SBIR Phase II: Artificial Intelligence Tutoring and Assessment for Teacher Development

这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段研究项目专注于将人工智能辅导技术的力量和好处带到教师专业发展(PD)的舞台上。拟议的创新是建立在人工智能原理基础上的教师专业发展系统，并通过互联网提供。类似于飞行模拟器，这项技术将提供一个现实但良性的机会，通过与现实课堂情景的练习来测试和扩大教师的准备能力。一个关键的目标是创建一个包含虚拟大师教师的课堂模拟器，以帮助教师加深他们对内容的理解，学习更有效地回答学生的问题，练习经过验证的教学技术来提高学生的理解，并在进入现场课堂之前进行自我监控和评估。越来越多的学校被迫依赖新教师或专业外教师来填补教授科学和数学的空白，往往导致学生在质量、深度和个人注意力方面大幅下降。由于教师在其教学领域之外教学的问题得到了很好的证明，以及表现不佳的学校拥有较高比例的不合格教师，各州为在职教师和新获得任职前资格的教师制定了更严格的标准。初中和高中的科学和数学是大部分校外教学的领域。在国家教育统计中心(NCES)的一份名为《教育状况》的报告中，一个关键发现是，与低贫困、低少数民族学校的同龄人相比，高贫困、高少数民族学校的高中生更多地由场外教师教授科学、数学和英语课程。这项研究预计将对这些问题产生影响，并解决美国竞争力倡议的目标和“不让一个孩子掉队”倡议中确定的对高素质教师的要求。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II research project focuses on bringing the power and benefits of artificial intelligence tutoring technology to the arena of teacher professional development (PD). The proposed innovation is a teacher professional development system built on the principles of artificial intelligence, and delivered via the Internet. Similar to a flight simulator, this technology will offer a realistic but benign opportunity to test and expand a teacher's preparedness through practice with realistic classroom situations. A key objective is the creation of a classroom simulator which incorporates a virtual master teacher, to help teachers deepen their content understanding, learn to respond to student questions more effectively, practice proven pedagogical techniques for improving student understanding and conduct self-monitoring and assessment before getting in front of a live class. An increasing number of schools are forced to rely on new or out-of-field teachers to fill the gap for teaching science and mathematics, often resulting in a substantial decline in quality, depth and individual attention students receive. Because of the well-documented problems of teachers teaching out of their content areas, and low-performing schools having greater percentages of lesser-qualified teachers, states have established stronger criteria for in-service teachers and newly qualifying pre-service teachers. Middle and high school science and mathematics are the areas where most out-of-area teaching is occurring. In the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report, 'The Condition of Education', a key finding is that high school students in high-poverty, high-minority schools were more often taught science, mathematics and English courses by out-of-field teachers than their peers in low-poverty, low-minority schools. This research is expected to impact these issues and in addition address the goals of the American Competitiveness Initiative and the requirements for highly qualified teachers identified in the 'No Child Left Behind' initiative.