Research

The research team is led by Elaine Kant, a former AI professor and Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.  The team includes PhDs in A.I. and in Mathematics. StepWise was first used in 2014 in a course at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, a $1M grant from the US Department of Education funded a Study of Promise with Algebra students in California that demonstrated the effectiveness of StepWise with middle-school students.

  • Wide Topic Coverage – Supports 500 math learning objectives

  • Expert System – A.I. developed based on the expertise of master classroom teachers

  • Multiple Patents – The development of StepWise has led to three patents in online assessment, online tutoring, and automated problem generation.

The StepWise development team includes expert classroom teachers to ensure that the feedback to students is correct and pedagogically correct.

Analytics

StepWise collects data on student performance on each step of a problem solution, giving instructors, administrators, and parents actionable insights into student thinking and problem-solving skills.

  • Micro-Analytics – 15 separate data elements collected for each student step

  • Show Your Work – Instructors and parents can review student work

  • Continuous Improvement – Data and feedback from real students improves StepWise A.I.

StepWise usage data has been collected from thousands of students over the past five years to improve the effectiveness and helpfulness of the A.I.

Flexible

StepWise allows students to solve math problems just as they would in the real world.  Students enter each step of their solution step-by-step and receive immediate feedback on the correctness of their step.  Students are free to use any valid sequence of math steps to solve the problem, just as they would in real life.  If a student makes a mistake in a step, StepWise immediately notifies the student and allows them to request friendly hints to get them back on the path to successfully solving the problem.  StepWise mimics the feedback that an expert teacher or tutor would provide when watching a student solve the math problem.

  • Multiple Problem Variants – Hundreds of unique variants for every problem

  • Available 24×7 – Students get help whenever they need it

  • Best Practices – Students receive feedback curated by master instructors

  • Friendly Feedback – StepWise feedback is friendly and patient

StepWise has infinite patience and will continue to assist students on a problem for as long as they wish, and as often as they wish, 24×7.

Open Resources

StepWise math products make use of Open Education Resources and Open-Source Software.  Math problems in StepWise are based on exercises developed by Rice University’s OpenStax initiative, used in thousands of math classrooms across North America.  Learning software is based on MIT OpenEdX, used for online courses with tens of millions of online students at hundreds of leading universities around the world.

  • Open-Source Content – Questions taken from award-winning OpenStax math eTexts from Rice University
  • Open-Source Learning Management – Student learning management software based on MIT OpenEdX software
  • Open-Source Systems – StepWise software runs on Open-Source operating systems and database software
  • Open Devices – StepWise software runs on affordable Android mobile devices and Apple iOS mobile devices
  • Cloud Hosted – StepWise software uses cloud-based servers in multiple data centers.

StepWise has been in continuous use in the U.S. since 2014 and in Canada since 2019.  Multiple software servers in multiple cities provide reliable availability.

Patented

StepWise has received three US patents since 2015 covering the core concepts in tutoring, student assessment, and question generation.

  • US 9,858,828 – “Expert Systems and Methods for Dynamic Assessment and Assessment Authoring” (Issued 1/2018)
  • US 10,467,919 – “Systems and Methods for AI-based Student Tutoring” (Issued 11/2019)
  • US 9,082,309 – “Dynamic Question Template System and Architecture” (Issued 7/2015)

The patented technology in StepWise has been used by thousands of students in the US for middle school through college.

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