AI for improved math scores

Hi everyone! Nice to meet you. My name is Danielle Sullivan, and I'm so excited to be the facilitator of this excellent math conversation today with my amazing colleagues. Today, we want to talk about math instruction, how it's changed and shifted since the pandemic, and how AI can bring new opportunities to make sure that we're putting the critical thinking, conceptual understanding, and conversation honestly back in our math classrooms. We know you all have a lot of different variety of challenges, and hopefully, this conversation will help meet you where you are and move your students forward.

So I'm going to now let the panel introduce themselves. Let's go ahead and start with Dena.

Dena: Hello everyone! I am Dena Nyman. I lead our district success team here at KH Academy, but most importantly, I have been a math educator for a very, very long time—um, 25 years now actually starting in middle school math. I do love my middle school, but I've taught a little bit of everything. I will pass it to Iman.

Iman: Thanks, Dena! Hi everybody! My name's Iman Howard. I'm the group manager for all of our STEM content here at KH Academy. I am a lifelong learner and math and science educator, and I'm super excited to chat with everyone today. I'll pass it over to you, Stacy.

Stacy: Hi everyone! My name is Stacy Johnson, and like Dena, I have also been a lifelong educator in math and like Iman, in math and science—middle school, high school, and elementary. I lead our professional learning team, so I'm really excited to be here to talk with you today about math instruction and how we're reaching kids.

Great! And I totally forgot to talk about my background too, so I'm the hostess. And yes, this is not only my literal background—yes, actually my sister's in Arizona—but I do support the Northeast, so I'm visiting in Arizona, which is kind of exciting. I am a lifelong educator, and I also taught special education and math in fifth and sixth grade, both in Washington DC and Upstate New York.

So first question to kick us all off: What is KH Academy's approach to math instruction and how is that changing in this age of AI? Iman, I want you to go ahead and kick us off.

Iman: Awesome! Thank you so much. So when we're developing content for mathematics, we think about it with the aspects of rigor. So that's really breaking it down in three ways. First, we think about procedural fluency—so can you calculate with speed and accuracy? And then we get into conceptual understanding—so can you access concepts from a number of perspectives to see math as, you know, more than just, you know, less discreet and more less procedure?

And then finally, we think about it with application—so can you use procedures and concepts flexibly in problem solving? Any given standard might have one or a combination of these aspects, and sometimes that can feel very limiting when we're developing content. And so when it comes to AI, one of the things that really excites me is the opportunity to dig into more of the conceptual understanding, which comes with discourse.

So instead of a student just, you know, right or wrong, conceptual understanding comes in, and we can figure out why the math is happening this way in a really individualized way. So Dena, let's add to that. What are your thoughts?

Dena: You know, I think the discourse is really one of the biggest pieces that AI brings to math instruction. As a classroom teacher, my students always worked in groups; my classroom was never quiet. We were always loud and chattering about mathematics and doing projects, questioning our thinking, and explaining our reasoning. I think that, you know, in general, a lot of the technological influences in classrooms have pushed math instruction to become more procedural. Can you do this calculation? Can you solve this equation?

Can you do the steps in a particular order? Not even necessarily like there are options, right? There are different paths that we can take to get to the right math answer. Students often have a very good reason, and they think about things differently, and that adds to all of our reasoning and all of our math toolkits when we can hear how kids are thinking about math.

And the way that they're coming up with their next step or their strategy, or why they approach a problem a certain way—and I think with AI, when students have to ask questions, when they have to be able to say, “I don't understand this piece of an equation,” it's not “I don't understand the whole concept.” It's “I don't understand how to go from this step to the next.” They have to think more critically, and it really builds that conceptual knowledge, but that questioning, um, I think is a really big part of that. So Stacy, how are we at Khan Academy helping teachers wrap their head around all of this?

Stacy: Yeah, I mean, I think even before I think about how we're wrapping our head around it, as I think about discourse and conceptual understanding, one of the things that I'm most proud of with Khan Academy is where students are doing that. What are we talking about? What are we building conceptual understanding in? The fact that at KH Academy, we believe, we know, that every student can achieve a grade level. And I think what's really important to say here is that all of our students have learning gaps. All of them are coming in with these holes, right? It's kind of this Swiss cheese understanding of mathematics.

And the way that we really build an implementation focused on not kind of dooming kids to work below grade level for the next year, so that we're just perpetuating that gap, but putting them on grade level, knowing and believing that that's where they can achieve, using AI to do some of that scaffolding. Because, of course, the teacher is the best resource. Of course, the teacher is where we should be leaning, and students should always go to the teacher first. But the teacher can't talk to 35 kids at once or more, right?

