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

教育技术领域的研究和产业最近都集中在使用游戏设计（GD）来支持计算思维（CT）技能的获得。支持这些GD活动的学习环境已被证明对培养CT技能很有价值，但是，由于其开放性和探索性，对一些学生来说可能具有挑战性。此外，由于计算机技术在K12课程中是一个相当新的概念，教师和课后辅导员可能还没有所需的技能来减轻这些学生的困难。我们的目标是通过设计人工智能驱动的自适应支持来应对这一挑战，以实时检测那些可能遇到困难的学生，并为他们提供相关的自适应支持。这种支持可以包括提供线索，设计虚拟伴侣，以及促进具有兼容技能的学生之间的合作。我们还将为教师提供支持，为他们提供有关班级和学生个人状况的视觉指示器。我们的项目旨在推进当前的实践和技术，以支持学校在早期K-12教育中的CT教学，这最终将对加拿大教育界非常有价值，包括希望利用GD环境作为课程一部分的STEM教师，以及为学校提供专门课程的行业，课后和与STEM教育相关的营地。作为我们研究的一部分，我们还将解决CS和CT教育中女学生代表性不足的问题，通过研究她们的具体需求以及如何通过专门的互动和支持来满足她们。

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.