AI + K-12: Expanding a Student’s Toolkit in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
The 2024 outlook for AI in education is huge – a staggering 39.7% (CAGR) growth is expected in this year alone. And many sources, like UNSECO’s Beijing Consensus in 2019 have noted the potential for AI to change the organization, approach, and curriculums of education, even going as far as to say that AI literacy may become its own subject alongside math and reading somewhere down the line. An article from Oregon State University suggests a possibility that AI literacy courses will be what integrated digital literacy skills once were in the 1990s.
But what does this mean for K-12 education? And in preparing a student for life after school, what can educators do so that students join the workforce with relevant AI literacy? Loads of certifications have come out, most notably from MIT, Cornell and UT Austin, primarily geared toward finding a grounding in AI to successfully integrate it into one’s business or organization. But these do not address day-to-day uses for teens or k-8, and may need to be further adapted in the months to come, due to the volatile outlook of this ever expanding technology.
The benefit of AI in education is undeniable, even if there seems to be relevant concerns. An article from Education Next outlines the possibilities for AI generated office assistants, teaching assistants, automated chatbots like ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing Chat to help with homework questions, outline essays and give new perspectives on homework problems. Of course, AI detractors see an issue with the falsehood of information in chatbots, the potential for plagiarism, a decrease in a student’s practice of critical thinking and writing, as well as a concern for what decreased social interaction could do for adolescent development. And in an article within UNESCO’s Global Education 2030, a concern of global equitable access arises when thinking about who has access to this new, potentially beneficial (yet largely profit-driven) technology.
So what is AI literacy, and how can it be implemented through AI literacy curriculums and lessons? How, when in discussion of AI programs with students and kids, do we respond with an answer that informs, rather than dismisses? Bills have been introduced, like the “Artificial Intelligence Literacy Act,” said to fund AI literacy efforts, yet this bill is still in its formative stages. And an article from EdSurge points out a key issue with curriculums involving AI literacy: the technology itself is still very volatile, still expanding and settling in our day-to-day lives alongside discussions of ethics, implementation, and broader innovations. It is difficult to create a zero-sum curriculum that does not become obsolete as it’s being written.
But there are things to teach and to inform. The first is the basic character of AI, machine learning, and deep learning technologies:
Artificial intelligence: Programs with a faculty of reason and learning like humans.
Machine learning: Algorithms that adjust without explicit programming.
Deep learning: An artificial network’s ability to learn and report information from large datasets.
But in all of these technologies, the important lesson to take away from a k-12 standpoint is not the inner workings of the technology in a complex way. After being informed of the basic definitions, it is much more relevant for a student to be equipped with tools on how to interact with the technology as they are confronted with it in their day-to-day lives.
(1) fact-checking. When asking a chatbot for an answer or help with homework, we must find a secondary source from the AI’s answer, to see whether the AI technology is producing reliable information.
(2) Acknowledgement of bias. Chatbots, as well as AI teaching assistants and tutors are ones that take information from other sources. These sources can be very reliable, but they can also be quite problematic. When confronted with an AI generated answer, we may want to ask ourselves: is this an opinion or a fact? And if it is a fact, it is important to find a secondary source to (1), fact-check.
(3) Plagiarism. With AI generated text disposed to us so easily, it is important that when we finally finish a homework problem or an essay, we ask ourselves a question. Did the AI help me come to my own answer, or did it do my work for me?
In this landscape of AI literacy, at a point when AI is still in a burgeoning stage, one might see that some of the best tools a student has while interacting with AI are tools that they already have, but need to strengthen. Skills like critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration are some of a student’s best tools while interacting with AI. By strengthening critical thinking skills, one can look at AI generated text and ask critical questions about the possible sources, biases, and truth. One should be asking themselves: is this really the answer? Is this true information? How can I find a source that backs this up? In strengthening creativity, one also practices the ability to adapt, to problem solve, and to overcome –– an important skill as this technology expands. And of course, collaboration. AI is a collaborative technology in the education world that involves fact-checking, examination, and questioning. At the same time, it is a technology that has the potential to replace a human interaction. And so collaboration with other students and teachers is a two-in one skill, both maintaining the ability to be kind, courteous collaborators with others, and to hone the ability to ask questions, examine, and judge the answers produced by our now artificial counterparts.
Sources and Further Reading
“Artificial Intelligence in Education.” UNESCO, 2024.
“Artificial Intelligence Tools.” Oregon State University, 2024.
“AI and Education: Guidance for Policy-Makers.” UNESCO, 2021.
“AI in Education Global Market Report 2024.” The Business Research Company. January 2024.
Bailey, John. “AI in Education.” Education Next. 8 August 2023.
“Consensus de Beijing: sur L'Intelligence Artificielle et L’Éducation.” UNESCO, 2019.
Young, Jeffery R. “Inside the Push to Bring AI Literacy to Schools and Colleges.” EdSurge, 24 January 2024.
