NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education

The renewal of the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) will allow for continued development of transformative approaches to enhance the proficiency of online education for adult learning in STEM disciplines. This research builds on AI-ALOE’s prior work that included the development of seven AI agents and a data architecture for AI-augmented learning. Because of the evolving needs of the workplace, rapid advances in AI technology, and the institutes knowledge and expertise in AI for adult learning and online education, the focus of this renewal will be on adaptive expertise, the ability to adapt and transfer learned skills to new situations. The institute will expand its research into workplace and training by focusing on occupational skills and vocational training in advanced manufacturing and data science, as well as build on recent advances in generative and agentic AI to use of AI to foster adaptive expertise in higher education and workplace settings. To this end, AI-ALOE will utilize a data architecture that automatically ingests, standardizes, analyzes, and visualizes data generated through interaction with AI tools, learning management systems, and student information systems. The institute will advance research on the use of AI agents for learning complex skills in at least four dimensions of use-inspired AI: (1) Scalability of learning, (2) Personalization of learning, and (3) Transfer of learning, and (4) Whole person learning. There will be new contributions to foundational AI in at least three dimensions: (1) Machine teaching, (2) Metacognition in AI agents, and (3) Mutual Theory of Mind. AI-ALOE’s research will develop and study AI agents to support the acquisition of adaptive expertise of complex skills in the classroom through efforts that include: exploratory research to understand focal instructor goals and needs, co-design research studies to qualitatively investigate usage behaviors and the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of alpha versions of AI-ALOE agents and learning and optimization studies to inform refinement of AI-ALOE agents. These agents are created through an interactive process of design, build, execution, failure, recovery, learning, and redesign. AI-ALOE has advanced the learning ecosystems where its tools are implemented and expanded its reach and impact by partnering with five institutions of higher education (2 year and 4 year) throughout the nation, as well as six industry partners in a variety of advanced manufacturing contexts. All of which will allow AI-ALOE to reach up to 370,000 learners nationally for skilling, reskilling, or upskilling. 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.