Carnegie Learning Awarded $2 Million Digital Learning Platforms Grant by U.S. Department of Education

Five-year grant will enable researchers to field test improvements in MATHia software and boost equity in mathematics education

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Carnegie Learning, a leader in artificial intelligence for education and formative assessment, announced that it was awarded a $2 million grant by the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science (IES) and the National Center for Education Research to field test improvements in its award-winning, intelligent software MATHia. The grant recognizes and extends Carnegie Learning's leadership in continuously improving its products' effectiveness with students.

With this grant, which will be received over five years, Carnegie Learning joined SEERNet, a research network comprising five research teams and the network lead, each of whom also received grants to research equitable digital learning at scale. SEERNet is led by Digital Promise, an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is passionately committed to spurring innovation in education to improve opportunities to learn for all learners.

SEERNet presents a new approach to more rapidly improve the effectiveness of educational software by enabling researchers to easily field test new ideas in authentic educational environments. Each research team in the network will leverage existing, widely-used digital learning platforms for rigorous education research and will ultimately assist policymakers and practitioners in using this information to strengthen educational policies and improve student outcomes.

Carnegie Learning Founder and Chief Scientist Dr. Steven Ritter leads the Carnegie Learning research team. He states, “This grant expands our opportunity to accelerate student learning for all by testing a wide range of improvements to MATHia, and it further advances best practices in mathematics classrooms. It also allows us to collaborate with other researchers, so we can more efficiently innovate in the digital learning space with multiple strands of research.”

Dr. Ritter’s team will integrate MATHia with UpGrade, an open-source platform that supports fair and rigorous randomized field trials that compare new instructional techniques and motivational supports with current approaches. This project will result in improved instructional equity, better motivational support for students, and insights that will help teachers better guide learning, regardless of whether their students are using MATHia. The grant will cover all costs associated with this work.

Barry Malkin, CEO, says, “We’re thrilled that our research team has this opportunity to continue doing the work of not only incorporating research-based best practices into our education technology solutions, but also in shaping and driving that research. At Carnegie Learning, we have always wanted the same thing as educators, administrators, and policymakers: for students to learn as effectively as possible, using technology that augments the wonderful work that teachers do every day.”

ABOUT CARNEGIE LEARNING, INC.

Carnegie Learning is shaping the future of education. Born from more than 30 years of learning science research at Carnegie Mellon University, the company has become a recognized leader in the ed tech space, using artificial intelligence, formative assessment, and adaptive learning to deliver groundbreaking solutions to education’s toughest challenges. With the highest quality offerings for K-12 math, ELA, literacy, world languages, professional learning and more, Carnegie Learning is changing the way we think about education and creating powerful results for teachers and students alike. For more information, please visit: www.carnegielearning.com.