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“Now, I Want to Teach It for Real!”: Introducing Machine Learning as a Scientific Discovery Tool for K-12 Teachers

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Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 12748))

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Abstract

Machine Learning (ML) is a powerful tool to unveil hidden patterns in data, unearth new insights and promote scientific discovery (SD). However, expertise is usually required to actualize the potential of ML fully. Very little has been done to begin instructing the youth of society in ML, nor utilize ML as an SD tool for the K-12 age range. This research proposes SmileyDiscovery, an ML-empowered learning environment that facilitates SD for K-12 students and teachers. We conducted a 2-session preliminary study with 18 K-12 STEM teachers. Findings confirm the effectiveness of SmileyDiscovery in supporting teachers to (1) carry out ML-empowered SD, (2) design their own curriculum-aligned SD lesson plans, and (3) simultaneously obtain a rapid understanding of k-means clustering. Design implications distilled from our study can be applied to foster more effective learning support in future systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA

    Xiaofei Zhou, Jingwan Tang, Michael Daley, Saad Ahmad & Zhen Bai

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  1. Xiaofei Zhou
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  2. Jingwan Tang
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  3. Michael Daley
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  4. Saad Ahmad
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  5. Zhen Bai
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaofei Zhou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Ido Roll

  2. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Danielle McNamara

  3. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sergey Sosnovsky

  4. London Knowledge Lab, London, UK

    Rose Luckin

  5. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Vania Dimitrova

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Zhou, X., Tang, J., Daley, M., Ahmad, S., Bai, Z. (2021). “Now, I Want to Teach It for Real!”: Introducing Machine Learning as a Scientific Discovery Tool for K-12 Teachers. In: Roll, I., McNamara, D., Sosnovsky, S., Luckin, R., Dimitrova, V. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12748. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78292-4_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78292-4_39

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