Google Research has described a system that lets a teacher ask for an interactive simulation — a pendulum, a titration, a graph to manipulate — and have one generated to order, an approach it calls generative UI. It is built on LearnLM, Google’s family of models tuned for education, and constrained by what the team calls pedagogical guardrails covering mechanics, teaching design and visual presentation.
Alongside the write-up, Google has released a sample library of more than 30 learning interactives in English for STEM subjects, each vetted and approved by teachers. Schools using Google Workspace for Education can sign up through the Google for Education Pilot Program to give feedback.
The evidence is thin and Google presents it as such. An initial study involved 12 teachers in the United States, each asking for three custom interactives, with an average quality rating of 8 out of 10. A separate evaluation by teachers in the UK rated the results good or excellent overall, with physics and chemistry the subjects most amenable to simulation. None of that measures whether pupils learn more, which is the question that matters and the one nobody has answered. The post is on the Google Research blog.