AI-Enhanced Cooperative Learning in Mathematics Education: Student-AI Collaboration Through Specialized AI Agents (AICOOP-MATH)

Project members of the Mathematics Education – Primary School working group at UHH:
Prof. Dr. Marcus Schütte
Dr. Mia Viermann
Peter Ludes-Adamy
Marieke Ende

The integration of AI and generative AI into education opens up new opportunities, for example through adaptive learning systems. Traditional learning systems, however, focus on instruction and error correction, which limits critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The project ‚AI-Enhanced Cooperative Learning in Mathematics Education' pursues the innovative approach of developing a chatbot that allows mistakes and acts as a cooperative learning partner, rather than instructing learners or providing hints to reach the correct answers. In this way, pupils could be actively involved in decision-making and problem-solving processes, and their mathematical argumentation and reflection skills could be fostered.
The planned study investigates whether primary school pupils perceive such a chatbot as a partner, how they collaborate with it, and how this collaboration affects creativity and learning. A pilot study with 50 fourth-graders in Hamburg will examine the effectiveness of this approach. The interactions between child and AI will be analysed in order to better understand learning processes and decision-making strategies.
In the long term, this cooperative approach could be used in schools to establish AI not as a replacement for teachers or fellow pupils, but as a supportive learning partner. The project contributes to research on child-friendly use of AI and takes ethical aspects as well as data protection guidelines into account through the use of the compliant platform Fobizz, for which the RRZ has made individual licences available.

Current project funding

Funded by	Funding amount
Ideas and Venture Fund of Universität Hamburg (under review)	31,900 €