SBIR Phase II: Meaningful Sketching and Meaningful Struggle in STEM Education

This SBIR Phase II project will develop a personalized learning environment for guiding students in effective use of educational sketching in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM). There is an estimated need for 1 million more STEM professionals in the U.S. over the next decade. However, the dropout rate for students in STEM majors ranges from 48% to 69%. Recent reform in mathematics education in the U.S. has focused on sketching and modeling so that students have a better understanding of the problems they are solving rather than rote memorization. Sketching is also important for improving the ability to visualize three dimensional shapes in engineering, medicine, and science. Teaching sketching has been shown to increase retention in STEM by over 50% among students entering college with low spatial visualization skills, especially among women and other underrepresented minorities. However, the traditional method of sketching on paper requires teaching expertise and classroom time, which has limited its use. Our touchscreen software will improve upon sketching on paper, by providing immediate feedback and intelligent hints when students are stuck. A key advantage of our approach is that it can reward persistence by having students retry a sketching assignment until they get it right, as opposed to multiple-choice questions that can only be tried once. Impact will include improved conceptual understanding in K-6 mathematics and STEM education at all levels. This project will develop an intelligent learning environment where students can freehand sketch on a touchscreen phone, tablet, or computer. They will receive personalized feedback based on the sketches they draw to improve their conceptual understanding and promote persistence. The software algorithms developed will automatically grade student sketches and provide hints that are just enough to keep the student engaged but not so much as to give away the solution. An expert teacher knows that developing skill and increasing persistence requires that students struggle a bit as they overcome obstacles to learn new concepts. The algorithm for interpreting student sketches and providing hints will mimic an expert teacher looking over the shoulder of the student. By interpreting student intent in their sketches, the algorithm will be able to distinguish between intentional marks and unintentional ones that are due to poor coordination or sloppiness. Subject areas include elementary school mathematics, spatial visualization for 7-12th grade technical education, post-secondary vocational and engineering programs, and eventually physics, geology, medicine and other STEM areas. This project will replace sketching on paper and pencil with widely available touchscreens, and make educational sketching more effective and engaging. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.