A Literature Review of AI Education for K-12

The rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology has a significant impact on how humans work and live. As a result, it is critical and timely for educators to guide students in reflecting on how AI may impact people’s lives and to equip them with the ability to responsibly maximize benefits while mitigating potential harms. However, there is a lack of educational research on how to teach K-12 students about AI technology and AI ethics to prepare them to deal with these issues as future citizens. In this context, my colleagues and I are developing curricula for K-12 students that incorporate AI technology and AI ethics. As part of our research, this literature review investigates the evolution of AI education for grades K-12. It provides context for AI educational research by us and other researchers in related fields

Teaching Tech to Talk: K-12 Conversational Artificial Intelligence Literacy Curriculum and Development Tools

With children talking to smart-speakers, smart-phones and even smart-microwaves daily, it is increasingly important to educate students on how these agents work-from underlying mechanisms to societal implications. Researchers are developing tools and curriculum to teach K-12 students broadly about artificial intelligence (AI); however, few studies have evaluated these tools with respect to AI-specific learning outcomes, and even fewer have addressed student learning about AI-based conversational agents. We evaluate our Conversational Agent Interface for MIT App Inventor and workshop curriculum with respect to eight AI competencies from the literature. Furthermore, we analyze teacher (n=9) and student (n=47) feedback from workshops with the interface and recommend that future work leverages design considerations from the literature to optimize engagement, collaborates with teachers, and addresses a range of student abilities through pacing and opportunities for extension. We found students struggled most with the concepts of AI ethics and learning, and recommend emphasizing these topics when teaching. The appendix, including a demo video, can be found here: https://gist.github.com/jessvb/1cd959e32415a6ad4389761c49b54bbfComment: 8 pages, 4 figures, for associated video: https://youtu.be/VGskt7mI4K8, for appendix: https://gist.github.com/jessvb/1cd959e32415a6ad4389761c49b54bb

Demystifying Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Early Childhood and Elementary Education: A Case Study of Perceptions of AI of State of Missouri Educators

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on society have received a great deal of attention in the past five years since the first Stanford AI100 report. AI already globally impacts individuals in critical and personal ways, and many industries will continue to experience disruptions as the full algorithmic effects are understood. However, with regard to education, adopting in disciplines remains limited largely to Computer Science and Information Technology in postsecondary education. Recent advances with technology are especially promising for their potential to create and scale personalized learning for students, to optimize strategies for learning outcomes, and to increase access to a more diverse population. Research has confirmed that the current use of AI in education (AIEd) leads to positive outcomes, including improved learning outcomes for students, along with increased access, increased retention, lower cost of education, and decreased time to completion. Future uses of AI will include the following: enabling engaging and interactive education anytime and anywhere; personalized AI mentors that will help students identify and reach their goals; and mass-personalization that will allow AI to be tailored to each student’s learning style, level, and needs. Yet with all the potential benefits that AI and machine learning (ML) may provide students, there remains a general reticence to adopt this technology because of misconceptions and perceptions that elementary educators will need expensive equipment, robust support from IT, or to retool and learn programming or coding. As such, this study seeks to identify current perceptions early childhood, and elementary educators in the state of Missouri, USA have towards AI in general; the policies, training and existing resources in districts regarding technology in general and AI in particular; relative comfort with technology and willingness of educators to adopt new technologies for classroom instruction; and perform a needs assessment for necessary infrastructure, including reliable internet access, hardware and software. Results indicate a broad acceptance and willingness to adopt AI in daily activities and classroom instruction, but barriers to entry were identified as lack of resources and training

A Literature Review of AI Education for K-12

The rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology has a significant impact on how humans work and live. As a result, it is critical and timely for educators to guide students in reflecting on how AI may impact people’s lives and to equip them with the ability to responsibly maximize benefits while mitigating potential harms. However, there is a lack of educational research on how to teach K-12 students about AI technology and AI ethics to prepare them to deal with these issues as future citizens. In this context, my colleagues and I are developing curricula for K-12 students that incorporate AI technology and AI ethics. As part of our research, this literature review investigates the evolution of AI education for grades K-12. It provides context for AI educational research by us and other researchers in related fields

Advancing AI education: Assessing Kenyan in-service teachers' preparedness for integrating artificial intelligence in competence-based curriculum

