ExplainIt: Improving Student Learning with Explanation-based Classroom Response Systems

This project aims to serve the national interest by creating ExplainIt, an innovative explanation-based classroom response system that provides real-time support to undergraduate STEM students and instructors by using natural language processing to analyze student explanations of STEM phenomena. The project will advance understanding of how to improve undergraduate STEM education by providing real-time formative feedback to each individual student and real-time summaries to instructors so they can quickly adapt their instruction to the current needs of their students. The project will produce significant theoretical and practical advances in undergraduate STEM education. It will lead to a deeper understanding of how students learn with explanation-based classroom response systems, including the learning gains and improvements in student engagement. It will also lead to a set of effective instructional support principles for explanation-rich classroom interactions that will be broadly applicable in multiple STEM disciplines and in diverse institutional settings. Together, these advances will yield fundamental improvements in undergraduate STEM education.

Three goals guide this project. First is to create the ExplainIt explanation-based classroom response system. Second is to produce empirically grounded research results on adaptively supporting student learning and engagement with ExplainIt. Third is to develop online resources that enable instructors to easily integrate ExplainIt into their teaching. Each year, instructors in biology, computer science, and physics will contribute to the design, development, and evaluation of the ExplainIt software. The project will investigate conditions under which improved student learning occurs by evaluating ExplainIt in a wide range of undergraduate STEM courses. ExplainIt will be evaluated with more than 6,000 students in introductory courses, lower-division courses, and upper-division courses. The evaluation will have a dual focus: evaluating ExplainIt's effects on students' STEM learning (conceptual knowledge, problem solving), and evaluating ExplainIt's effects on improving students' engagement in STEM (STEM self-efficacy, STEM interest). The project team will grow the ExplainIt community of practice through workshops and presentations at conferences on biology education, computer science education, and physics education, as well as through webinars and social media. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

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.