MateriALL: Auto-Generating Classroom Materials for Teachers

MateriALL is a Google Add-on that helps teachers generate and design classroom materials using their existing curriculum. With MateriALL, teachers take content from slide decks they have already created and generate different kinds of questions that, together, can make up worksheets, quizzes, etc. MateriALL’s natural language processing capabilities suggest questions based on selected slide content, while its customization-first, hands-off-second approach to worksheet design results in personalized yet well-formatted materials for each teacher.   

The Problem

K-12th teachers do not have enough time for their jobs. Outside of classroom instruction, they often need to invest extra hours making materials for their lessons, even during the weekends. Teachers in their earlier careers especially spend a lot of time creating materials, as they do not have existing content from previous years to work off of or edit. Furthermore, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has added social-emotional stresses to both students and teachers alike, and educators must now juggle new, arguably more important priorities whilst still making their materials. In total, the process of making materials takes away from the time that teachers could be using to invest personally in students’ growth. Thus, we propose that by automating the material creation process, we can ease teachers’ burdens of lesson planning and enable them to spend more time doing what they love and want – helping students grow.

Our Solution

We propose MateriALL, a Google Docs Add-on that takes teachers’ existing slide decks and automatically generates worksheet questions for use in the classroom. Using NLP technologies, MateriALL takes content teachers have already made and suggests different kinds of questions. Teachers can make additional edits and formatting changes using MateriALL's intuitive user interface. Then, using the Google Docs API, MateriALL formats these questions into a worksheet-friendly question that teachers can immediately use in the classroom. MateriALL's lightweight yet customization-friendly approach to worksheet generation and design enables teachers to spend less time creating their classroom materials. Teachers can thus invest this time back into themselves and taking care of their students.