Tech EDGE, AI in the Classroom: ChatGPT Math Tutor

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07/08/2025 Added

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In this episode of AI in the Classroom, Guy and Williams explore the pros and cons of using ChatGPT as a math tutor. University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) | College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS) | Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education (TLTE)

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[00:00:00.500]Coming up on AI in the Classroom.
[00:00:02.719]Guy and Williams make a
[00:00:04.070]ChatGPT Math Tutor.
[00:00:06.272](upbeat music)
[00:00:11.394]Hi, I'm Williams, a grad student at UNL.
[00:00:14.898]And I'm Guy Trainin a professor
[00:00:16.633]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:18.952]And today?
[00:00:20.353]We are going to discuss how to generate
[00:00:23.656]a math tutor using ChatGPT.
[00:00:26.026]All right.
[00:00:26.426]So I love ChatGPT.
[00:00:27.894]I love actually
[00:00:29.079]multiple LLMs
[00:00:31.064]and what they can do.
[00:00:32.565]And we've talked in the past
[00:00:34.701]about how some of them are better.
[00:00:36.553]You love Claude,
[00:00:37.604]for example, for creating apps because it,
[00:00:41.825]it seems to be more robust
[00:00:43.359]and just the look is a little bit better.
[00:00:46.763]I love using a ChatGPT to create
[00:00:51.067]specific GPTs,
[00:00:52.719]and that's what we're
[00:00:53.553]doing this this time.
[00:00:55.255]So if you go into your ChatGPT,
[00:00:57.223]you can see that
[00:00:58.007]our GPTs on the left
[00:00:59.242]and there are ones
[00:00:59.993]that have been preprogramed.
[00:01:01.795]But in education
[00:01:03.680]we often want something
[00:01:05.148]a lot more specific.
[00:01:06.349]So I actually went in
[00:01:08.201]and asked to create a new one.
[00:01:10.036]And to create
[00:01:10.787]you just click on the plus
[00:01:12.772]and you say, what do you want?
[00:01:15.024]And I asked for a math tutor
[00:01:18.078]for a student
[00:01:18.795]who is having a hard time adding,
[00:01:22.782]fractions.
[00:01:23.283]fractions.
[00:01:24.400]And that's a problem.
[00:01:26.302]Fractions is often
[00:01:27.737]a problem for students,
[00:01:29.639]both mechanically.
[00:01:30.490]From an algorithmic perspective,
[00:01:32.092]how you decompose this problem,
[00:01:34.043]and also from a practical perspective.
[00:01:36.279]Fractions are hard to capture,
[00:01:37.764]especially when they're
[00:01:38.665]in different denominations.
[00:01:39.766]So we created this specific GPT.
[00:01:43.336]In this it gives you a preview.
[00:01:45.738]You can make corrections
[00:01:47.173]so you can keep making corrections
[00:01:49.492]not starting from scratch.
[00:01:52.011]The preview window
[00:01:53.079]will tell you what it is.
[00:01:54.264]So I can say create fractions
[00:01:59.169]tutor
[00:02:02.322]focused on adding fractions.
[00:02:07.911]And you can give more details
[00:02:10.463]or less details.
[00:02:11.865]And what it does
[00:02:12.799]is it creates a specific
[00:02:14.334]bot that helps through that process.
[00:02:17.453]And so now as it's creating the GPT,
[00:02:21.741]we will take you to the actual GPT.
[00:02:23.927]I've already created to make sure
[00:02:26.112]that there's something going on.
[00:02:27.764]But you can see that
[00:02:28.731]the preview already shows you
[00:02:30.800]on the right hand side
[00:02:32.202]what will it look like.
[00:02:33.369]And then you can create it
[00:02:35.004]and also share it.
[00:02:36.556]So the most important thing about ChatGPT
[00:02:39.375]and the way this works is
[00:02:40.810]you can share it
[00:02:41.744]and people can work it
[00:02:42.762]from their computer.
[00:02:44.664]You can share it to a wide audience.
[00:02:46.983]So share with the world
[00:02:48.201]anybody can find it, or you can specify
[00:02:50.753]specific people
[00:02:51.955]that you want to share it,
[00:02:54.674]to share it with.
[00:02:55.925]So let me go back.
[00:02:58.194]And now I'll go to my,
[00:03:01.181]GPTs and say,
[00:03:04.184]okay, what are some GPTs
[00:03:05.835]that are created by me?
[00:03:07.604]And here's the GPT.
[00:03:08.688]This is the Friendly Fraction Tutor.
[00:03:10.573]I think that's a good name.
