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In the face of the rising prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in daily life, there is a need to integrate lessons on AI literacy into K12 settings to equitably engage young adolescents in critical and ethical thinking about AI technologies. This exploratory study reports findings from a teacher professional development project designed to advance teacher AI literacy in preparation for teaching an AI curriculum in their inclusive middle school classrooms. Analysis compares the learning experiences of 30 participating teachers (including Computer Science, Science, Math, English, and Social Studies teachers). Results suggest Science teachers’ understanding of AI concepts, particularly logic structures, is on average higher than their non-Science teacher counterparts. Teacher interviews reveal several thematic differences in Science teachers’ learning from the AI PD as compared to their counterparts, namely learning from reflective discourse with diverse groups. Findings offer insights on the depth and quality of Science teacher AI literacy after participating in an AI teacher PD, with implications for future research in the integration of AI education into Science teachers’ inclusive K12 classrooms. 

In the face of the rising prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in daily life, there is a need to integrate lessons on AI literacy into K12 settings to equitably engage young adolescents in critical and ethical thinking about AI technologies. This exploratory study reports findings from a teacher professional development project designed to advance teacher AI literacy in preparation for teaching an AI curriculum in their inclusive middle school classrooms. Analysis compares the learning experiences of 30 participating teachers (including Computer Science, Science, Math, English, and Social Studies teachers). Results suggest Science teachers’ understanding of AI concepts, particularly logic structures, is on average higher than their non-Science teacher counterparts. Teacher interviews reveal several thematic differences in Science teachers’ learning from the AI PD as compared to their counterparts, namely learning from reflective discourse with diverse groups. Findings offer insights on the depth and quality of Science teacher AI literacy after participating in an AI teacher PD, with implications for future research in the integration of AI education into Science teachers’ inclusive K12 classrooms. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly pervaded and reshaped almost all walks of life, but efforts to promote AI literacy in K-12 schools remain limited. There is a knowledge gap in how to prepare teachers to teach AI literacy in inclusive classrooms and how teacher-led classroom implementations can impact students. This paper reports a comparison study to investigate the effectiveness of an AI literacy curriculum when taught by classroom teachers. The experimental group included 89 middle school students who learned an AI literacy curriculum during regular school hours. The comparison group consisted of 69 students who did not learn the curriculum. Both groups completed the same pre and post-test. The results show that students in the experimental group developed a deeper understanding of AI concepts and more positive attitudes toward AI and its impact on future careers after the curriculum than those in the comparison group. This shows that the teacher-led classroom implementation successfully equipped students with a conceptual understanding of AI. Students achieved significant gains in recognizing how AI is relevant to their lives and felt empowered to thrive in the age of AI. Overall this study confirms the potential of preparing K-12 classroom teachers to offer AI education in classrooms in order to reach learners of diverse backgrounds and broaden participation in AI literacy education among young learners. 

The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates a need for educating students to become knowledgeable of AI and aware of its interrelated technical, social, and human implications. The latter (ethics) is particularly important to K-12 students because they may have been interacting with AI through everyday technology without realizing it. They may be targeted by AI generated fake content on social media and may have been victims of algorithm bias in AI applications of facial recognition and predictive policing. To empower students to recognize ethics related issues of AI, this paper reports the design and implementation of a suite of ethics activities embedded in the Developing AI Literacy (DAILy) curriculum. These activities engage students in investigating bias of existing technologies, experimenting with ways to mitigate potential bias, and redesigning the YouTube recommendation system in order to understand different aspects of AI-related ethics issues. Our observations of implementing these lessons among adolescents and exit interviews show that students were highly engaged and became aware of potential harms and consequences of AI tools in everyday life after these ethics lessons. 

