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Day of AI: Innovating Pedagogical Practices to Bring AI Literacy to Classrooms at Scale

June 24, 2024

Day of AI: Innovating Pedagogical Practices to Bring AI Literacy to Classrooms at Scale

Cynthia Breazeal, Xiaoxue Du, Hal Abelson, Eric Klopfer, and Hae Won Park
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst St, Cambridge 02139, MA, USA
MIT App Inventor Group CSAIL, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge 02139, MA, USA
Scheller Teacher Education Program, 700 Technology Square, Suite 328, Cambridge
02139, MA, USA

Abstract: We present the Day of AI, an innovative program for K-12 educators around the world to bring AI literacy curricula to their local classrooms and communities, all for free. Our open teacher-facing materials, student-facing materials, and supporting technologies were developed to address key challenges in empowering teachers to bring multi-disciplinary, hands-on AI literacy learning opportunities to their students in the face of limited pedagogical practices, curriculum, and resources in their community. We designed a modular, 4-hour format for multiple grade bands, spanning upper elementary through high school, to bring AI literacy to K-12 classrooms at scale. Student learning objectives included: demystifying how AI works, analyzing AI applications, and thinking critically about the ethical use of AI and its societal implications. Our research study utilized a sequential mixed methods approach to design and evaluate the effectiveness of our curriculum and professional development resources to support teachers in bringing the curricula to their classrooms. A total of 108 teachers from over twenty countries participated in our study, who collectively taught the curricula to over 7,000 students. Quantitative and qualitative findings suggest that teachers were well supported by our teacher-facing materials and professional development training. Teachers also positively rated students’ engagement and AI literacy knowledge gains with the curricula.

Full Research: Day of AI – Innovating Pedagogical Practices to Bring AI Literacy to Classrooms at Scale

Excerpt from: New Development and Innovative Practices: Proceedings of 2023 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education Technology

Read the full Proceedings:

Artificial Intelligence in Education Technologies

ISSN 2367-4512 ISSN 2367-4520 (electronic)
Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies
ISBN 978-981-99-7946-2 ISBN 978-981-99-7947-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7947-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2023, 2024