This week’s evidence comes from the US Department of Education Awards for research. I offer this with the caveat that much of the publicity for artificial intelligence is overblown. I’m the eternal optimist, but please be a critical consumer of this and ask our school leaders and teachers to do the same. Not every claim about the miracle of AI is true. We still need human intelligence, not just artificial intelligence.

Using artificial intelligence to personalize learning and generate insights to inform tailored instruction is real. About half of the new projects develop artificial intelligence (AI) based software components to personalize learning and instruction. These projects take advantage of AI functionalities to generate new or adjust existing content to meet the needs of individual learners. They offer real-time feedback to scaffold learning, as well as produce real-time prompts and insights that educators can use to track student progress and adjust instruction accordingly.

• In the area of English language arts, Kibeam Learning, Inc.(formerly Kinoo, Inc) will support children as they independently explore and read books; Common Ground Publishing will support student writing; RapStudy Inc. will create songs with customized lyrics for academic learning; and with two new Phase I awards, Charmtech Labs LLC will develop two new prototypes, one to add items for an existing reading assessment (ReadBasix) and another to create new localized and culturally responsive assessment items to measure reading and inform instruction.

• StoryWorld International Corp will personalize vocabulary acquisition for English learners, and Linguistic Inc. will generate vocational resources for adult English learners.

• In math, Inletech LLC will allow students to create personalized stories to explore and learn math in a simulated real-world context. Oko Labs, Inc. will engage students in a collaborative process to solve puzzles by doing math.

• For social, behavioral, and mental health, Edifii, Inc. will develop a chatbot to provide guidance counselors with insights into how individual students are planning for their future, and Sown to Grow, Inc. will create a logic-based algorithm to identify students at risk for mental health challenges and inform intervention.