[00:03:11.591]Yeah.
[00:03:12.609]Friendly.
[00:03:13.243]It's friendly.
[00:03:14.444]It's about fractions.
[00:03:15.712]It's a tutor.
[00:03:17.330]And you can see that
[00:03:19.182]you can actually select questions
[00:03:20.600]or you can prompt.
[00:03:21.467]So you can say,
[00:03:24.087]how do I add?
[00:03:26.122]Right.
[00:03:28.391]How do I add
[00:03:29.626]fractions.
[00:03:34.063]How do I add?
[00:03:34.964]No, I'll make it even
[00:03:36.799]half
[00:03:38.301]and a third.
[00:03:42.822]So now you can see that,
[00:03:46.809]the GPT knows exactly where we're going,
[00:03:49.729]and it's defining the steps.
[00:03:52.749]This is a very algorithmic
[00:03:54.234]approach to the problem,
[00:03:55.551]but that in this case works.
[00:03:57.804]And,
[00:03:59.505]so it says first find
[00:04:01.040]the common denominator,
[00:04:03.459]rewrite each fraction
[00:04:05.028]and then add the fractions.
[00:04:06.429]This is great.
[00:04:07.730]But
[00:04:08.831]I can ask, how do I find
[00:04:12.769]the common denominator?
[00:04:17.540]Right.
[00:04:18.258]So you can continue and ask.
[00:04:21.177]So here it can keep giving me the advice.
[00:04:25.348]And what I love about the tutors with AI
[00:04:28.952]is not the fact
[00:04:29.769]just the fact
[00:04:30.336]that they give me the support,
[00:04:31.804]but that I can ask them
[00:04:33.957]whatever question
[00:04:35.074]I have
[00:04:35.575]without feeling embarrassed
[00:04:36.693]that I don't know
[00:04:37.477]what the denominator is.
[00:04:38.978]Everybody else seems to know,
[00:04:40.780]I don't know.
[00:04:41.431]Yeah.
[00:04:41.731]Now it's great to ask a teacher,
[00:04:43.650]but what we're seeing
[00:04:44.517]more and more
[00:04:45.551]is people are not asking.
[00:04:47.787]Kids are not always asking.
[00:04:49.706]And therefore having a GPT
[00:04:51.808]that can answer those questions,
[00:04:53.276]especially for students
[00:04:54.327]who are struggling
[00:04:55.078]and not already feeling behind.
[00:04:56.846]I do want to add one more feature,
[00:04:58.531]and that is,
[00:04:59.282]I can actually dictate the question.
[00:05:02.435]Can.
[00:05:03.453]Can youshow me,
[00:05:05.705]how.
[00:05:07.173]Can you show me
[00:05:07.991]how to add
[00:05:09.225]2/3 and 3/4?
[00:05:12.645]It's processing, which takes time.
[00:05:14.797]That's okay.
[00:05:15.765]But what I'm saying is,
[00:05:17.116]if students have a hard time typing or,
[00:05:21.471]if they have a difficulty,
[00:05:25.024]or they would rather use voice.
[00:05:27.010]It is possible to use voice.
[00:05:29.545]You have to give it a little bit of time
[00:05:31.614]because this is a way to,
[00:05:35.885]to show the work.
[00:05:38.087]And ChatGPT and this tutor
[00:05:40.590]is using different methods
[00:05:42.425]and different approaches
[00:05:43.776]to show you how to do the work.
[00:05:46.195]In this case,
[00:05:47.430]it decided to create a visual.
[00:05:50.817]So all I'm saying is,
[00:05:53.403]if you have students who are struggling
[00:05:55.688]or if you have somebody
[00:05:57.090]that wants to move further ahead,
[00:05:59.609]this is again,
[00:06:00.443]and we talked about this before.
[00:06:02.795]How do we adjust the difficulty level
[00:06:05.915]to what students are experiencing
[00:06:08.468]and making sure they're all
[00:06:09.786]making progress,
[00:06:10.770]whether they're starting
[00:06:12.271]at a very
[00:06:14.557]level behind their
[00:06:15.992]their friends
[00:06:17.009]or they're actually
[00:06:17.910]ahead of their friends,
[00:06:18.878]they still need usable tools.
[00:06:20.913]And here's an easy way
[00:06:22.765]to create a set of tools
[00:06:24.484]that can adjust level, right.
[00:06:27.070]And,
[00:06:29.138]do that kind of work.
[00:06:30.773]So here is the example.
[00:06:32.859]And in this case,
[00:06:33.893]it decided to show us
[00:06:36.045]this as
[00:06:37.814]a series of, rectangles.
