CueThinkEF+
Project Overview
CueThinkEF+ is a problem solving and collaboration platform designed to improve students’ critical thinking skills and support metacognition. CueThinkEF+ is built to enhance collaborative mathematical discourse and problem solving with executive function scaffolds and uses AI to provide personalized supports. The product is designed to create safe spaces for historically excluded students to express their ideas and share their thinking and reasoning.
CueThinkEF+ supports the development of students’ problem solving skills by combining rich math tasks with a structured four-phase problem solving process (Explore, Plan, Solve, Review). Throughout this process, an adaptive metacognitive helper prompts students to pause and reflect, building self-questioning habits that strengthen problem solving. After completing the Explore, Plan, and Solve phases, students record a “Thinklet” to voice over their thinking and show their work. These Thinklets are shared in a class gallery, and students and teachers can annotate each other’s work with questions and comments, creating opportunities to learn from diverse problem-solving strategies. As students engage with peers’ Thinklets, the platform provides individualized prompts to help them give high-quality feedback, fostering meaningful mathematical discourse and collaboration.
(acquired by Imagine Learning in June 2024)
Project Approach
CueThinkEF+’s approach weaves together math, executive function skills, and equity to help all students strengthen problem solving skills, build confidence, and share their reasoning in supportive classroom communities.
Mathematics
Structured approach to complex problem solving for students in grades 6–8.
Executive Function Skills
Just-in-time EF and metacognitive supports through embedded AI-driven learning detectors and probes to understand student behaviors and provide personalized interventions.
Equitable Learning Experiences
Attending to students’ math identity and anxiety through discourse practices, collaboration, and scaffolding.
Project Impact
CueThinkEF+ has produced measurable impact in classrooms, reaching thousands of students and educators, while contributing research findings to advance math education.
Key Insights and Innovations
Structured, collaborative problem solving builds mathematical confidence
CueThinkEF+ reimagines math problem solving as a social, reflective process. Its four-phase framework — Explore, Plan, Solve, Review — helps students build confidence as mathematical thinkers and make their thinking visible. Through the shared “Thinklet” gallery, students learn from one another’s reasoning and engage in math discourse.
Personalized supports develop students’ feedback skills
CueThinkEF+ gives students the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback to peers on their solutions and engage in deep mathematical discourse. With the Pennesota team, CueThinkEF+ developed AI-based detectors that analyze the quality of student feedback. An animated helper then provides each student with specific guidance on how they can be more helpful in their feedback.
Metacognitive prompts at the right moment unlock problem solving pathways
Effective problem solvers engage in constant metacognitive assessment and reflection by pausing to ask themselves questions, considering where they are in the problem solving process, and considering alternative approaches as needed. To support students in learning these critical skills, CueThinkEF+ developed a metacognitive helper that activates based on how students interact with the platform. Students reflect on prompts such as “What can I do first?” or “Is there another strategy I can try?” Student co-designers shaped both the language and helper conditions, ensuring prompts feel natural and useful at moments when students most need guidance.
Students and teachers as co-designers create more relevant tools
CueThinkEF+ created the Co-Design for Equitable Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CEATL) framework to position students and their teachers as active partners in developing platform features. The team discovered that when students from historically marginalized communities shape educational technology, the resulting tools become more relevant, engaging, and accessible for all learners.
Real-time data reveals when students need support most
With the Pennesota team, CueThinkEF+ embedded AI-driven probes within the platform to gather in-the-moment data about what’s actually happening as students work through problems: Are they engaged or experiencing mind wandering? How confident do they feel in their ability to solve the problem? Are they reflecting on their strategies and adjusting their approach? This creates opportunities to deliver personalized supports precisely when students need them.
VOICES FROM THE EF+MATH COMMUNITY
Research Highlights
Acknowledgments
To our district administrators, teachers, and students, we thank you for your expertise and willingness to learn and grow side-by-side with us on our journey! Your voices have shaped the product for the better and in ways we could not have imagined 5 years ago.
Our work on the CueThinkEF+ project could not have been achieved without the support of our engineering team and our advisors: Dr. Stephanie Carlson, Dr. Phillip Zelazo, Dr. Kristin Umland, and David Petersen. Thank you for your guidance, your expertise, and for pushing our thinking in all the right ways to design and build a product in service of our students where their brilliance as mathematicians can shine.
Lastly, to the members of the CueThink team that have transitioned on to new adventures over the years, thank you for all you have done to support this journey: Changsi Liu, Jason Jaskolka, Zixian (Judy) Zhu, Marsha Moller, Pam Schwartz, and Allison DePiro. Your expertise and voices shine in the product and we cherish you in our hearts!
We gratefully acknowledge the leadership of CueThink and Imagine Learning, in partnership with sub-award recipients at Landmark College, Georgia Southern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Minnesota.
Explore Our R&D Projects
The EF+Math portfolio of R&D projects developed innovative math learning products and advanced research on mathematics learning, executive function skills, and equitable learning experiences using inclusive R&D methods.