What happened
Aha Moments built Goblins, a math platform on which students type, draw or speak while an AI tutor gives step-by-step feedback. Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona offered it to all middle-school math teachers in the 2025-26 school year. Researchers at the University of Maryland compared 6,065 students in grades 6 to 8, weighting them by propensity scores. They found that students who solved at least two problems a week scored 0.109 standard deviations higher on the spring MAP math test. Students who solved 20 or more problems a week scored 0.31 standard deviations higher, but only 164 students reached that level. Accelerate, a nonprofit that also funds Goblins as a grantee, paid for the study. The authors caution that students chose how much to use Goblins, so unmeasured differences may explain part of the gain. Teachers could switch off the AI tutor, so the estimates cover use of the platform in general. The paper appeared as an EdWorkingPaper in October 2026.
Sources
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Report, by an evaluator that the makers or users commissioned.
Alam A, Dominguez-Mel N, Liu J (Center for Educational Data Science and Innovation, University of Maryland, College Park). Teacher-Mediated Multimodal Platform and Math Achievement: Evidence from Goblins' Yearlong District Implementation. EdWorkingPaper 26-1611, Annenberg Institute at Brown University, October 2026. doi:10.26300/vcdh-yc23. Funded by Accelerate. Pre-analysis plan at osf.io/5kwbp.
Using a weighted propensity design, we find that Goblins usage is associated with a 0.11 standard deviation increase in MAP math scores within the district
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Press release, by the makers.
Accelerate. Can an AI Tutor Help Middle Schoolers Learn Math? What a Study of Goblins Among 6,000+ Students Found. Blog post, 7 October 2026. Accelerate funds Goblins as a grantee of its Call for Effective Technology program and commissioned the study.
middle school students who solved at least two problems a week on Goblins scored about 0.11 standard deviations (SDs) higher on MAP math assessments than similar students who had little or no usage, equivalent to nearly three months of additional learning.
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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Teachers activated licenses, created classes and assigned content, and they could switch the AI tutor on or off. Goblins provided professional development for district teachers and instructional leaders in fall 2025. Students could speak, draw or type their work, with support in seven languages.
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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Students must use the platform regularly, and only 50.9% solved at least two problems a week. Teachers must enroll students in classes on the platform, since students had access only through teacher-created classes.
Entry details
- Sector
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Education.
- Purpose
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Aha Moments built Goblins to give students step-by-step AI tutoring and feedback on math problems that their teachers assign.
References
- Other identifiers
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Osf: 5kwbp.
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Cite this record
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). Goblins AI math platform users score higher in an Arizona district (AIBD-1153). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 1 November 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-1153.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 7.0)