This is the final version. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record. Data availability: Data will be made available on request.With the advancement of technology, emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) have also been growing rapidly and becoming more common than ever before. Kenya has taken tremendous steps in adopting the use of emerging technology in different sectors of the economy. In realization of the need to have a skilled digital workforce to develop solutions using these emerging technologies, Kenya has undertaken curriculum reforms and introduced the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) which has included digital literacy and coding in elementary school. Furthermore, computer science has been introduced in Junior Secondary School. In view of these changes, teachers should be adequately prepared with knowledge, skills, and attitudes to effectively teach these new technologies. However, in Kenya, AI was not and still is not part of the teacher training curriculum. Additionally, there are inadequate professional development opportunities in AI for both pre-service and inservice teachers since AI is not part of the CBC curriculum. That notwithstanding, it is inevitable for teachers in the current world to introduce AI to learners. Therefore, this study’s objectives were to assess the confidence in AI, attitudes toward AI, AI ethics, subjective norms, perceived threats, and the readiness to teach AI among Kenyan K-12 in-service teachers and to assess how these factors influence their readiness to teach AI. To achieve these objectives, this study employed a quantitative research methodology by administering a survey using Google Forms to a random sample of 308 teachers from different grades from 37 out of 47 counties in Kenya. The findings showed that confidence in AI, AI ethics and subjective norms significantly influenced AI readiness while attitude towards AI and perceived threats did not significantly influence AI readiness. These results are significant in providing a basis for education policy change on AI education in Kenya, such as transforming the teacher training curriculum to include AI and designing AI professional development programs for in-service teachers to ensure they are well-equipped to teach AI.University of Exete

A Comparative Study on Artificial Intelligence Curricula

This research is a comparative analysis of four K-12 AI curricula to recognize and interpret their basic elements and pedagogical approaches. Guided by (socio) constructivist and constructionist theories as the theoretical framework, qualitative document analysis is applied as the research methodology. Schwab’s four commonplaces serve as the initial analytical framework. A (socio) constructivism and constructionism lens is also used to compare the curricula. The major findings are 1. The four curricula are different in their coverage of subject matters with the curriculum from the UK covering the widest and most balanced range of subject matters. 2. The four curricula apply, to different extent, student-centered (socio) constructivist and constructionist pedagogical approaches. The curriculum from the US fits best for constructionism, while the curriculum form India is most inclined to use traditional approaches. This study will form part of the data on AI educational practices useful to educational researchers, practitioners, and governments

Middle School Teachers’ Experiences Using Internet-Based Technology in Literacy Instruction

AbstractResearchers found that the integration of internet technology into K–12 classrooms can improve student outcomes. Self-reported statements from 15 teachers and district survey results at the local setting, a rural school in a Southern state, indicated that sixth- through eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers were not making effective use of research-supported internet resources in literacy instruction and assessment, and it is not known why. The purpose of this explanatory, qualitative case study, which included Knowles’s theory of adult learning as a framework, was to understand how ELA teachers were using internet resources in literacy instruction. The research questions were used to inquire how middle school ELA teachers were using internet-based technology in the ELA classroom, which technologies they selected for integration into the ELA curriculum, and barriers they faced when they used internet-based technology in ELA instruction. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, document analysis, and the lived experiences and behaviors of 10 participants regarding their technology use in literacy instruction. All participants had over 5 years’ experience teaching ELA and hesitated to use the internet in the literacy classroom. Qualitative coding and thematic analysis were used to identify the essential meaning of participants’ lived experiences from interview and document data. Results indicated that participants most commonly used videos and Google Suite internet-based technology and that barriers to use included beliefs about technology and lack of knowledge and skill. A professional development project that provides technology education to literacy teachers to minimize literacy learning gaps and contribute to social change is recommended

Middle School Teachers’ Experiences Using Internet-Based Technology in Literacy Instruction

AbstractResearchers found that the integration of internet technology into K–12 classrooms can improve student outcomes. Self-reported statements from 15 teachers and district survey results at the local setting, a rural school in a Southern state, indicated that sixth- through eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers were not making effective use of research-supported internet resources in literacy instruction and assessment, and it is not known why. The purpose of this explanatory, qualitative case study, which included Knowles’s theory of adult learning as a framework, was to understand how ELA teachers were using internet resources in literacy instruction. The research questions were used to inquire how middle school ELA teachers were using internet-based technology in the ELA classroom, which technologies they selected for integration into the ELA curriculum, and barriers they faced when they used internet-based technology in ELA instruction. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, document analysis, and the lived experiences and behaviors of 10 participants regarding their technology use in literacy instruction. All participants had over 5 years’ experience teaching ELA and hesitated to use the internet in the literacy classroom. Qualitative coding and thematic analysis were used to identify the essential meaning of participants’ lived experiences from interview and document data. Results indicated that participants most commonly used videos and Google Suite internet-based technology and that barriers to use included beliefs about technology and lack of knowledge and skill. A professional development project that provides technology education to literacy teachers to minimize literacy learning gaps and contribute to social change is recommended