A.L.V. Lundberg
Background and Purpose:
The purpose of this virtual presentation of a study on the sustainable development of mathematics education is to contribute to research on the use of AI for examining Swedish pre-service mathematics teachers. The research question is as follows: "How can Swedish pre-service mathematics teachers be digitally examined on sustainable mathematics education using AI as a digital tool?"
The course "Numeracy in Arithmetic" is offered as a distance course with a digital examination. Following the breakthrough of AI as an aid, many students use AI-based tools in their exam solutions. A current question is therefore whether this should be considered as cheating. One way to ensure that AI is used creatively is to design exam tasks as write a short essay on the sustainable development of mathematics education in arithmetic using given arithmetic concepts.
Method and Result:
150 Swedish pre-service teachers were given the task to write an essay as described in the Background, using a prescribed set of mathematical concepts, chosen with respect to the level of the course in question. The exam was anonymous, so no student could be identified. The written exams were analysed in categories of the sustainable global goals (SGD). A major part of the students (78,0%) solved this task successfully. However, some students (18,9 %) did not hand in any answer due to shortage of time.
Conclusion, and Discussion:
The analysis of the result indicates that the participants used AI as a creative tool and not as a mean of cheating by uncritically accepting AI-generated texts. An important observation is that AI can generate false but linguistically convincing results, necessitating an extra critical review of students' solutions.
A challenge for future teacher educators is to break new ground in the use of AI in mathematics education, due to the facts that AI was not adapted for mathematics previously, but that significant development has taken place recently.
This study should be considered a pilot study on a limited and fundamental area of mathematics. To meet the future needs of pre-service teachers of mathematics in their teaching careers, they must learn to use available AI-based tools critically if they shall be able to integrate AI into teaching as a facilitating support.
Keywords: AI in Education, Sustainable Development, Mathematics Teaching, Digital Examination, assessment.