RET Site: Project-Based Learning for Rural Alabama STEM Middle School Teachers in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics

This award establishes a renewed Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site at Auburn University. The site will provide unique and holistic research experiences for 24 middle school math and science teachers in the 7th-8th grades from rural areas of Alabama. The research focus is on smart humanoid and mobile robots enabled by cutting-edge technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The goals of the site are to equip teachers with knowledge and skills in AI and ML and robotics and promote their interests in these areas and facilitate teachers’ development and implementation of engaging project-based curricular modules for their classrooms. The site will provide research experiences to eight (8) middle school math and science teachers in the 7th-8th grades each year via a six-week summer program and nine-month academic year follow-up, with the research focused on smart mobile robots based on AI and ML. The site has five primary objectives to reach its goals of providing a rigorous and engaging RET experience: 1) provide education and training activities on the fundamentals of AI/ML and robotics, and novel platforms of ML-based smart humanoid and mobile robots for research and education; 2) engage teachers in hands-on research projects on ML-based smart robots that match well with faculty mentors’ research projects; 3) allow teachers to collaborate with engineering and STEM education faculty to develop the project-based curricular modules; 4) foster teachers’ leadership and pedagogical skills via teacher leader mentoring and practice of teaching the RET curricular modules; 5) assist teachers to implement the RET curricular modules via academic year follow-up. 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.