So while we're waiting for the teacher, AI can be there to support kids so they don't get stuck. They don't get to the point of frustration and they throw their hands up and quit. Right? Because all that's doing is perpetuating those learning gaps and making the holes bigger. So I think that the most important thing to say here is how are we keeping students on grade level, and how are we ensuring that that's where they're learning and they're progressing forward from there?

We can simultaneously go back and fill some of those holes while we continue to work with students on grade level. And as far as how we're getting teachers there, I think that's a step-by-step process, right? Our teachers have overflowing plates—too much to do all the time, too many administrative tasks, too many things that don't have to do with actually teaching kids. So the question is how are we listening to teachers about what training they need?

How are we gathering information about what support they need? And then designing training programs in response to that rather than just bringing them a canned set of support and training and expecting that to make a difference? Absolutely! And everyone, you can post questions in the chat. We have some guided questions that we had planned ahead of time, but I definitely want to make sure that we have the ability to answer your questions.

And I would love for you to all start talking and responding to the chat. If that's too overwhelming for you and you just want to show up and listen, great. If you want to interact, great. Like, there are a lot of different ways to be today. Um, but I'd be curious, like, Matthew just typed in, “personalized learning.” Like, um, what are y'all thinking as you heard Dena, Iman, and Stacy share about, you know, some of the challenges you're having?

So you think about that, and we're going to start really digging into this a little bit more, knowing—right?—math is typically thought of as a very concrete and objective subject, and as much as we talk about it, sometimes we don't see a lot of focus on the process and approach. And sometimes it's right and wrong. Does AI have the potential to influence that? Iman, what are your thoughts?

Iman: Absolutely! You know, a lot of our curriculum sometimes focuses on that procedural fluency. And so when you're in the classroom executing this, you ask a student a question, and they can't get the answer right. And now, all of a sudden, we're the kids saying, “I'm not a math person! I got it wrong!” And then the conversation ends, and maybe they don't raise their hand again.

However, when we introduce something like Kigo and AI, not only, if I got it wrong, is it not a shutdown—there's an opportunity now to say, “Well, let's have a conversation. Let's figure out why that happened.” And now we're getting into that conceptual understanding. And you know someone in the chat mentioned personalized learning. We're going to personalize learning. Many of us have been in classrooms where the ratio was one to 35.

And we have some students that are on grade level, a few two years behind, and a few two years ahead. And so now we have this opportunity to meet everyone at their learning edge. Right or wrong, we have a way to personalize your instruction and get you to the level that we know you can meet, which is grade level.

And I think, you know, it's personalized learning, but I feel like there has always been this desire and goal for secondary teachers to make small group learning a reality. And it's felt impossible. And it's felt so challenging because you're absolutely right; you've got 36 bodies in your classroom, and you want to work with this small group of like three or four that need attention. But what happens the second you sit down? All those hands go up. “I need you! I need you! I've got a question! I don't know what to do next.”

Um, and I think that that small group time—I actually, Lynn commented about flexibility in teaching in the chat—and I think that AI gives us the possibility to do things that previously were so complicated and so difficult. I think that we can do that small group instruction because AI can interact and, you know, keep students progressing in their learning and keep them moving forward. And I think it actually gives our kids more time with the teacher in the way that they really need it.

It's less of the teacher standing up and delivering to a whole classroom at once, but more of the teacher being able to meet those needs right where they are and really provide students with the instruction, the explanation, and the guidance where and how they need it. Yeah, so Dena, that makes me think about my favorite part of being in the classroom.

I don't know if y'all have seen like there was this YouTube video going around a few years ago called “my favorite no.” Right? And it was about looking at the way that students had solved a problem and finding those wrong answers but finding the beauty and the accuracy in those wrong answers. And my favorite part of teaching math was listening to students articulate the way that they approached a problem or how they were thinking about that, right, to their peers, to me, in those small group settings.

And that's also one of the hardest things. How can you be there to listen to all the kids? How can you really be there to internalize what they're thinking? Because as math teachers, it's difficult to teach into a wrong answer. Yep, we can certainly teach into a misconception, right? So when I think about AI, one of the things that I wish I'd had in my classroom was this ability to go back and look at the transcripts or the conversations that a student is having with a chatbot to identify how they are processing this information.

Are they stuck and they're just saying, “I don't know”? Or are they really trying to process this, and what types of questions are they asking? Because to me, if I can harness that information, if I can get that from my class as a whole—which I can't do by just walking around listening to everybody—now I can teach into the misconceptions of my class and really harness what they know to build on what they don't yet know.

