PSCTM Winter 2026 Dinner (via Zoom)

AI in the Math Classroom: Support, Shortcuts, and Sharp Edges

AI tools are quickly becoming part of our everyday math classrooms and home office spaces, helping us draft tasks, vary questions, give feedback, and communicate with colleagues, admin and families. So, we’ll look at what AI can add to our practice, where it offers time-saving subtractions, and where the sharp edges are that deserve our attention. We’ll going to ground the conversation in insights from over 10,000 real teacher<>AI conversations, noticing what math educators are actually asking for, trying out, and worrying about. And you’ll have the opportunity to query that collection of conversations to see what teachers are typing, and with what and how the AI is responding – and from the background, a bit of the why the AI is responding that way. As a result of that exploration, we’ll discuss concrete ways AI can support those things that teachers can, should and shouldn’t do, and how we might talk with students about using AI outside (and policy depending, inside) school in ways that still support genuine mathematical thinking.

Cal Armstrong, Math Teacher, Appleby College School

Cal Armstrong is a long-time classroom teacher at Appleby College School in Oakville, Ontario. He serves on the board of the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education (OAME) and has been deeply involved in provincial math education initiatives for many years.

Cal is the principal AI researcher and developer behind OAME’s AI chatbot for math educators since 2023 and has been working hands-on with educational AI (pre-generative) since 2017, focusing on saving teachers time and improving students’ learning experiences. Earlier in his career, he co-designed what became Microsoft’s OneNote Class Notebook, widely used to support digital collaboration and assessment in schools.

His opportunity to attend the Park City Mathematics Institute for 20 years (there’s always someone who needs to repeat a grade!) taught him well to combine day-to-day classroom teaching with research in mathematics education in order to design effective, practical and pragmatic educational technologies. He now uses a close analysis of over 10,000 teacher–AI conversations, and his own classrooms’ experiences, to uncover both the promise and peril of AI in the math classroom.

Schedule:

• 5 - 5:20 Announcements, Introductions
• 5:30 – 6:30 pm presentation

The Zoom link will be sent to all registrants on Sunday, February 7th.

Free clock hours are provided by Puget Sound Council of Teachers of Mathematics.