AI-Driven personalized support to foster computational thinking skills in early K12 education

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Both research and industry in the field of educational technology has recently focused on using game design (GD) to support the acquisition of computational thinking (CT) skills. The learning environments that support these GD activities have been proven to be valuable for foster CT skills, however, they can be challenging to some students due to their open-ended and exploratory nature. Furthermore, due to the fact that CT skills are a rather recent concepts in the K12 curriculum, teachers and after-school instructors may not have yet the required skillset to alleviate these students' difficulties. Our goal is to address this challenge by designing AI-driven adaptive support to detect in real-time those students that may encounter difficulties, and provide them with relevant adaptive support. This support can include the delivery of cues, the design of virtual companion, and the promotion of collaboration among students with compatible skillsets. We will also provide support to the teachers by providing them with visual indicators on the state of the class and of their individual students. Our project aims to advance the current practice and technology to support CT teaching at schools in early K-12 education, which ultimately will be highly valuable to the Canadian educational community, including STEM teachers who wish to leverage GD environments as part of their curriculum, and industry that offers dedicated programs to schools, after-schools and camps related to STEM education. As part of our research we will also tackle the issue of the underrepresentation of female students in CS and CT education, by examining their specific needs and how to meet them via dedicated interaction and support.