[00:06:41.167]In a way,
[00:06:42.518]to try and show us the units
[00:06:44.887]that it's using
[00:06:46.706]to
[00:06:47.757]show the work.
[00:06:48.875]So,
[00:06:50.076]this is not the most usable
[00:06:52.678]in my mind,
[00:06:53.880]but it is an interesting approach.
[00:06:57.233]And that shows us
[00:06:58.117]the other thing with AI.
[00:06:59.402]We've got to test it.
[00:07:00.653]We've got to make sure that it's working
[00:07:02.305]before we give it to students.
[00:07:03.623]Yeah.
[00:07:04.023]And we've got to teach students
[00:07:06.025]to ask questions
[00:07:07.326]if they get stuck with this.
[00:07:08.795]So
[00:07:09.712]this was definitely a different way to
[00:07:13.082]to respond.
[00:07:13.833]And that reminds us
[00:07:15.001]that AI is not always perfect.
[00:07:17.136]And so now we're using voice mode.
[00:07:20.106]And in voice mode
[00:07:21.457]we're trying to see,
[00:07:23.693]how it can teach me to add
[00:07:26.345]two different fractions.
[00:07:29.449]That's a great way to explore.
[00:07:31.284]Voice mode makes it feel
[00:07:33.236]like we're really working
[00:07:34.670]through this together.
[00:07:35.838]So let's try adding
[00:07:36.789]two different fractions.
[00:07:38.991]Want to pick the pair we'll work on?
[00:07:40.660]Or should I give you a fun one to try?
[00:07:44.797]Let's pick
[00:07:46.399]3/16 and 1/10
[00:07:51.854]Nice choice.
[00:07:52.705]So we're adding 3/16 and 1/10.
[00:07:55.708]Let's go step by step.
[00:07:57.026]First we need a common denominator
[00:07:59.128]for 16 and 10.
[00:08:00.463]Do you want to try figuring that out
[00:08:02.248]or should I walk you through it?
[00:08:04.550]Is 160 a good denominator?
[00:08:08.521]Yes, that's exactly right.
[00:08:10.656]160 works as a common denominator
[00:08:13.626]for 16 and 10.
[00:08:14.861]It's not the smallest possible one,
[00:08:17.280]but it totally works.
[00:08:18.781]And it makes adding
[00:08:19.799]the fractions possible.
[00:08:21.150]Want to go ahead and convert
[00:08:22.485]3/16 and 1/10
[00:08:24.604]into something over 160 together?
[00:08:27.940]So 1/10
[00:08:29.876]would be 32.
[00:08:32.995]Yep.
[00:08:34.146]You're crushing it.
[00:08:35.915]1/10 becomes 16/160
[00:08:38.701]because 10 x 16 is 160
[00:08:41.220]and 1 x 16 is 16.
[00:08:43.256]Now for 316,
[00:08:44.590]what do you think that becomes
[00:08:45.541]over 160?
[00:08:47.343]That becomes 32 as well.
[00:08:51.197]You're on it.
[00:08:52.281]3/16 becomes 30/160
[00:08:55.117]because 16 x 10 is 160
[00:08:57.770]and 3 x 10 is 30.
[00:08:59.906]So now we've got
[00:09:01.023]30/160 + 16/160.
[00:09:03.993]What's that total?
[00:09:06.362]That would be 46.
[00:09:09.982]Yes.
[00:09:10.683]So together it's 46/160.
[00:09:13.019]Now here's a bonus step.
[00:09:14.670]Can we simplify 46/160
[00:09:16.622]to make it smaller?
[00:09:18.090]Want to try dividing both numbers
[00:09:19.859]by something they have in common?
[00:09:21.777]Is that something
[00:09:22.912]that they have in common?
[00:09:24.697]Two.
[00:09:26.432]Yes, that's the key.
[00:09:28.467]Look for a number
[00:09:29.285]that both 46 and 160 can be divided
[00:09:32.071]by evenly.
[00:09:33.055]Here's a hint they're both even numbers,
[00:09:35.942]so you can at least start
[00:09:37.076]by dividing them by two.
[00:09:38.578]Want to give that a shot?
[00:09:40.146]Sure that'll be 23/80.
[00:09:44.166]Yes.
[00:09:45.518]Nailed it.
[00:09:46.569]When we divide 46 by 2, we get 23.
[00:09:49.572]And 160 divided by 2 is 80.
[00:09:52.275]So your simplified answer is 23/80.
[00:09:55.278]You just added 3/16 and 1/10 like a pro.
