Digital Promise Part of Research Teams Awarded $38 Million to Continue Work on Artificial Intelligence in Education

Digital Promise’s Center for Learning Sciences Research is a part of two university-led research teams that have been awarded $38 million in combined funding to undertake cutting edge research on artificial intelligence (AI) in education.

North Carolina State University received a new five-year, $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on AI tools that students and teachers can use to generate interactive narratives centered in immersive 3D worlds. Research will investigate how narratives can engage K-12 students and improve learning. This grant builds on completed research from a prior five-year award, which established the AI Institute for Engaged Learning (EngageAI Institute).

The EngageAI Institute is a combined effort that integrates the expertise of AI and education researchers at North Carolina State University, Digital Promise, Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Indiana University.

Kevin McElhaney, who will co-lead Digital Promise’s team for the grant extension, shared, “The next chapter of EngageAI presents an exciting opportunity to expand how we think about AI literacy toward interactive storytelling, world-building, and learner agency. Digital Promise is thrilled to work alongside educators and informal learning organizations to co-design learning experiences where students aren’t just users of AI-based tools, but rather creative authors of powerful science narratives.”

Concurrently, NSF awarded a five-year, $18 million grant to the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) for the National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE). AI-ALOE develops AI-based transformative models for online postsecondary and adult learning. To enhance AI-ALOE’s integration of learning sciences, Georgia Tech partnered with Digital Promise’s postsecondary research team.

Digital Promise’s Barbara Means, who will be co-principal investigator for the grant extension and a lead of the postsecondary research team explained, “AI-ALOE’s next phase will focus on the challenge of developing AI tools and implementation models that support and accelerate development of adaptive expertise for work in high-demand fields. Digital Promise is excited to bring its learning sciences expertise to bear in collaborations with leading-edge developers of AI tools for education.”

Digital Promise is continuing to engage in foundational research that tackles the challenging issues inherent in AI in education and these federal research awards demonstrate the continued trust in our organization to serve as high- quality, equitable leaders in the sector. Through our leadership in the K-12 AI Infrastructure Program, we’re also expanding our grantmaking abilities by providing requests for proposals and opportunities for applicants to produce public goods that advance the quality of AI in education.

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