VIABLE Lab at National AI Literacy Day 2026

Artificial intelligence is changing education quickly, but the most important questions remain deeply human: How do we understand what students are thinking? How do we support teachers in making better instructional decisions? And how do we build AI tools that strengthen professional judgment instead of obscuring it?

Those questions shaped the VIABLE Lab's participation in National AI Literacy Day @ UF, a two-day convening held on March 26-27, 2026 at the Norman Hall Conference Center. Hosted by the UF Institute of Advanced Learning Technologies (IALT), the CS Everyone Center, and the FL K-12 AI Education Task Force, the event brought together educators, researchers, students, and collaborators to reflect on the state of AI education and the future of learning technologies across K-12 and higher education contexts.

For the VIABLE Lab, the gathering offered an important opportunity to share the evolving vision behind CHECKPOINT, our AI-powered assessment platform designed to help educators identify student misconceptions more precisely, generate targeted items more efficiently, and interpret evidence of learning with stronger psychometric grounding.

The award recognized the CHECKPOINT team for "CHECKPOINT: An AI-Assisted Platform for Misconception-Targeted K-12 Assessment," reflecting the collective effort behind the platform's research, design, and development.

From Vision to Dialogue to Live Demonstration

The lab's first featured appearance came on March 26, when Dr. Anthony Botelho, director of the VIABLE Lab, presented "CHECKPOINT: Rethinking Assessment in AI-Supported Classrooms" during the Learning Tech Impact Stories session. His talk framed assessment not as a narrow act of scoring, but as a crucial site of interpretation where teachers need better evidence about what students understand, where misconceptions are emerging, and how classroom decisions can be informed without being handed over to automation.

Following that session, Dr. Botelho also joined a smaller panel conversation with fellow presenters, extending the discussion beyond the formal talk and situating CHECKPOINT within a larger exchange about AI, instructional design, and the future of learning technologies.

A second contribution came on March 27 through a roundtable session built around research led by Seiyon M. Lee. Although Lee was unable to attend the event in person, the work was represented onsite by the team and brought into discussion through the roundtable format. That session highlighted broader research questions surrounding CHECKPOINT, including shared agency in AI-enabled assessment design, how AI-supported tools can remain interpretable, and why teacher sense-making must stay central even as systems become more capable.

Later that same day, Hongming (Chip) Li led a live demo session featuring CHECKPOINT in action. The demonstration showed how the platform translates research into a usable workflow for educators and researchers: generating misconception-focused assessment items, aligning them to educational goals, and supporting interpretation through psychometric and analytic signals that go beyond simple right-or-wrong reporting. Together, these sessions presented CHECKPOINT from multiple angles, as a design vision, a research agenda, and a working platform.

A Team Effort Behind Every Session

While these sessions highlighted specific presenters, CHECKPOINT is fundamentally a team effort. The project is led by Dr. Anthony Botelho, Dr. Jinnie Shin, and Dr. Avery Closser. Its continued growth has also depended on the research and development contributions of Seiyon M. Lee, Hongming (Chip) Li, Shan Zhang, Zhongtian Huang, Natalia S. Martín, Zhe (Henry) Li, and Xintian Gao.

That collaboration is central to the project's identity. CHECKPOINT has grown through shared work across learning analytics, educational measurement, psychometrics, platform engineering, teacher engagement, user experience design, and empirical evaluation. No single session at the event can stand on its own without that larger collective effort behind it.

Why This Recognition Matters

The Innovation in Design Award reflects more than a polished interface or a promising technical concept. It signals recognition for a broader design philosophy: that AI in education should be useful, rigorous, interpretable, and grounded in the needs of real teachers and learners. In a moment when educational AI is often discussed in terms of speed, automation, or disruption, CHECKPOINT represents a different path, one that treats design quality and human judgment as central rather than secondary concerns.

This milestone also builds on earlier momentum for the platform. Readers interested in the project's earlier development can also revisit our previous story on the CHECKPOINT Catalyst Prize, which marked an important earlier stage in the platform's growth.

Gratitude to Our Partners and Hosts

We are grateful to the event organizers and partners who made this convening possible, including the UF Institute of Advanced Learning Technologies (IALT), Dr. Pavlo "Pasha" Antonenko, the CS Everyone Center, Dr. Maya Israel, and the FL K-12 AI Education Task Force. Their leadership helped create a space not only to showcase new tools, but also to ask the harder questions about how AI can be integrated wisely, ethically, and meaningfully in education.

As the larger conversation around AI literacy continues to evolve, we are proud that CHECKPOINT contributed to it in a way that reflects the values we care most about: thoughtful design, strong research, practical utility, and deep respect for the educators and learners these tools are meant to serve.

We look forward to continuing to contribute to the conversation on AI literacy within the College of Education and across the broader K-12 ecosystem, not only by building tools like CHECKPOINT, but also by advancing the research, dialogue, and partnerships needed to ensure these technologies are used wisely, equitably, and meaningfully.