Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Open Educational Resources for Equitable STEM Education

Access to effective STEM education remains a challenge in many parts of the world, particularly in resource-constrained environments. Our preliminary environmental scan confirmed that all three project countries were experiencing ongoing challenges that STEPS needed to address. The challenges, all of which were exacerbated by both the COVID-19 pandemic and political unrest, included insufficient numbers of qualified subject teachers and textbooks and inadequate technological and financial support. The teachers confirmed the accuracy of our assessment. For example, 94% of teachers reported having insufficient STEM material ​and infrastructure​, and many said they had insufficient training in teaching STEM​ subjects​. Quality STEM education thus remained out of reach for thousands of primary school ​​students. 

AI tools can play an important role in educational content development because of their ability to rapidly generate adaptable materials, personalize learning pathways and scale content across multiple languages and contexts. However, they must be used as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, human pedagogical expertise so that the resulting materials are culturally responsive and educationally ​sound. When AI receives proper and effective guidance from educators, it can significantly accelerate the creation and adaptation of educational resources, particularly in contexts where teaching materials are scarce. This is where integrating AI with OER becomes particularly valuable. 

OER are freely accessible, openly licensed educational materials that can be used, modified and redistributed for free for educational and research purposes. They are a cost-effective starting point for developing curricula in resource-constrained educational ​environments. Unlike open access (OA) materials, which primarily ensure free access to published content but may still have restrictions on their modification and redistribution, OER explicitly grant users legal permission to share, and often adapt, the resources, making them particularly valuable for contextual adaptation in diverse educational settings. 

Reconceptualizing curriculum development through technological and pedagogical innovation 

Conventional curriculum development approaches are time-consuming, expensive and often not culturally relevant — for example, traditionally they involve not only hiring a team of curriculum writers, assessment specialists and designers, many of whom lack local knowledge, on a restricted budget, but also protracted timelines because of the need to coordinate the schedules of multiple experts. Our goal was to leverage the complementary strengths of AI and OER to create a more efficient ​process and improve STEM teaching in primary schools. We tested the new process by creating the STEPS materials. 

For the mathematics curricula, the team adapted existing high-quality content from South Africa's Ukuqonda Institute for Grades 4–6, and renowned mathematics education specialists Dr. Piet Human (South Africa) and Dr. Napthalin Atanga (Cameroon) ​​developed material for Grades 1–3. All ​texts were created in English and ​​translated into French using AI. They were then meticulously reviewed by human translators and in-country mathematics experts.  

For the science curricula, the team used OER from Core Knowledge (USA) and Siyavula (South Africa) to form the base of their adapted lessons. Although the syllabi in all three countries covered much of the same material, the pacing differed, so there was a need to customize the material in this respect for each country. To fill the gaps, the STEPS curriculum writers provided AI ​​tools — including ChatGPT and Anthropic — with detailed, well-constructed prompts, some as long as half a page, to create new lessons in English. Subject matter ​​experts and education specialists then thoroughly reviewed the output. AI was also used translate the material into ​French, and human translators reviewed the translations to ensure the accuracy and cultural relevance of the ​​lessons. The material was therefore localized three times: first by the AI tools, then by local reviewers and finally by the translation team. 

Outcomes related to science material 

We will focus on the science material for the remainder of this post. 

The project team achieved remarkable outcomes using the above process: 28 comprehensive science textbooks and accompanying workbooks were designed specifically for each country’s syllabi and educational context. The TPD that accompanied these resources incorporated constructivist pedagogical strategies such as essential questions and KWL (What do you Know? What do you Want to know? What have you Learned?), both of which are designed to foster student-centred inquiry and transcend the traditional rote memorization seen in many African classrooms. 

Teacher agency as a catalyst for sustainable educational transformation 

Providing high-quality material was only half the solution. As we know, quality material is essential, but teachers must be trained in using it effectively if it is to be implemented successfully. Initially, STEPS conducted intensive five-day workshops on teaching science for ​all ​teachers from ​the project​ ​​​​schools. The workshops were led by outside instructors and were expensive in terms of both time and money. Later in the project, the training was simplified, shortened and delivered in each school by experienced ​local teacher trainers or​​,​​ in some cases​​,​​ ​teachers. This approach empowered local educators with greater agency in their professional development process, allowing them to take ownership of both the content and its implementation, which was a much more sustainable model. 

The TPD yielded significant results: 94% of teachers reported increased confidence in their ability to teach science, and 80% committed to using STEPS material beyond the project timeframe.