Abstract:

There is currently a massive proliferation of digital platforms that utilize Artificial Intelligence stemming from the rapid growth of massive amounts of data and computational power. While this rapidly evolving digital landscape opens up new avenues for collaboration, it also raises several societal ramifications that need to be addressed. Recent studies have raised concerns about the extent to which K12 students are aware of the applications as well as consequences of AI in their daily lives. This echoes the need for integration of AI in K12 education curriculum to satisfy the need for computational and scientific literacy among the youth and by extension, their educators. Our work investigates teachers’ experience with the introduction to and deployment of three different modules within a novel, project-based AI curriculum.

While it is important to provide teachers and students with an AI curriculum that is enriching and engaging, the task of deploying these in classrooms can be daunting for teachers, especially when they lack familiarity in AI topics. This raises the need for curricular prompting and extensive professional development (PD) sessions with teachers so that they are not only able to successfully understand and deliver AI curricula in varied classroom contexts, but they are able to do so without having a strong prior STEM background. In this study, we deployed three modules from the MIT RAICA (Responsible AI for Computational Action) curriculum, co-designing with a cohort of teachers and students, thus providing teachers (with or without a computer science background) with the foundation they need to understand AI elements and relay this understanding to their students. Through seven semi-structured remote interviews, we investigate their experiences of engaging with the AI curriculum in their classroom, how their teaching and learning beliefs about AI evolved with the curriculum as well as how those beliefs impacted their implementation of the curriculum. Our analysis suggests that the AI modules not only expanded our teachers’ knowledge in the field, but also prompted them to recognize its daily applications and their ethical and societal implications (e.g. understanding the role of bias and personal experiences in shaping their students’ engagement with AI and their own), so that they could better engage with the content they deliver to students. Teachers were also able to leverage their own interdisciplinary backgrounds to creatively introduce foundational AI topics to students to maximize engagement and playful learning. Some teachers were able to provide more specific examples and directions to students of younger age groups (primarily middle-school), thereby demystifying new concepts while also promoting creativity. Our teachers also advocated their need for better external support when navigating technological resources, additional time for preparation given the novelty of the curriculum, more flexibility within curriculum timelines, and additional accommodations for students of determination. Our research aims to explore and evaluate the impact of AI curriculum on educators by incorporating their feedback and perspectives to inform design changes to future iterations of the curriculum and teacher PD. It also identifies elements from the current deployment that can be retained to strengthen the future landscape of K12 AI literacy.

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence Education, Teacher Professional Development, AI Integration, Disciplinary Classrooms, Diverse Teacher Backgrounds.