Caregiver Homework Support

Challenge

Caregivers want to support mathematics homework, yet uncertainty about the content and about when to help makes involvement difficult.

What We Do

We study tools connecting caregivers with students’ practice in intelligent tutoring systems. Designs include homework goal contracts, views of student progress, and AI-generated suggestions for messages to students.

The aim is to support caregiver involvement while preserving students’ responsibility for solving problems.

Design Findings

In a caregiver-support case study, caregivers appreciated AI-generated message suggestions for prompting their child’s thinking and offering instructional support, including when they felt less confident about the mathematics (Venugopalan et al., 2025).

Why This Matters

Caregiver support involves several roles, including encouraging practice, reviewing goals, and helping students reason. The project examines which forms of support families use and what makes involvement feasible.

Publications

Nguyen, H. T., Borchers, C., Xia, M., & Aleven, V. (2024). Designing tools for caregiver involvement in intelligent tutoring systems for middle school mathematics. ICLS 2024.

Venugopalan, D., Yan, Z., Borchers, C., Lin, J., & Aleven, V. (2025). Combining Large Language Models with Tutoring System Intelligence: A Case Study in Caregiver Homework Support. LAK 2025.

Borchers, C., Nguyen, H. T., Carvalho, P. F., Koedinger, K. R., & Aleven, V. (2025). Involving Parents in Tutoring Systems to Increase Content Confidence: A Design Probe Study. AIED 2025, PDF.

Borchers, C., Nguyen, H. T., Carvalho, P. F., Koedinger, K. R., & Aleven, V. (2025). Goal Setting Engages More Caregivers Than Instructional Support in Online Math Homework. EC-TEL 2025, preprint.