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Connecting AI concepts to students’ lived experience can foster learning and engagement. However, many AI curriculum development efforts rely on adults’ understanding of what may be relevant to youth. This highlights the need for incorporating youth voices into curriculum development processes. This study developed a design project centered on student agency; where students envision and design AI-powered robots capable of addressing issues that they themselves experience and frame from their perspective. Implemented via flexible design modalities, this project aims to situate and assess students’ knowledge of AI within the context of their everyday lives. Participants. Over a three-year period, twelve teachers from urban, rural, and suburban middle schools, along with one instructor from a high school after-school program, implemented an autonomous robot ideation project as part of a middle school AI elective course in a southeastern state in the US. Study method. We thematically analyzed data collected from 301 student participant projects, teacher interviews, classroom observations, and student participant interviews. Findings. The robot ideation project proved to be an effective lens for understanding youth's experiences with AI. On one hand, it revealed the areas where youth envisioned AI as beneficial in their lives. Students conceptualized robots as tools for everyday tasks, with some preferences reflecting demographic differences. Students also imagined robots improving their socio-emotional well-being, addressing environmental challenges, and enhancing public safety. On the other hand, the project uncovered biases and misconceptions about AI, shaped by youth's daily experiences. In addition, we offered insights into the affordances and limitations of different design modalities to inform the creation of effective design projects. While low-tech modalities such as sketching were often employed in low-resource settings, we found that students were better able to apply AI concepts when using these approaches. In contrast, high-tech modalities such as Tinkercad tended to push students toward focusing on surface-level aesthetic details, making it more difficult to assess their conceptual understanding. Conclusions. Incorporating personally meaningful design projects into the AI curriculum can surface youth's experiences and inform curriculum development. Drawing from our findings about the relatable use cases of AI, this work suggests ways for curriculum developers to integrate them into AI, science and humanities curricula to make learning more meaningful and for developers to build more responsible conversational AI systems that mitigate youth overtrust and prioritize their well-being. Furthermore, this work shows that inclusive design projects should use low-tech and high-tech modalities and be organized into short and adaptable activities that teachers can flexibly integrate into their lessons. 

K-12 students need to understand technical and ethical knowledge about Artificial Intelligence to utilize ubiquitous AI-powered technologies responsibly. Recent studies have explored ways to teach AI to K-12 students effectively, but little is known about ways to assess their learning. In this study, we describe how five computer science teachers from urban and rural Georgia school districts designed, adapted, and implemented assessments in their classrooms while teaching a middle school elective course aligned with the Five Big Ideas of AI. Analyzing artifacts from 201 students, we explore the efficacy of different assessment instruments co-designed with teachers, measuring students’ understanding of sensors and the societal impacts of autonomous vehicles. We suggest design considerations for AI knowledge assessments to meet the needs and challenges in diverse classroom contexts. 

This case study explores the experiences of a non-computer science educator participating in a professional development program designed to support AI teaching in rural middle schools. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and expansive learning as analytical lenses, the research examines how the educator leveraged supportive elements within her environment to overcome challenges, gradually building confidence while adopting new teaching practices. Findings underscore the need for tailored professional development, ongoing support, and progressive teacher learning for effective AI education. This study contributes to understanding how non-computer science educators can be supported in bringing AI learning experiences to their students, thereby making AI education more accessible. 

Middle School students in the United States are exposed to an unprecedented number of AI-driven consumer products. This exposure demands that educators help students develop their personal understandings of these technologies to engage with them responsibly. Designing age-appropriate AI curricula for middle school students calls for collaboration and partnership between computer and learning scientists, as well as middle school teachers. Over a 3-year period, we co-designed and successfully implemented an AI education curriculum across 9 geographically and economically diverse schools, offering it to a total of 1551 students. Drawing from our analyses of the curriculum and teacher and student experiences, we propose an effective format for teaching, assessing, and implementing fundamental AI education for middle school settings in the United States. Our research also highlights the value of empowering teachers through co-design; enriching their professional development and improving students’ AI literacy. 

There are many initiatives that teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy to K-12 students. Most downsize college-level instructional materials to grade-level appropriate formats, overlooking students' unique perspectives in the design of curricula. To investigate the use of educational games as a vehicle for uncovering youth's understanding of AI instruction, we co-designed games with 39 Black, Hispanic, and Asian high school girls and non-binary youth to create engaging learning materials for their peers. We conducted qualitative analyses on the designed game artifacts, student discourse, and their feedback on the efficacy of learning activities. This study highlights the benefits of co-design and learning games to uncover students' understanding and ability to apply AI concepts in game-based learning, their emergent perspectives of AI, and the prior knowledge that informs their game design choices. Our research uncovers students' AI misconceptions and informs the design of educational games and grade-level appropriate AI instruction. 

Hawaiian bilingual language immersion (Kaiapuni) schools infuse curricula with place-based education to increase student connection to culture. However, stand-in teachers often lack the background and tools needed to support immersion learning, resulting in discontinuity for students in their culturally relevant education. This experience report describes a partnership between the Ka Moamoa Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Ke Kula Kaiapuni 'O Pu'ohala School to design a teacher-substitute support platform via a hybrid of assets-based design methodology and emerging technology capabilities. We share insights offered by teachers and design requirements for such a platform. We also reflect on how HCI methodologies should adapt to center and respect Native Hawaiian perspectives. 

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole.--- Sheena Erete, Editor 

The importance of considering local context and partnering with target users is well established in co-design. Less common is an examination of the adaptations needed when deploying the same co-design program across heterogenous settings to maximize program efficacy and equity. We report on our experience co-designing educational games with six culturally and socioeconomically diverse afterschool sites over two years, and insights from interviewing ten program administrators across all sites. We found that even within the same afterschool program network, site differences in organizational culture and resources impacted the effectiveness of co-design programs, the co-design output, and expectations for student engagement. We characterize our afterschool partners into different archetypes – Safe Havens, Recreation Centers, Homework Helpers, and STEM Enrichment Centers. We provide recommendations for conducting co-design at each archetype and reflect on strategies for increasing equitable partnerships between researchers and afterschool centers. 

Community-based afterschool programs are valuable spaces for researchers to codesign technologies with direct relevance to local communities. However, afterschool programs differ in resources available, culture, and student demographics in ways that may impact the efficacy of the codesign process and outcome. We ran a series of multi-week educational game codesign workshops across five programs over twenty weeks and found notable differences, despite deploying the same protocol. Our findings characterize three types of programs: Safe Havens, Recreation Centers, and Homework Helpers. We note major differences in students' patterns of participation directly influenced by each program's culture and expectations for equitable partnerships and introduce Comparative Design-Based Research (cDBR) as a beneficial lens for codesign.