So to bridge on what you just said and to kind of answer some of the questions that are coming in simultaneously, a couple of people have asked about Kigo. Does it just give students answers? Or is it really like, it's a one-on-one tutor? But if students are really unmotivated, how is Kigo functioning to be that teacher when the teacher can't clone himself or herself for 35 kids?

Right? And how many y'all feel like you don't have time to teach math? Anybody? Anybody in the room? Exactly! Yeah, so Aman, did you want to start talking about that?

Iman: Yeah, absolutely! So, you know, similar to what a good teacher would do is when a student gets an answer wrong, we don't just spit them the correct answer and walk away. We ask them a series of scaffolded questions based on the response that they gave us. And that's where you see that dialogue happen between Kigo and students: “Hey, that's not quite right. Let's talk about where you misplaced that desk. Let's go down, and let's work together back and forth to get you to the right answer. And now that you got it, let me give you another one that you can try on your own.”

Right? Similar to what you would do, I think about Kigo as a teaching assistant. Right? And so while I'm able to facilitate over here in small group, I know that my students over here aren't engaged. And when it comes to classroom management, I need my students engaged.

And yes, can I quick pick up? Um, Cynthia put a question in, and I think it builds on this. She said she's found that AI is helpful, but students aren't always motivated or sure of how to use the resource. And she asked, “Should instructors teach students how to use the AI resources, including teaching exercises using them?” And I think absolutely! Just like with any tool, just like with a graphing calculator, with the way that we teach routines in our classroom, I absolutely think that we need to teach our students how to use AI, what the best practices are.

I think it starts with modeling. Um, if it were my classroom, I would start by pulling it up and doing a chat myself, asking questions, and showing students what it looks like. And I know we just released—oh goodness, Iman, you can probably even say—it was within the last like two weeks we released our AI for Students course. Is that right?

Iman: We sure did! And I think that's a good call-out. Because, you know, we hear this term AI, AI, and it's so important to tell our students, “What is a large language model? What is this thing that's interacting? Does it know all the answers? What can it do? What can't it do?” And so we do have a course, AI for Education, that y'all could check out to ensure that we know how to use this as a tool to enhance our learning because that's what it is!

Absolutely! And speaking of tools and learning, we are learning that we did not set up this webinar in the most interactive way. So y'all were doing the best we can. I see your questions and comments, so we're going to keep making sure that we answer everything. And this is a learning experience.

So I don't know if you can see each other's responses, but we're going to keep the conversation going. You keep talking to us; we'll highlight things. Um, so Stacy, what are your thoughts on what things that Iman and Dena shared?

Stacy: Yeah, I agree with all of that! Then there was a comment in the chat about teaching students to, like, how do you really dig in? How do you actually coach students to ask better questions? And I think it's actually a question for us as adults, as the leaders in the room, as well as students.

And I think the important thing to say out loud is, in the spirit of all of us learning, that teachers and students are learning alongside each other how to work this new technology. Right? And for us to shift this mindset that it’s not a search engine. So one of the things we've seen be really successful is actually to practice asking the question to another person before you put it into Kigo or into a chatbot, right?

Because people think—and students particularly—they think, “Well, there's a certain way I have to say this,” right? We hear a lot about prompting, or there's this particular language I have to use. And really, it's conversational. So when, as a teacher, if you say something to the student like, “Well, what would you say to the kid next to you?” right? Or “What would you say to me?” “Okay, now just type that.”

That's—it's kind of a mindset shift because we think it's this really formal process, but giving ourselves that coaching as well as our students is really important. And just keep it conversational. And if you don't like the answer, say, “I’m not sure about that! Can you say it differently?” Or, “I don’t like that answer!” and pushing back, very much in the same way that you would if you were having a conversation with another person.

And I think it would be an additional member of your group, right? If kids have to agree on what question to ask, oh my goodness! That really gets some great discourse going when they can only ask one, and they have to figure out what the perfect next one is. Yes! And John, we totally see you typing in there, like John's doing some really great things with his students.

That even if, like, there are correct answers, telling them that he’s not only interested in the correct answer but how they solved and what steps, but John did ask, “How does AI also help students that have IEPs or 504s or other documentation, disabilities, or accommodations?”

And I would add, how do y'all think it helps when students might be shy or have some math trauma or really, um, have really low math confidence?

So, I will say, my husband is an ESOL educator—English to speakers of other languages. In some states, um, I live in Florida—in some states, we call that ELL—English Learners. Um, but my husband uses technology as a way to help students in his classroom think about questions before they have to ask them publicly, especially if they have that anxiety and they're just not sure.

