Artificial intelligence can write a r茅sum茅, answer medical questions, and even have philosophical conversations. But one task it鈥檚 not always so good at is solving math problems鈥攁nd that poses a challenge for teachers and students who might try to use the technology in class.
AI bots, such as ChatGPT, regularly answer math questions incorrectly, botching calculations or using faulty logic. That鈥檚 because these models , experts have said. Instead, chatbots analyze large amounts of text to make predictions鈥攚hich can be wrong. The tool can also give contradictory answers to the same question asked at different times.
It鈥檚 a problem that AI developers have begun to address.
In February, a found that Khanmigo, an AI tutor created by the online education nonprofit Khan Academy, regularly struggled with basic computation. Khan Academy has since , including directing numerical problems to a calculator.
And earlier this month, OpenAI, the organization that created ChatGPT, designed to better reason through complex math tasks.
But still, said Lane Walker, a high school math teacher in Wake County schools in North Carolina, 鈥淓very once in a while I get an answer that鈥檚 clearly wrong. 鈥� You can鈥檛 take everything it says without question.鈥�
Surveys have shown that teachers are hesitant about bringing AI into the classroom, in part due to concerns about chatbots presenting them or their students incorrect information.
In math, specifically, educators are split on the role that AI should play, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. When asked how math instruction should change to address the existence of AI platforms that can solve math problems for students, 43 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders said that students should be completing their work in class with a paper and pencil to make sure they鈥檙e not accessing these tools.
But about a third of educators said that students should be taught how to incorporate AI into their assignments, and 1 in 5 said that teachers should use AI to create math assignments.
Education Week spoke to two teachers who are using AI in these ways to find out how they handle the technology鈥檚 shortcomings鈥攁nd how to turn these flaws to their advantage.
Lane Walker
Math teacher
Fuquay-Varina High School, Wake County schools, N.C.
Walker has always tried to create what she calls 鈥渓earning adventures鈥� for her students鈥攎ath problems that reference their interests, like sports, and involve some open-ended thinking.
But figuring out how to write a problem that checks all those boxes while evaluating students鈥� understanding of a math concept is time consuming. Creating a whole worksheet full of them? 鈥淚 was like, 鈥極h man, who鈥檚 got time for that?鈥欌�� Walker said.
For the past year, Walker has sometimes outsourced this 鈥済runt work,鈥� as she described it, to ChatGPT.
She鈥檚 asked it to make flashcards, create two-step word problems for Algebra 1 classes, and write an inquiry-based lesson to help students move from working with one-variable equations to equations with several variables.
Walker has also used ChatGPT to deepen her own math knowledge. She has asked the chatbot, for example, to give her a summary of research on an ongoing debate among mathematicians: Is 0 a natural number? In response, ChatGPT broke down the arguments and cited sources on either side.
No matter what Walker uses AI for, she always does a quick check of the problems. In the past, she has had to correct errors in a procedural problem she had planned to give students.
She鈥檚 also stumped ChatGPT on occasion. When she asked it whether students should expect to see point-slope form on the ACT college-entrance test, and where to find examples of practice problems, the AI directed her to a resource that didn鈥檛 exist.
鈥淲hen I saw some [responses], it was so obvious that AI wasn鈥檛 interpreting my question accurately,鈥� Walker said.
David Dai
8th grade accelerated math and geometry teacher
Barton Academy For Advanced World Studies, Mobile, Ala.
Like Walker, Dai uses ChatGPT to create lessons. But instead of asking the tool to write problems, Dai employs it as a brainstorming partner.
鈥淚鈥檒l type a prompt into ChatGPT and say, 鈥楬ey, we鈥檙e about to start a unit on looking at polygons and angle relationships and side length measures. 鈥� How can I contextualize it, and maybe think about it from an arts perspective or from an architecture perspective?鈥欌�� he said.
In response, Dai said, the chatbot suggested building a lesson around stained glass windows in cathedrals. He used that idea as a way to hook students into the lesson by giving them a real-world example of why knowing how to measure angles matters.
鈥淭here is still this aspect of verification,鈥� he added. 鈥淚 take what it shares and I go and do my own research and dig a little bit deeper.鈥�
Dai knows that his students have access to AI, too鈥攖ools like Photomath and Symbolab that can spit out answers to math problems. He doesn鈥檛 discourage his classes from using these, though.
鈥淚f [AI] can give you a step-by-step answer, then it鈥檚 very low cognitive demand in terms of what I鈥檓 having my students do,鈥� Dai said. He tries to write questions that require too much critical thinking and open-ended problem-solving for AI to handle. Sometimes, he has students test whether he鈥檚 outfoxed the technology.
鈥淚鈥檒l have my students take pictures of the problems that I create, and they鈥檙e like, 鈥榊eah, no, [Photomath isn鈥檛] giving me an answer. And I鈥檓 like, fantastic, because you need to now think through: How are we going to set up this problem?鈥� he said.
For Dai, the possibility that AI might get a math problem wrong poses another learning opportunity. One way that he assesses student understanding is through error analysis: asking them to explain how and why a problem was solved incorrectly. He encourages students to use that process to double-check any answers AI provides them.
鈥淢y students get into a habit of 鈥� being able to read other people鈥檚 work and make sense of others鈥� thinking, and say, 鈥極h, yes, that makes sense,鈥� or, 鈥楴o, mathematically, that doesn鈥檛 work.鈥欌��
