NSF FF: Planning: Community-Aligned Learning in Math: Building a Multilingual Informed Conversational Companion

Award ID: 2627532

This FINDERS Foundry award strengthens K-2 multilingual learners early math skills. Many students struggle when math lessons do not match how they communicate or make sense of the world. This project will codesign a conversational AI tool that can switch languages and support learning in ways that feel natural to students. Families, educators, and community members will guide the design so the tool reflects their values, experiences, and real classroom needs. Students will use the tool to talk through math ideas, ask questions, and get help in the language that works best for them. By giving students a more welcoming math experience, the project hopes to strengthen their confidence and curiosity. The longterm goal is to help all students get a strong start in math and open doors to future STEM opportunities. This FINDERS Foundry develops a conversational technology that facilitates K-2 multilingual learners math learning. Leveraging a community advisory board (CAB) composed of teachers, administrators, and parents of multilingual speaking children, the team collaboratively develops rigorous conversational technology for improving K-2 multilingual learners math learning. Cooperative inquiry is used to engage parents and learners as collaborators in the co-design process of low-fidelity prototypes of conversational user interfaces that support math learning to supplement math learning in both monolingual and multilingual classrooms, ultimately contributing to a well-prepared U.S. STEM workforce in an AI driven economy. 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.

NSF Program Director: Lindsay Portnoy