By taking a minute and having that opportunity to interact, it can give them a chance to feel more confident to know whether they're on the right track, to get some feedback before they ask a question. Or, you know, if you think about when teachers are teaching, if there's a word and they don't know what it means, they can quickly type that in. They can quickly add, plug that in, and get an example or find out where this is applicable in real life. Right? Because that's something that is so critical to making connections with the content.

I think it gives relevance to our content. I think it gives students the opportunity to ask in a way that’s not threatening or scary. It gives them the chance to really explore content safely. Aman, what do you think about that?

Iman: Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying, Dena. And you know, I've taught students who had IEPs, and sometimes typing itself was the limitation. And one of the things that I really enjoy about Kigo is being able to speak into it to actually ask your questions. And if you have headphones, Kigo now has a voice.

So this can be like a one-on-one thing where, “Hey Kigo, I need some help over here,” and then I'm the only one that hears the answer. And that can be really critical to getting a student—to your point, Dena—to combat some of that math trauma and really make sure that they're getting their needs met.

Yeah! And I think, you know, just circling back to multilingual learners also—the idea that Kigo right now can converse and have that dialogue in English and Spanish and Portuguese—so also being a safe space where students don't have to fall behind on math learning and content while they're simultaneously acquiring English confidence and proficiency.

So, you know, in agreement with everything that has been said, I think it's a safe space for students to test out their ideas without taking a risk that may make them not be comfortable yet.

Yeah, and I think one other way that it can really help is by helping teachers craft lessons to meet the needs of the students that they work with, um, and being able to help you adapt lessons more quickly, more efficiently, than you ever have before. So being able to say, you know, “I have students who really enjoy this topic or that theme,” and being able to create lessons around it—being able to take content and anchor it on something.

If students love hiking in the mountains, because I'm looking at Danielle's background—if students love to go hiking, let's have a conversation about hiking. And I just—I think that it also really equips teachers to be able to differentiate like we never have before.

So I want to dig into that a little bit, because there are some questions coming in around parameters around—um, what happens if kids go off topic? But I also—I don't want to get off topic myself—but I want to—you started—you alluded to now some of the teacher tools. I think we spent a lot of time talking about how AI is focusing on the student conversation. But how do we help educators with—because we set the problems, right? You have one human with lots of other humans in the classroom with lots of needs.

And especially post-pandemic, we have seen so many learning gaps. But everyone on this webinar, let’s be real—we’ve had gaps for a long time. Yes, in mathematics! And I think it's—everyone's really moving in the right direction, committed. And even calling back to what Stacy said in the beginning, like the high expectations—believing all students can—and making sure all students have equitable access to grade-level content.

So my question is, how can the tools for teachers also help solve this problem? Dena, do you want to kick us off?

Dena: Yeah! I think Amy asked a question. I want to use Amy’s question to kind of kick it off. Are there ways to set parameters with AI to keep students within the content area instead of an open forum? And I know that there was another question about how do I prevent AI from just giving the answers?

And I think that's something that we have really been committed to at KH Academy, is to create Kigo so that AI is a safe space for students. We've built in moderation. Kigo won’t give students the answer if they ask for it. It will clearly say, “I can’t give you the answer, but I can coach you.” And it will, you know, it will keep them on track. If you are working on a math problem, and you say, “I want to talk about the French Revolution,” Kigo will say, “That's fabulous, but this is not the place and time for that.”

Um, and I think that's really great! It helps keep students focused—in terms of the teacher tools—I think that’s number one. Can you imagine if our kids just stayed focused the whole class period? How fabulous that would be? Um, I say that as a middle school teacher, right? I taught middle school, so it was always like, you know, lots of movement, lots of activity, trying to keep them focused on me.

Um, so it starts there. It starts with helping keep students engaged, keeping them focused. And then I think it's also about, you know, as a classroom teacher, I used to look—I told you I’ve been a math educator forever, y'all—it’s about not having to search through—I used to search through book after book after book looking for the right lesson, the right resource, the right materials.

And then, you know, then the internet came about. I—and, you know, we had Google, and we had all the things—and then I just had 57,000 tabs open while I was looking for something to lesson plan with. I think this saves time because it gives me something high quality. I can make those adjustments quickly. I can make resources to meet the needs of my students that are specific to my students very, very quickly.

And I can create really good rich tasks, which, again, I’m all about the problem-based teaching and being able to create those rich tasks quick. That's everything! And I think not only creating the rich tasks, but fast. You can then differentiate, right?

I mean, we used to spend hours making this great rich task for all the kids. Now we can do that in such a short period of time that I can also make four or five other versions of that that speak to the individual needs of small groups of my students or maybe even an individual student in literally just a few minutes. Right? I could count them on one hand, and now I have high-quality resources for my students that are differentiated.

