Learning Together: Math Quizzes, Science Concepts and the Power of AI

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Hi, and welcome to Try AI for Growth, a baby podcast out of Make Space for Growth. Here, I share short and maybe surprising stories of how I’ve used technology to tackle everyday challenges—at home, at work, and in business. I’m your host, Sara Vicente Barreto, and today, we’re diving into how AI has become my secret weapon for helping my kids study while also teaching me a thing or two.

Now, if you’re a parent, you’ve probably been stumped by one of your kids’ questions at some point—whether it’s a math problem, a tricky science concept, or an obscure grammar rule. I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t have all the answers and some of what my kids learn in the English system is not the way I learned it in Portugal. Even for Maths! And that’s where AI, and more specifically the Khan Academy Tutor Me agent in ChatGPT, has been a game-changer.

Why Use AI for Studying?

For me, it’s not just about getting the right answers. It’s about showing my kids that learning is a journey—and that it’s okay not to know everything. Using AI, we’ve turned studying into a collaborative process where we explore, experiment, and even have fun together.

Plus, it’s a way to keep up with the pace of their learning. Whether it’s math, science, or language, kids’ questions can come at you fast, and having a tool like the Khan Academy agent to guide us has been invaluable.

How I’ve Used AI with My Kids

Here are a few real-life examples of how we’ve used AI at home:

1. Divisibility Tests Made Simple

My daughter was working on divisibility rules, and I realized I wasn’t entirely sure about all of them. Is 372 divisible by 6? What’s the trick for 11 again? Instead of just Googling it, we asked the Khan Academy agent, which not only explained the rules but broke them down step-by-step with examples. As a bonus, it also generated practice problems, so my daughter could test herself after learning the rules.

2. Year 3 Math: The Bus Stop Method

Seeing me engage with AI for his sister, my son, who’s in Year 3 also asked to have some practice exercises for the bus stop method. He has recently started doing division with the bus stop method in school, and again the methodology is slightly different from what I have learned before! He needed numbers up to 3 digits and always with a whole solution, I thought the agent was the best way to go about it.

So I asked the AI to generate 10 practice problems to choose from. It was an easy way to ensure they were at the right level and to keep him engaged in the learning. As a bonus, you can ask for exercises in word problems format, rather than just the calculations, which is a great way to help them practice their skills!

3. Summarizing Science Concepts

Science homework can also be tricky and it is not my forte. My daughter was working through states of matter and seeking to summarise and revise for her test. Revising is a bit new to her and she kept asking me small questions. I remembered most, but I did not feel like we had the full list we needed. She had not brought her book from school (mishaps of a digital world) so I turned to Tutor Me for help.

I asked the AI to provide a high-level summary of key properties for each matter so she could compare them with her notes. We then moved on to sounds and waves. Unfortunately, I was sad that the agent could not give me an image of the waves, as she was trying to work through the representations. Perhaps in a few months (or weeks) it will!

Other Ideas for Parents to Explore with AI

While our focus was math and science, here are a few other areas where you can use AI to help your kids study:

• Geography: Ask for an overview of a country, including key landmarks and historical facts.
• History Essay Prep: Use AI to create an outline for a simple essay, like “Why is the Great Wall of China significant?”
• Creative Writing Prompts: Ask the AI to suggest writing prompts or sentence starters for storytelling.

When you are in doubt about what a specific agent can do for you, you can always go and ask them what they can do for you! Tutor Me answered:

I can help you in different ways!

✅ Practice for a test – I can create practice problems, check your work, and help you find mistakes without giving answers away.

✅ Learn a new concept – I’ll guide you step by step, asking questions to help you understand instead of just telling you the answer.

✅ Make learning fun – We can play learning games, solve riddles, or do interactive challenges to keep things exciting!

Lessons I’ve Learned

Using AI to help my kids study has taught me a few important lessons:

1. It’s Okay Not to Know Everything
   There’s power in showing your kids that you don’t have all the answers—and that you’re willing to learn alongside them. It fosters curiosity and reinforces that learning is a lifelong process.
2. AI Can Simplify and Personalize Learning
   The Khan Academy agent doesn’t just spit out facts; it tailors explanations to the learner’s age and level of understanding. It’s like having a patient, knowledgeable tutor on call. And it won’t just give you the answers, it helps you work through them
3. AI Can Make Studying Fun
   Asking questions together, exploring answers, and solving problems as a team makes the process enjoyable. We always try to test it to see what it may not be able to do!

What You Can Do

If you’re a parent, here’s how you can start using AI to support your child’s learning:

1. Use It as a Tutor: Let your child ask the AI questions directly and explore answers together.
2. Ask for Exercises: Request practice problems tailored to your child’s level. Ask the agent to create a mini-quiz test alongside an answer sheet.
3. Tool for Revision: Ask the AI for summaries about a topic and go deeper into the ones your child does not understand. The summaries can be a first step in your child learning how to do revision and summaries
4. Make it interactive: Ask for an interactive lesson on a topic and even a maths treasure hunt with each clue leading to the next problem. I tested this one out when I was preparing the podcast, by asking a lesson on the Egyptians and I can’t wait to do it with my son this weekend. Amongst others, it created a fun question “If you were a pharaoh, what 3 things would you include in your tomb, and why?”
5. Get ideas: Suggest hands-on exercises or experiments that tie with the children’s study in for instance science or history
6. Prompt creativity: Ask for creative prompts for writing according to the child’s age and level

By the way, if you are a teacher, it can also help you with a lesson plan! But I am skipping that one for now!

New Ways of Learning

So there you have it—a fun but powerful way to bring AI into your kids’ study routine. Whether it’s divisibility rules, grammar, science concepts, or math exercises, AI can help you both learn and bond as a family. I hope this episode inspires you to try a different approach to learning at home.

If you’ve used AI to support learning at home, I’d love to hear your story! Share your ideas or questions with me, and let’s keep learning together.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of Try AI for Growth. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share your thoughts. Until next time, keep experimenting and keep having fun.

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