Teachers today have increasing access to professional learning communities (PLCs) through a rapidly expanding menu of online professional development offerings. While a valued opportunity for growth, online PLCs can limit opportunities for co-teaching, pedagogical practice, and experiential learning. This paper examines a teacher professional development program implemented in 2022, where 14 middle school teachers joined either an online or an in-person version of a summer practicum in which PLCs were fostered. In both versions of the PD, teachers worked in small teams of co-teachers to learn and practice teaching middle school students about Artificial Intelligence (AI), a topic in which teachers were non-experts. Findings from qualitative analysis of teacher interviews suggest affordances and barriers to teacher learning online as compared to in-person PLCs. The paper offers recommendations for online PLC structure and co-teaching to enhance teacher learning. 

Teachers today have increasing access to professional learning communities (PLCs) through a rapidly expanding menu of online professional development offerings. While a valued opportunity for growth, online PLCs can limit opportunities for co-teaching, pedagogical practice, and experiential learning. This paper examines a teacher professional development program implemented in 2022, where 14 middle school teachers joined either an online or an in-person version of a summer practicum in which PLCs were fostered. In both versions of the PD, teachers worked in small teams of co-teachers to learn and practice teaching middle school students about Artificial Intelligence (AI), a topic in which teachers were non-experts. Findings from qualitative analysis of teacher interviews suggest affordances and barriers to teacher learning online as compared to in-person PLCs. The paper offers recommendations for online PLC structure and co-teaching to enhance teacher learning. 

The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates educating all students about AI. This, however, poses great challenges because most K-12 teachers have limited prior knowledge or experience of teaching AI. This exploratory study reports the design of an online professional development program aimed at preparing teachers for teaching AI in classrooms. The program includes a book club where teachers read a book about AI and learned key activities of an AI curriculum developed for middle schoolers, and a 2-week practicum where teachers co-taught the curriculum in a summer camp. The participants were 17 teachers from three school districts across the United States. Analysis of their surveys revealed an increase in teachers’ content knowledge and self-efficacy in teaching AI. Teachers reported that the book club taught them AI concepts and the practicum sharpened their teaching practices. Our findings reveal valuable insights on teacher training for the AI education field. 

AI curricula are being developed and tested in classrooms, but wider adoption is premised by teacher professional development and buy-in. When engaging in professional development, curricula are treated as set in stone, static and educators are prepared to offer the curriculum as written instead of empowered to be lead- ers in efforts to spread and sustain AI education. This limits the degree to which teachers tailor new curricula to student needs and interests, ultimately distancing students from new and potentially relevant content. This paper describes an AI Educator Make-a-Thon, a two-day gathering of 34 educators from across the United States that centered co-design of AI literacy materials as the culminat- ing experience of a year-long professional development program called Everyday AI (EdAI) in which educators studied and prac- ticed implementing an innovative curriculum for Developing AI Literacy (DAILy) in their classrooms. Inspired by the energizing and empowering experiences of Hack-a-Thons, the Make-a-Thon was designed to increase the depth and longevity of the educators’ investment in AI education by positively impacting their sense of belonging to the AI community, AI content knowledge, and their self confidence as AI curriculum designers. In this paper we de- scribe the Make-a-Thon design, findings, and recommendations for future educator-centered Make-a-Thons. 

This paper describes an AI Book Club as an innovative 20-hour professional development (PD) model designed to prepare teachers with AI content knowledge and an understanding of the ethical issues posed by bias in AI that are foundational to developing AI-literate citizens. The design of the intervention was motivated by a desire to manage the cognitive load of AI learning by spreading the PD program over several weeks and a desire to form and maintain a community of teachers interested in AI education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each week participants spent an hour independently reading selections from an AI book, reviewing AI activities, and viewing videos of other educators teaching the activities, then met online for 1 hour to discuss the materials and brainstorm how they might adapt the materials for their classrooms. The participants in the AI Book Club were 37 middle school educators from 3 US school districts and 5 youth-serving organizations. The teachers are from STEM disciplines as well as Social Studies and Art. Eighty-nine percent were from underrepresented groups in STEM and CS. In this paper we describe the design of the AI Book Club, its implementation, and preliminary findings on teachers' impressions of the AI Book Club as a form of PD, thoughts about teaching AI in classrooms, and interest in continuing the book club model in the upcoming year. We conclude with recommendations for others interested in implementing a book club PD format for AI learning.