Have anything else to add, Iman, on that topic?

Iman: No, I couldn't agree more! You know when I think about some of the teacher tools, I was thinking to myself, “Well, which ones would I have loved when I was teaching?” And the Refresh My Knowledge tool is so critical because, as a teacher, I think time was a commodity for me. I feel like I never had enough time.

And there would be moments where, you know, I needed support with my lesson planning, or one of my colleagues was out, and I was told, “Hey, I need you to teach this eighth-grade math course, but I'm teaching sixth.” So just having a tool just to quickly get me up to speed so that I don’t have to have students fall further behind is just so critical. And so, you know, I just think about the ways in which I can just individualize my learning, but also as a teacher, keep me up to date with what's needed for my students.

Yes! So let’s unpack that a little bit because you're talking about the teacher tool. So Stacy, if you were in the classroom today, which AI feature would be your go-to? What would you have leaned on the most?

Stacy: So this is always an interesting question because people look at me kind of funny. I am absolutely in love with the rubric tool, which is not something we do in math classrooms, right? Who—what math teacher uses a rubric? I ed them all the time, and it was such an interesting learning curve for me because as I went through my teacher prep program, we did all of our rubrics based on ELA stuff and humanities.

And when I started teaching, I got a few years into it and realized I needed students to have a better understanding of what they were being asked to do, how they needed to show that, and how they should be able to verbalize or communicate that after the fact. And so, because I was much more focused on process, I would use rubrics, and it took me forever because there are no rubrics out there for solving systems of equations with rational numbers. I had to make all of them.

Um, so I just did one a couple weeks ago with Kigo—it took me less than five minutes. And it was so explicit for kids, and if I was in the classroom right now with that tool, it just totally shifts the onus of learning onto the student. They know what's expected. They are now focused on process rather than that letter grade that doesn't teach them anything, right?

They're now really in that metacognitive state where they're thinking about what am I learning, how am I showing it, and how am I communicating it? Aman, how about you? What's your fave?

Iman: My fave has to be the leveler. So the leveler tool, which allows you to take any text and level it in different ways for different reading levels, is one of my favorite tools, because I had students who had IEPs, and they would tell me, like, “Miss Howard, I don’t understand what this text says,” or “The text that I'm giving feels like baby work!”

I would hear that all the time from my students. And so this idea that everyone can access the same information but it's tailored in a way that’s just for you was—it's a game changer for me. And so, that would be my number one. And before Dena, I let you answer, I want to piggyback off, as a former special education teacher myself, there's actually an IEP Creator tool.

How many of you watching this have ever struggled with IEP goals and monitoring those goals? Anybody? Any? Just kids? Yes! That is, and then keeping students engaged and on track!

So, I was pushing Kigo to give me very specific measurable accountability outcomes for mathematical IEP goals, and when you push it and push it, it gives you exactly what you need. So that thing, if I had had that, it would have saved me hours of my life. Hours! Dena, what about you?

Dena: Okay, so, I have a middle school son who is a very curious individual and wants to know everything about everything. So my favorite is ignite my curiosity because he asks me questions about things I have no idea about, and I have learned that Kigo is my best friend when it comes to answering his questions about the way the world works and the way that things look in subject areas that are, you know, his world of science—is big and huge and massive—and even though mom is a math girl, and I’ve got a lot of science! I definitely think that as a parent, ignite my curiosity has saved me more than a few times.

Yes! I can see that! I'm somebody who got in trouble at church school for asking where the dinosaurs were with Adam and Eve. I don't know if that relates to anybody, but curiosity is important to continue to make sure that we build on curiosity for students.

So there are some logistical questions coming in. Somebody was asking about time—fitting everything in. Can y'all speak to how do we incorporate some of these tools? Like we're talking about the teacher tools can save time, but I want to just shift back a little bit to the Kigo student-facing tools.

And if actually can someone explain the difference between our courses plus Kigo? Because I think—I don't know if we really started with that. So who wants to start off by just kind of giving people the lay of the land?

Iman: I can do it! So, thank you, G! So, we have courses on Khan Academy. We have—and believe it or not, we hear often, you know, Khan Academy—that's math and science. We actually also have ELA, we have social studies, we have life skills, we have college and career readiness, financial literacy, AI for educators, AI for students.

Um, we have art history. We have a lot of different courses! And with all of our course content come different ways to learn. We offer videos; we offer guided readings; we offer exercises to practice what you've learned. So there's a whole different—there's a whole set of content that's just those courses that can be used in line with what you teach every day.

