Welcome back! The LIVE Community continues to grow and we are especially excited to welcome our first cohort of IDeaTE (Innovative Design and Technology in Education) masters students to campus this fall.

We have a lot of exciting things in store this year, including a stellar line-up of diverse talks in our Learning Innovation Series, a new round of Ignite Tech Development Grants, and the chance to pitch ideas for LIVE's interactive eye-gaze experience (if you haven't tried it yet, stop by our lounge on the 2nd floor of the SONY Building to check it out). We look forward to kicking things off at our first event this Wednesday, where we'll have a chance to reconnect, exchange ideas, and share more about how you can get involved with LIVE this year.

Join LIVE next Wednesday for our first Learning Innovation Series of the semester. We are kicking the year off with a community-focused session to catch up with returning colleagues, welcome newcomers, and share summer research highlights. We’ll also recap what LIVE has been up to over the summer, look ahead to what’s on the horizon, and highlight ways you can get involved. Pizza lunch will be served, we hope to see you there!

This summer, seven interdisciplinary teams competed to build predictive models for math knowledge, metacognitive skills, and motivation using student behavior data from a math learning platform. On Wednesday, July 30, five teams showcased their work before a panel of industry leaders and Vanderbilt faculty. Judges evaluated each model not only for predictive performance, but also for its relevance and potential impact for Carnegie Learning, educators, and students.

We are excited to announce the winning team from the LIVE MATHia and Metacognition Data Science Competition. Congratulations to Erica Bae, Tobasum Mandal, and Sefika Ozturk whose model explained 88% of math score variance, showing strong predictive power for learning outcomes. As for all team, predicting metacognition and motivation proved more challenging. For the future, the team recommends combining platform metrics with student self-reflections to give educators and EdTech developers richer insights and more personalized ways to support student learning.

Congratulations as well to the second-place team, Yucheng Bao and Daniel Gormezano, as well as all participating students! And thank you to Carnegie Learning who provided the data from their MATHia platform as well as support for this program.

How do kids make sense of artificial intelligence? LIVE faculty member Dr. Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens, recently featured in the Nashville Post, is exploring this question through her role-playing game S.P.O.T. (Solving Problems of Tomorrow) for fourth and fifth graders. In the game, students act as time-traveling secret agents investigating how AI shapes the future, its ethical implications, and its potential uses.

Dr. Arastoopour Irgens' research shows that young learners can grasp complex AI concepts, propose socially aware solutions, and imagine themselves as innovators shaping AI for social good. By making AI’s inner workings visible, she aims to spark creativity, critical thinking, and ethical awareness—helping prepare the next generation to engage thoughtfully with the technologies that will define their world.

As we kick off Fall 2025, we want to give a huge thank you to Meagan Postema for her outstanding work as LIVE’s Administrative Manager. From keeping our operations running smoothly to supporting events, grants, communications, and more, her contributions have been central to LIVE’s growth and impact. We wish her all the best in her new role as Senior Program Manager for the Wallace Lab working with the VR Cave Project.

We’re also delighted to welcome Amy Williamson into the new role of LIVE Core Initiatives Manager! Amy recently completed her EdD in Higher Education and joins us from the Office of Faculty Development, bringing a wealth of experience in program development, social media engagement, and partnership building. We’re very excited for the expertise and energy she’ll bring. Connect with her at <amy.williamson@vanderbilt.edu> to say hello, share ideas, or connect about all things LIVE.

You can find the latest information about the LIVE Learning Innovation Incubator and the LIVE Learning Innovation Series on our website and sign-up for our mailing list to receive periodic updates and invitations to our events.

LIVE: The Learning Innovation Incubator at Vanderbilt

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