RET Site: Project-Based Learning for Rural Alabama STEM Middle School Teachers in Machine Learning and Robotics

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This award establishes a new RET Site under at Auburn University in Alabama. The site will provide unique and holistic research experiences for 30 middle school math and science teachers in the 7th-8th grades from underserved rural areas of Alabama, particularly the Alabama Black Belt region. The research focus is on mobile robots enabled by cutting-edge technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. The goals of the site are to equip teachers with knowledge and skills in robotics and ML/AI and promote their interests in these areas and facilitate teachers’ development and implementation of engaging project-based curricular modules for their classrooms. The site will provide research experiences to 10 middle school math and science teachers in the 7th-8th grades each year via a 6-week summer program and 9-month academic year follow-up, with the research focused on smart mobile robots. The site has five primary objectives to reach its goals of providing a rigorous and engaging RET experience: 1) provide education and training activities on the fundamentals of robotics and ML/AI, and a novel platform for research and education of ML-based mobile robots; 2) engage teachers in hands-on research projects on ML-based mobile robots that match well with faculty mentors’ active research projects; 3) allow teachers to collaborate with engineering and STEM education faculty to develop thep roject-based curricular modules; 4) foster teachers’ leadership and pedagogical skills via teacher leader academies and practice of teaching the RET curricular modules; 5) assist teachers to implement the RET curricular modules via academic follow-up.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.