Um, so we have coursework that you can use, you can use our videos as a whole class, um, you can have students watch them individually. But then we also have the Kigo student tools, which are a really nice way to differentiate your instruction. One of my favorite pieces, as a teacher, I was always super big on explicit vocabulary teaching, right?

I even—before Hattie said it was like one of those best practices—explicit vocabulary teaching was always a big thing for me. And so I like that we have some vocabulary tools where students can practice their math vocab. I would use it! I think it can fit into your teaching in a lot of different ways. You can engage students with different types of warm-ups.

You have content to give them practice. You have opportunities for them to get sets of practice problems where they can work, and they have to explain their reasoning, and Kigo will coach them. So I think, um, when you ask how it fits within your teaching, I would say it depends on your teaching style. It depends on what you want to do.

But we definitely have enough content to fit into a weekly routine. Either of you want to add anything else to that?

Dena: I think you locked it in! I agree with all that. And Kigo is a nice layer on top, right? Because it's there to support the whole way through. So I want to go back to what kind of future we're building mathematically with our students. And I’d love to know—and I love everyone watching this to think about the same thing—so say you had a magic wand, right? Because obviously, we have an amazing tool, but it's not a magic wand.

What would be—what would you change or what kind of future would you want to see moving forward when we think about mathematics instruction?

Dena: I'll jump in here and say I—my magic wand would change the spirit with which we approach math instruction, especially with younger learners. Because if you think about advanced mathematics and mathematicians, math really is a—to me, it’s a creative subject. It's about building an understanding of the world. It's about exploring things that we don’t yet know and understand.

But we teach math as if there is no creativity often, right? And I think that AI can really support us with that shift, where rather than thinking about things in one way, AI can help students with thinking about problems from a different perspective or with explaining it differently or a different approach.

And as a teacher, that's really hard to do with 35 or more human beings in a room, right? So I think that's where AI can come in and support us with having those conversations with kids and really delving into the exploration that, to me, is the true spirit of mathematics that we don't often have time to capitalize on.

Absolutely! I feel like if I had a magic wand, there would be no defining moment where somebody decided if they were good at math or bad at math. Everyone would see themselves as a math person, and they would learn that when—I make a mistake, it’s not like a “oh no,” it’s a “let’s have a conversation! That was fun! What are you thinking?” And everyone would feel empowered to have these talks about how can we learn from misconceptions.

How can we have math discourse? And what I love about AI is that it empowers us to do just that—that learning from errors is actually an opportunity. How about you, Dena?

Dena: I think the beauty of mathematics is in the way that it’s such a part of all of our world. It’s—you know, Einstein said mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. It's out there; it's everywhere that we look and everywhere that we see it. And it's a shame that for most students, it's boiled down to just a set of procedural equations and steps.

I think that, you know, just to agree with my amazing colleagues here, it opens up the world of what math really is and what it should be so that students can see, you know, maybe I’m not super great at geometry, but you know what? I love algebra! I love finding generalizations and figuring out how equations can work. Or maybe I’m not an algebra person; I’m a geometry person!

There are different ways to love math and to engage with it, and I think you can see yourself in that when you have the opportunity and when you’re presented with math as being so much bigger than a series of steps. And I agree with everything that you said!

And from supporting math educators really closely for, gosh, the last 10 years of my career, I also want to empower—my magic wand would be to empower every math educator, like Aman said, to not feel like I’m a—um, even some elementary school teachers sometimes feel like they can't teach math or they shy away from math, or they have math trauma themselves.

I had math trauma! Did any of you have math trauma? Like, I know exactly when it happens!

So it’s knowing that you can—it’s knowing that it’s what’s possible and finding the joy again! So I actually would love to talk a little bit about creativity, joy, which also links to boosting confidence.

How can these tools help bring some of the happy back in our mathematical classrooms? Stacy, what do you think about that?

Stacy: How can we enhance more creativity? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to not repeat myself because this is my magic wand question, right? Like, I think it's about helping students to examine mathematics from another perspective, right?

So in our traditional dynamic, we have a teacher who's teaching math, and students are learning. And sometimes they get the opportunity to rise back, but it tends to be kind of a two-way conversation. Right? Um, as much as we can bring in peer dialogue and have students talking about and exploring the ways that other people think about problems or the ways that other people approach a problem, that's incredibly valuable. But time is so limited!

And so to me, whatever AI tool you're using, it could be about exploring mathematics in a more pictorial manner, right? Where we're looking at things graphically or playing with things graphically and visual images of it. Or it could just be about having that safe space to explore the how and the why behind my own thinking or my own so-called mistakes.