[00:09:58.931]Want to try another one
[00:10:00.199]or maybe throw in a little challenge?
[00:10:02.818]So the important thing here
[00:10:05.638]to see are a few things.
[00:10:07.089]First of all,
[00:10:08.157]you can have a conversation
[00:10:09.925]with your AI in voice mode
[00:10:12.028]and it will be supportive.
[00:10:13.929]Second thing is
[00:10:15.214]it seems to be to supportive, right?
[00:10:17.800]Because it told me I was right
[00:10:20.703]even when I was intentionally
[00:10:24.173]wrong.
[00:10:25.174]So it told me that I was right,
[00:10:27.510]which is bad.
[00:10:28.561]But what it did do is it
[00:10:30.212]did provide the right answer after that.
[00:10:32.732]So it kind of glossed over.
[00:10:34.950]So this is where the testing becomes
[00:10:37.536]really important.
[00:10:38.220]If you test that in advance,
[00:10:39.605]you see that problem.
[00:10:40.773]And then when you make the chat
[00:10:42.091]the GPT, you can tell it
[00:10:44.260]please make sure
[00:10:45.428]that while you're warm and friendly,
[00:10:47.546]you also tell the students
[00:10:49.565]when they're wrong
[00:10:50.616]so they will realize their mistake.
[00:10:53.336]And so that is the
[00:10:54.787]more sophisticated thing.
[00:10:56.072]So yes, you can create
[00:10:57.657]really, really fast,
[00:10:59.075]but you want to make sure
[00:11:01.427]that you're testing it
[00:11:04.180]and perfecting it.
[00:11:05.247]So it'll be the best
[00:11:07.016]solution for students.
[00:11:09.201]Do you want to try one?
[00:11:11.187]Yeah.
[00:11:11.637]Okay.
[00:11:13.222]You try one.
[00:11:14.790]One of them.
[00:11:15.908]Let's do
[00:11:17.660]create a tutor
[00:11:19.128]that supports learning
[00:11:21.964]the table of elements.
[00:11:26.552]So again
[00:11:28.270]working on it.
[00:11:29.705]And the result
[00:11:31.607]will be on the right hand side
[00:11:32.908]on the preview.
[00:11:33.759]So all we're doing in this
[00:11:35.461]demonstration is making
[00:11:36.495]sure you understand
[00:11:37.296]that it's not limited to math
[00:11:38.831]or to language or to anything else.
[00:11:40.666]It's really almost anything.
[00:11:43.235]Because the LLMs have such a wide array.
[00:11:46.472]Again,
[00:11:47.223]we as teachers
[00:11:48.157]must make sure that it's accurate,
[00:11:50.409]supportive
[00:11:51.544]and gives a meaningful,
[00:11:54.230]response.
[00:11:55.114]So what do you think
[00:11:56.882]you you want to try and do
[00:11:59.235]in this tutor?
[00:12:00.603]Yeah.
[00:12:02.054]So you can ask it a question here
[00:12:03.706]as well.
[00:12:04.540]Yeah.
[00:12:05.141]Ask a question.
[00:12:10.029]Let me dictate.
[00:12:11.497]Okay.
[00:12:13.482]Which of the elements are metals?
[00:12:17.686]And again there’s processing time
[00:12:19.155]when you work with voice,
[00:12:20.122]there's always a little bit of a delay.
[00:12:21.757]It will get better over time.
[00:12:25.861]So it gives examples.
[00:12:27.663]It gives
[00:12:29.782]the idea of, what are metals?
[00:12:33.169]And then where do you find them
[00:12:34.854]in the periodic tables.
[00:12:36.689]Talking about alkali metals.
[00:12:38.240]Talking.
[00:12:38.908]Again, what you want to do as a teacher
[00:12:42.178]is make sure these are accurate,
[00:12:45.297]because we know that these can
[00:12:49.285]hallucinate,
[00:12:50.252]and we want to make sure
[00:12:51.754]that it is not creating a problem
[00:12:53.939]for our students.
[00:12:54.590]Learning the wrong thing.
[00:12:55.908]So yes, you can make cool things.
[00:12:58.828]Yes. You have to also check them.
[00:13:00.813]Yeah.
[00:13:01.764]All right.
[00:13:02.164]This time on AI in the Classroom,
[00:13:04.700]we really talked about
[00:13:05.818]making our own GPTs
[00:13:07.353]to support student learning.
[00:13:09.588]And we'll see you next time
[00:13:11.123]on AI in the Classroom.

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Tech EDGE, AI in the Classroom: ChatGPT Math Tutor

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