, an education technology nonprofit, and is a co-principal investigator on the project. He says the funding and timeframe will make it possible to bring together education and artificial intelligence experts at the top of their field.

Read the full article about AI research in education by Nadia Tamez at EdSurge.