EDC Launches New Work to Promote AI Fluency of Rural Students

EDC and the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Milwaukee have received a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to develop and test a scalable, replicable professional learning model that will empower rural middle school and high school STEM teachers to ensure their students are future-ready.

The new work responds to an urgent challenge that our country faces. While almost 10 million U.S. students attend rural schools, many rural districts struggle to provide high-quality, industry-aligned STEM learning. Simultaneously, artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the STEM content students must know and how educators teach STEM.

In response, Principal Investigator (PI) Dr. Sarah Sword (EDC) and co-PIs Dr. Anne Marie Marshall (UW-Milwaukee), Dr. Anne Wang (EDC), and Kirsten Peterson, EdM (EDC) have launched the NSF-funded R&D project, “Navigating Teaching in the Age of AI: Sprints for Authentic STEM Experiences,” to tap the expertise of rural teachers to address these challenges. The project will ensure rural teachers have a lead role in shaping how AI is used in STEM education and position students to become STEM innovators in their communities, driving sustainable economic growth.

Over the next two years, our team will carry out the project in the upper Midwest. Working closely with rural middle school and high school STEM teachers as co-designers, we will engage teachers in three, three-week online “sprints,” an approach adapted from the technology sector that focuses on intensive collaborative work to innovate, problem-solve, and achieve a shared goal.

Across the three online sprints, teachers will work in small design groups to investigate instructional challenges, develop AI-enabled STEM activities, and test ideas in their classrooms. They will use what they learn from their experiments to refine student materials and develop professional learning for colleagues. The work will culminate in a teacher-led online forum where participants share their materials, findings, and approaches with other rural STEM educators.

We will lead rigorous mixed-methods research to investigate:

• Any changes in rural teachers’ sense of autonomy, competence, and connection to colleagues
• How rural teachers engage with AI as they co-create authentic STEM learning opportunities
• How rural students demonstrate discipline-specific habits of mind and responsible AI use
• Which parts of the model teachers view as most influential in supporting them in applying AI to STEM teaching

The project’s professional learning model, modules, implementation guides, and teacher-led workshops will be shared nationwide to achieve maximum benefit for rural teachers and students.

Explore recent insights from Sarah Sword (“Kids Are Using AI. Here’s What Adults Need to Do Right Now”), Anne Marie Marshall (“Making Math Count; Strategies to Get Kids Excited About Numbers,”) Kirsten Peterson (“AI in Education: The Good, The Bad, and the Guardrails to Consider“), and Anne Wang (“Building Sustainable Computer Science Programs“).

We invite you to learn more about EDC’s Human-Centered AI, STEM Education and Workforce Development, and Research and Evaluation work.

About Education Development Center (EDC)

EDC is a global nonprofit that works with partners to advance every person’s journey to learn, work, and be well. For 68 years, EDC has partnered with communities, governments, and the private sector to improve education, workforce development, and health outcomes. By combining interdisciplinary expertise with real-world experience, EDC works across these pillars to design, implement, and scale evidence-based solutions that help partners create lasting change.

About University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-Milwaukee)

Founded in 1956, UW-Milwaukee is one of the nation’s top research universities and plays a critical role in fueling the state’s economy through discovery and innovation. UW-Milwaukee provides an affordable, world-class education to 23,000 students that includes over 202 academic programs taught by expert faculty, internships, and impactful community projects. It is part of the Universities of Wisconsin, a system that comprises 13 universities around the state and serves over 164,400 students with 840-plus programs, providing unlimited opportunities to explore, learn, and thrive.