Rutgers Professor’s Virtual Labs and Teacher Dashboard Helpful for Students and Educators Worldwide

A science platform, founded by GSE’s Janice Gobert, has been a resource for students and educators during pandemic

Educators and students worldwide are rising to meet today’s distance learning challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis. Inq-ITS, a science platform developed by Rutgers’ Graduate School of Education professor Janice Gobert, has been a resource for middle school, high school students, and their teachers. The platform incorporates virtual science labs that assess and supports students while they work using AI. 

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the for-profit platform, commercialized by Apprendis and led by Gobert’s former graduate students Mike Sao Pedro and Cameron Betts, is being offered to schools and parents for free temporarily during this difficult financial time. As a result, it is being used in over 80 countries, with some teachers using it to synchronously monitor and guide their students as they work from home. Gobert discusses the platform and how it works. 

How has the platform been helpful during this challenging time?

Inq-ITS is a web-based learning environment that allows students to “show what they know” in Next Generation Science Standards-aligned tasks. Amidst the pandemic, we are seeing students engaging in interactive science labs online and at home at any time of day, whether assigned by their teacher or for their own interest.

The platform gives educators real-time reporting on student performance to guide further instruction. Teachers receive real-time alerts on students' difficulties, which greatly supports their ability to help individual students, do differentiated instruction in small groups, or do whole-class instruction of science if many students are struggling with the same problem. 

Students are also getting personalized, real-time feedback from a virtual agent, “Rex,” which has been especially helpful during this isolation period. Parents can also look at Rex’s hints to help their child if they prefer.

How does the AI technology work? 

Every mouse-click, change to a simulation or widget, what students write, their time on a task, etc. is gathered. Then, using machine-learned, patented algorithms, the assessments are given to teachers and the real-time hints are given to students. Additionally, a companion tool to Inq-ITS, Inq-Blotter, funded by the NSF and the U.S. Dept of Education, sends the real-time information about students’ competencies to the phones or tablets of teachers. Our research has shown that the assessments agree with human scorers’ grading up 95% of the time. Our algorithms also do a better job than general Natural Language Processing algorithms, whose match to human scorers is typically about 80%.

What are the school-level benefits from the platform?

Teachers get data needed for science assessments that are aligned to science standards. Administrators also need proof of students’ improvement, which is necessary for ESSA funding (Every Student Succeeds Act). Students benefit from learning science, aligned to state standards, needed for 21st C skills and future jobs.

Why did you decide to make the platform free for the rest of the school year?

Teachers and students’ are in grave need during this time, and we wanted to help, however we could. With teachers being forced to do instruction remotely, students run the risk of backsliding. The platform can work as an extra resource to ensure that does not happen.