Right? Because to me, that's where the creativity and the learning comes out! It's almost more likely that you're going to explore the creative side and how you approach something when you do make a mistake, right? When I didn’t get it right the first time, and I have to go back in and examine my own process.

And I think that's really where having that AI chat support or having that dialogue can really help us to dig in there. Absolutely! Like Stacy, you know, I view creativity as higher-order thinking.

So getting all out of that, do I understand it? Can I recall it? But can I analyze it? Can I create something new from this? Can I have a discussion about this? And that's what AI allows us to do.

And so when I tie that into what happens in a classroom where students are all at different levels, regardless of your level, we can now all engage in higher-order thinking that meets us at our learning edge. And so that's something that I'm really excited about for this tool!

Actually, can we talk a little bit more about meeting you at the learning edge? Can you expand on that? Because that's like a—that's a thing where a lot of research is showing, right? It’s called—even John Hattie talks about—the Goldilocks principle of learning. It can't be too easy, too hard; it has to be just right. But the just right isn't—it’s different for everybody.

Iman: The edge is different! Exactly! It’s different for everyone. And, you know, I'm going back to this anecdote we've been using about being the one to thirty-five ratio between yourself and the kiddos. Is that every student has a different learning edge.

So at what point have I pushed you to where we're not in frustration mode. We're still getting, you know, that learning that's happening, but it's also not—as rigorous, right? And so the idea here is that when I'm working with Kigo, I might get something wrong, right?

And then Kigo is going to call out exactly where I got it wrong, and the dialogue starts right there. Maybe I got it right; Kigo can then up the level, right? And then we can now work on something a little more rigorous.

And it's really important for engagement; it's important for learning that that is happening—that each student is being met exactly where they need to be. And as one person, that's really difficult to do, but we have a teaching assistant that can help us out now! Yes!

Absolutely! Dena, any final thoughts on either of the creativity or edge of learning?

Dena: I think with the edge of learning, I think that we're able to be responsive and adaptive faster than we ever have been. Um, I think that, you know, for students sometimes you just need that one lightbulb moment to understand a concept for it to make sense.

And I think being able to have that moment happen and then being able to, like, use that as a launchpad and accelerate so you're not stuck working below grade level or on rote skills for a long time. Where you're just—you keep practicing but you don't really need it anymore. I think it allows us to see when students have it and when they’re ready to keep moving, and it helps us get out of some of the, uhm, mck, if you will, and really keep progress—keep students moving forward and keeping them engaged.

And I think in terms of the creativity, just as they're doing that: How do you like to learn? We were looking at some different chats that had come in—one student asked and had Kigo talk to them like a pirate for a little while because it kept them engaged!

And so they were doing systems of equations from, you know, a pirate, and they were thrilled! They were having a great time! But it was excellent work; they were asking solid questions, and they were doing the math—that’s fabulous!

Right? And I think that we are—it gives us the opportunity to, you know, to bring back the joy! To have fun with it! Would you all believe me if I told you I did dress up like a pirate once when I was a teacher and did teach math that way?

So now you can dress up a pirate and have math pirate problems! Sometimes you got to do what you got to do to keep students engaged!

Which I do just want—we're about rounding out the time together. So I’d love to hear from y'all—what is your favorite math engagement technique and tool? And how do you think it could be enhanced using the Kigo tools? Your favorite! Go-to! Get back your teacher hat back on!

Let’s dig deep, y'all! What do you think?

Stacy: Oh, you're smiling! I think you want to go first! All right, wait one more time. Danielle, let me—go back with a question one more time. What’s your favorite engagement, what would your favorite engagement go to in math with students, and how might AI help enhance that?

Dena: So it’s funny because this was probably the hardest thing I had to do, but the most important thing, and that was my lesson hooks! How can I make a poem exciting? How can I make this photosynthesis something that kids relate to? And so I would oftentimes spend so much time about how am I going to intro this lesson just to get kids going with me.

And one of the first features that we released with KH Academy was the lesson hooks, and so it was really nice to just really quickly grab something that I knew my students would like. I had a year when I was teaching in Philly where my kids were obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles, and being able to tie that into math instruction? It’s a game changer!

Iman: Yeah! Dena, go!

Dena: My favorite was teaching initial parabolas and velocity using Galileo's work and being able to launch—we launched tennis balls! We launched water rockets! We did all sorts of stuff out in the field! I would have loved having either like ignite my curiosity or something so that they could dig deep into the history because I think the history is fascinating!

Um, learning all about the mathematicians that gave us these great theorems and ideas that we use today—I think it could have just made that even more, more rich—to learn different stories and rather than me telling them a story, I still could tell the story, but they could tell their stories—“What did you learn? What did you see? What do you think is interesting about this person? Now let's go get soaked and launch water rockets out on the field!”

