A $2.5 million award from the National Science Foundation will fund the efforts of researchers at New Mexico State University, MIT and Boston College to produce AI educational materials tailored to age and development of primary and secondary school students.
Over the next three years, MIT, Boston College, the NMSU College of Arts and Sciences, and the NMSU School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership will collaborate to design and test learning activities and assessments to increase students’ understanding of artificial intelligence concepts.
The project called Learning Trajectories for AI (LTs4AI) is part of the NSF’s Discover Research in K-12 Learning program. It builds on a long-term collaboration between Enrico Pontelli, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Irene Lee, principal investigator of the project and research professor in NMSU’s College of Arts and Sciences. Amanda Peel, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in NMSU’s School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership, will work closely with Lee.
“Our overall goal is to dramatically improve the learning and teaching of AI so that students can become critical consumers aware of how AI was created and how it works, informed citizens who can discuss privacy and security issues related to AI, as well as thoughtful stakeholders who participate in deciding when, how and why AI should be integrated into our lives or not,” Lee said.
“This project is a natural evolution of the work that the team has been carrying out for several years, as part of an established collaboration and values around student success that we share,” Pontelli said. “I am particularly excited to work with Irene and the rest of the team to focus our investigation on areas of New Mexico that have been underserved and underrepresented in technical education. We will offer teachers the opportunity to transmit unique skills to their students in order to make them competitive in their future projects.
LTs4AI officially debuted October 1 and partners with Las Cruces Public Schools, NMSU New Mexico STEM Outreach Center, Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, and Waltham Public Schools in Massachusetts. Partners will help recruit students to participate in studies and teachers to learn about AI and learn how to teach AI, particularly how it works and its impacts on society, through teaching aligned with new learning trajectories.
“Learning trajectories are developmental pathways that capture how students learn new concepts and develop specific understandings of content over time,” Lee said. “They are useful for teachers and curriculum designers to understand what students know, how they learn and how they can be assessed at different stages. The LTs4AI team will develop LTs that illustrate learning paths for key AI concepts, then design and test learning activities and assessments targeting these concepts based on the LTs, provide teachers with professional development on LT and related activities, and will research the effectiveness of LT-based activities when implemented by teachers during the regular school day.
In the long term, this program seeks to help develop a diverse workforce with the knowledge and capabilities to work seamlessly with AI tools and prepare for careers in the IT-intensive industries of the future.
The project’s research and resources will be disseminated through an awareness campaign aimed at researchers, practitioners, school administrators and teachers; a project website that includes lessons, activities, assessment tools, press releases, project reports and journal articles; and presentations and journal articles for educators and researchers.
-30-
CUTLINE: Middle school students have been attending computer science summer camps at New Mexico State University for nearly 20 years. NMSU will partner with MIT and Boston College on a new $2.5 million National Science Foundation-funded study aimed at increasing middle school students’ understanding of artificial intelligence concepts . (NMSU photos)
CUTLINE: Enrico Pontelli, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is collaborating on a $2.5 million NSF grant to develop strategies to integrate AI into public schools. (NMSU photo by Josh Bachman)
CUTLINE: NMSU research professor Irene Lee is the principal investigator of a $2.5 million National Science Foundation-funded program aimed at increasing high school students’ understanding of artificial intelligence concepts. (NMSU photo by Josh Bachman)
CUT : Amanda Peel, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in NMSU’s School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership, is among the researchers collaborating on the LTs4AI project funded by NMSU’s Discover Research in K-12 Learning program. the National Science Foundation. (Courtesy photo)