On October 2nd, there was the kick-off of the co-creation project Montessori materials with sensors. The team members came together in the Montessori Children’s Centre De Kleine Prins in Rotterdam to celebrate the start of their project.
AI detects the ‘aha moment’ | co-creation project montessori materials with sensors
In montessori education, students get the freedom to choose what tasks they want to work on in class. It is a challenge for teachers to follow their learning processes from beginning to end, which sometimes causes them to miss key moments. “Its strength is that you detect the ‘aha moment’ and show the next step. We hope to chart these moments more clearly with AI.
‘Helping to do it yourself’
One of the attendees was Carina Smit, teacher since 2002 and employed in montessori education since 2019. “I teach groups 3, 4, and 5 of De Kleine Prins. The essence of our primary education is that the child is free to choose what task they want to work on. That is why our motto is ‘help me do it myself’. During the work class, I walk rounds for one and a half to two hours. I observe and then continue my round to teach small classes. Sometimes I give a short lesson and other times I need some more time to provide 1-on-1 attention. This is how the guidance continues round after round.”
"The Dutch montessori classes […] are far bigger than those in other countries. This makes it even more challenging to guide all the students at their own level.”
Project leader Menno Boontje was also present at the meeting. He started working as a logistics planner at a producer of montessori materials in 1985, but made his way to becoming commercial director. He would go on to work as a director for Cito Germany, and now he is the owner of Montessori Portal. “I worked abroad a lot, and I noticed what was going on internationally in regards to montessori education. Dutch montessori classes are part of the freely accessible education and are far bigger than those in other countries. This makes it even more challenging to guide all the students at their own level.”
Carina thinks the montessori approach is a great and fun style of teaching. At the same time, it is difficult to be aware of everything that is happening. “Sometimes you miss a student’s key moment when you are explaining something to another student. A key moment is a broad concept. You can tell by looking at the children when they get something, and you want to use that moment to help them along. Sometimes I see something on a table that students have been working on, but I don’t know how they got to their end product. That is something you want to prevent.
Sensorising arithmetic materials
At one of NOLAI’s question sessions, Carina explained the challenge. Her question was developed into a proposal in which sensors on learning materials would provide more insight into the children’s working and learning processes. “Students can make mistakes in the process and then get stuck. Sometimes students correct themselves, and it is useful to see how they reached the solution in this key moment in order to discuss their strategy. AI can be a helpful tool to map these key moments, which will hopefully create more rest for the teacher.
The co-creation team will start by sensorising a few arithmetic materials. “We find ourselves in a phase where we are selecting the most suitable learning tools and how these can connect to the core goals of the montessori education. This will be arithmetic materials at first, because we believe that this will provide us with the most rich data,” Menno says.
The team is looking forward to going into the classrooms. The researchers will start with a pilot study. “That analysis will take place with the help of video recordings. We will use these to see how students are working with the existing materials and what kind of key moment occur. Based on these results we will determine what role AI can play in this,” Carina explains.
Menno is also curious about the experiences in the classroom. “Up until now we have looked at this project from a theoretical angle and I think it will be interesting to see the child’s perspective. I am also curious to see how the montessori field will respond, and it is our task to map and showcase the effects clearly.”
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Contact information
- Organizational unit
- National Education Lab AI (NOLAI)
- About person
- J.L.M. Wiggers (Annelies)
- Theme
- Artificial intelligence (AI), Education