Stacy: That's great!

My favorite—let’s get specific here—so I had to dig deep for this one. I was a middle school math and science teacher; I taught both! And so my favorite thing was always to show students how math exists in the real world—not in isolation. And so my favorite way that I ever figured out to do that was teaching functions along with waves—sound waves, water waves, light waves, right?

And looking at waves as functions and having students really do some deep analysis there results in kids having this really thorough understanding not only of the science but of the mathematics that really is inherent in that scientific understanding and theory. AI could have helped me a lot because it took me, like, years to get that unit and that set of instruction right.

And I think having something that I could, you know, just brainstorm with that would keep me from flipping through all the books and all the web pages, but could just curate information faster so that I could make those real-world connections of exactly how does math apply to the real world would have really been a game-changer for me and allowed me to do much more of that with my students!

Exactly! And I’m going to—Cynthia just typed in the chat, I know, um, y'all can't see it—but Cynthia, I agree with you! Um, asking AI students how they feel about a topic and how they feel about what they just learned, and helping them connect a little deeper.

So my favorite strategy when I was a teacher—I was a fifth and sixth-grade special education teacher, and I came to mathematics kicking and screaming because I had math trauma myself. So I approached it definitely as a creative piece as a teacher, and I would have U make raps about things and literally dress up like a leprechaun and teach in an Irish accent.

I did anything that I could to keep students engaged, and what I found—using tools that Kigo is offering—there is a poem tool that you actually can—teachers can summarize a lesson in poetry, and students can summarize lessons using poems! And I think that is a really cool literacy connection!

And just empowering students to think about mathematics as that creative art form—like y'all talking about linear equations and polynomial—and I see little pols dressed up in hats, and, you know, it just—it really appeals to bringing mathematics to life! So we are—it is a Friday! Y'all have been wonderful!

We're so happy that you are here joining us. We have posted links in the chat, and for signing up, you are going to get a copy of the recording as well as a plethora—yes, I use some mathematical terms—is that a mathematical term? I hope it is! A plethora!

It's also just a big word of resources! There is a YouTube playlist where you can see exactly what we're talking about. We wanted to keep y'all focused on us and the conversation instead of seeing someone's screen trying something different here.

So you're going to get all the resources. If you want to learn more, you can also check out—there's a couple links that we put in the chat—but we’ll be giving you all this information in an email. So in conclusion, what's one last thought you'd love to leave—thinking about the intersection of mathematics and AI. Final thoughts, y'all?

Stacy: I think I would just say that there’s a lot to learn, and we all have a lot to learn about what it looks like to bring AI into the classroom. But for right now, I, you know, as much as we can just dip a toe into the water and try one thing and learn alongside our students, to me, this is about empowerment.

This is about making our teachers' lives better, giving them more time back with their students or their families, like in the evenings when I used to be at school all the time, like just trying one thing and being willing to take that risk and to learn something alongside of our students—I think is really the challenge in front of all of us. Thank you!

Iman: What do you think? Final thoughts?

Iman: My final thoughts are that every person’s a math person, and having a tool like Kigo gives you the power to see just that, no matter where you are! If you’re below grade level, if you’re at grade level, or maybe you’re a couple of grade levels ahead, there’s an opportunity for you to stay engaged, to have a discourse, and to be creative.

Dena: And I would say, I think that, you know, we have been—we have been struggling with mathematics becoming so much more procedural, so much more rote, and we see our students' decreased engagement as a result of that. They don’t see the application of math; they don’t see how it impacts their lives.

And I think this is our moment! I agree with Stacy wholeheartedly. We’re all learning; we’re all figuring this out together, but join us—come figure this out with us! Come have conversations with us! Let’s talk about it, because we want our kids to see the math that we all love!

And I think this is our chance to get it back, bringing happy back in our math classes! That’s a fact!

Danielle: That’s my final note—literally on a note! Thank you so much for joining us! We appreciate you; we appreciate the conversation! We are going to figure out a way to export this chat and send that to you.

Please share this with your friends; please, like Dena said, join us! We're going to have more of these conversations! Tell us what you liked, what you didn't like; we're always open to feedback! We're learning too; we're educators, y'all!

And we love talking to educators because you are so forgiving with all the things! So thank you for joining us! We appreciate you! And until we see you again, bye everybody!

Thank you for watching this video and for being part of our teaching and learning community! To learn more about how Kigo can support you and your students in the classroom, follow the links on your screen! And to never miss exciting announcements about new free course materials on KH Academy, be sure to subscribe!