AIMS EduData
Funding Opportunities for K–12 Math EdTech Platforms
As the AIMS Collaboratory continues to grow and evolve, new opportunities arise that enable researchers and tech developers to participate in AIMS-related projects and activities. EduData is one of them. Funded by the Gates Foundation, the Advancing Innovative Math Solutions (AIMS) EduData Initiative seeks to build sustainable and scalable research infrastructure to advance math learning.
AIMS EduData especially encourages applications from graduate students and early career professionals, educators with research roles, such as those working in district research offices, and researchers located at minority serving institutions or Title I school districts.
Successful applicants will conduct original research using datasets provided by leading digital learning platforms (DLPs) and participate in a growing community.
Please visit the AIMS EduData website to join the mailing list and receive updates about future AIMS EduData funding opportunities.
New Grants Support Research into Math Education Using Datasets from Curriculum Associates, EdLight, Khan Academy, and University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning
Digital Promise, Curriculum Associates, EdLight, Khan Academy, and the University of Florida (UF) Lastinger Center for Learning have announced the next cohort of Advancing Innovative Math Solutions (AIMS) EduData research grants. Through these grants, researchers will partner with some of the most widely used digital learning platforms in schools to better understand student and teacher motivation, engagement, and persistence in mathematics.
Ranging from $18,000 to $165,000, these grants bring early-career investigators into the AIMS Collaboratory. Grantees will use rich datasets from digital learning platforms to conduct original research, contributing to an infrastructure that helps researchers, developers, and practitioners to enhance the quality of digital math tools and classroom practices.
The 13 grantees were selected from a competitive pool of more than 55 applicants and include graduate students, educators with research roles, educators and school leadership, and early career professionals from across the country, including California, Utah, Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida. Several grantees received large research grants allowing teams to investigate tools that use AI-assisted analysis of student work to support leaders and educators in addressing math misconceptions and improving math teaching and learning.
These new awards contribute to a growing movement that seeks to bridge research with the tools students already use, address challenges that educators prioritize, and speed the incorporation of research insights into well-used curricular resources.
Across all 13 awards, funding will enable grantees to study how digital learning data connects between student motivation, mathematics resources, and math learning. Several early-career researchers are leveraging advanced analytics and AI to improve math education. Additionally, grantees will also access career development opportunities and build relationships with a dynamic community of digital learning providers and researchers.
Research funded by the AIMS EduData research grants include the following projects:
Formative Data, Observation, and Classroom Understanding Study (FOCUS): A Research-Practice Partnership
Seeing Student Thinking: Using AI-Assisted Formative Assessment to Reduce Mathematical Misconceptions with a Focus on Algebraic Thinking in Grades 6–8 in the School District of Philadelphia
Scanning for What Works: Validating Optimal Conditions for AI-Assisted Formative Assessment
Misconception Trajectories as Early Indicators of Mathematics Risk: Testing the Predictive Value of Feature-Engineered Cognitive Error Patterns in EdLight
One Practice, Two Outcomes: Using Student Work to Build Teacher Content Knowledge and Precision in Instructional Response
AI-Enabled Learning: Building Teacher and Instructional Leadership Capacity Through Student Work
Shifting Teacher Attention from Scoring to Instruction
Strengthening Data-Driven Instruction Through Integrated Professional Learning and Collaborative Data Cycles
Timing is Everything: A NCARE/Washoe County/Curriculum Associates Collaboration on Digital Platform Usage, Engagement and Mathematical Outcomes
Modeling Educator Report-Use Strategies in i-Ready: Patterns, Context, and Associations with Student Growth
Integrating Struggle Quality into Knowledge Tracing Models of Mathematics Learning
Interpretable Teacher Engagement Profiles and Causal Effects in Math Matrix Micro-Credentials
Early Detection of Teacher Disengagement in Competency-Based Professional Development: A Machine Learning Analysis of the Math Matrix Micro-Credential
Opportunities
Benefits for Successful Applicants
Grants of $10,000–$400,000, depending on project needs and readiness, with larger awards available for district research partnerships
Access to rich datasets including assessments and process data
Career development opportunities
Participation in a dynamic, supportive community of digital learning providers and researchers
Qualifying Research
This opportunity is open to all types of research questions and methods, including exploratory projects, correlational research, measurement, and evaluation studies. Each platform will provide guidance on high-interest research themes and the nature of the available data.
We anticipate that many proposals will explore how this data could power a longer-term research concept. By gaining hands-on experience with the data and building relationships with the platform provider, the successful applicant could be better prepared for subsequent proposals and continued efforts on a research theme that is important to mathematics education.
Participating Digital Learning Platforms
The six participating digital learning platforms (DLPs) are listed below:
Carnegie Learning
Curriculum Associates
Edlight
Khan Academy
openstax
UF Lastinger Center for Learning, University of Florida
Descriptions of datasets are available here.
This Opportunity is open to:
U.S.-based researchers working for an institution of higher education, a school district, research organization (e.g., a nonprofit) or U.S.-based small business or consultancy.
Partnerships between researchers and educators are welcome.
Emerging researchers (e.g., those who do not yet have many PI roles in funded research) are especially welcome, as career development is one goal of this funding.
Prior to an award, researchers must establish their ability to complete required IRB reviews, MOUs, and data sharing agreements, and to comply with data security requirements.