In 2024, Digital Promise was at the forefront of conversations about AI’s impact on education thanks to our work at the intersection of learning sciences research, practice, and technology, which helps us connect the dots between what we know teachers and learners need, and the innovations that technology developers are creating.
In addition to contributing to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2024 guidance on AI to schools nationwide, Digital Promise published multiple reports on AI; organized and participated in numerous in-person events and online webinars to provide guidance to educators, researchers, developers, and policymakers; and appeared in dozens of leading news outlets and publications—reinforcing our vision for safe, equitable, and meaningful AI in education that puts people first.In September 2024, Digital Promise was awarded a grant by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to launch and lead the Using Generative Artificial Intelligence for Reading R&D Center (U-GAIN Reading), a national research and development institute to investigate how to use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to improve elementary school reading instruction. U-GAIN Reading will partner with school districts from across the U.S. to understand how GenAI and the Science of Reading can be used to individualize reading supports to meet the needs of each individual student in U.S. elementary schools.
AI literacy is the knowledge and skills that enable humans to critically understand, evaluate, and use AI systems and tools to safely and ethically participate in an increasingly digital world. In June 2024, Digital Promise published AI Literacy: A Framework to Understand, Evaluate, and Use Emerging Technology, which describes a framework to leverage AI systems and tools for powerful learning and strategies for educational leaders to design and implement a clear approach to AI literacy for their specific communities.
Digital Promise’s AI Literacy Framework emphasizes that understanding and evaluating AI are critical to making informed decisions about if and how to use AI in learning environments, and connects AI literacy skills to initiatives that educators implemented with emerging technologies for decades, such as computational thinking, data literacy, digital citizenship, and media literacy.
AI-powered edtech must be designed responsibly to benefit all learners. Digital Promise’s Responsibly Designed AI product certification recognizes products that reduce algorithmic bias, label generative AI content, protect data privacy, and support educator agency.Certified products demonstrate transparency and ethical AI use in education. Developers from the first four certified products shared key strategies and lessons learned in a blog series, offering insights into building AI that centers trust, equity, and learning.
Digital Promise is working to extend the reach of our research through hubs that connect researchers, practitioners, developers, and other key education players. By combining the expertise and perspectives required to connect research to meaningful improvement of teaching and learning at scale, hubs are one way we’re working to ensure research rises to the level of the challenges we want to address.
As one of five NSF-funded institutes that connect AI and education, the AI Institute for Engaged Learning (EngageAI)—a coalition of four universities and Digital Promise—is working across disciplines and with practitioners to create more engaging experiences for students through AI-powered, story-driven learning environments, while also strengthening the opportunities for students to learn science more deeply.
Acting as the nexus for the EngageAI Institute, Digital Promise facilitates activities and communication to tackle the challenges associated with narrative-based learning using AI. From leveraging large language models to help teachers bring lessons to life to creating a pipeline to support data analysis, the institute is partnering with both an ethics team and practitioner advisory board to ensure the uses of AI are safe, responsible, and aligned with the goals of science education.
In April 2024, Digital Promise announced our collaboration on SafeInsights, a large-scale education research hub that enables researchers to deeply understand how students learn. SafeInsights will partner with schools and districts to leverage learning platform data without compromising student privacy, paving the way for the development of effective, data-driven educational tools and practices. Funded through the National Science Foundation, SafeInsights will foster collaborative efforts between institutions and partners—including researchers, engineers, educators, and students—to transform STEM education.
Similarly, SEERNet brings together five large-scale digital learning platforms, each of which serves more than 100,000 students per year. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, this program aims to open up digital learning platforms (DLPs) so that researchers can accelerate the pace of improvement within them. In October 2024, six research teams were welcomed to the network, reflecting a diversity of research agendas and practical relevance focused on enhancing student learning through DLPs.
Led by Digital Promise, the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences (CIRCLS) was a community-based hub of researchers exploring and investigating technologies that will be available to learners in five to 10 years—specificaly examining the connected issues of emerging technologies, learning sciences, and designing for students from low-income and rural backgrounds, and other students needing specific supports. In October 2024, CIRCLS published a report investigating how interdisciplinary, exploratory projects contribute to NSF’s mission of building scientific knowledge and translating research into practice.
In July 2024, Digital Promise partnered with Edthena, a leading provider of innovative technologies to support educator professional learning, to help train and support teachers on Science of Reading-based instruction by incorporating Digital Promise’s Learner Variability Project resources into Edthena offerings. Now, as teachers complete coaching cycles, they will be able to select a Science of Reading pathway within the AI Coach by Edthena platform and access Digital Promise’s research-based content, strategies, and best practices.
Digital Promise also partnered with Yourway Learning to launch LVN Yourway, a co-developed solution that transforms deep learning science into actionable, AI-supported strategies for the classroom. By integrating the research-based insights of the Learner Variability Navigator with Yourway’s instructional AI, this tool helps educators deliver personalized instruction more efficiently and stay aligned to standards and best practices.
