INCLUSIVE AI LITERACY

Students and teachers at Dubai Heights Academy (DHA) together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed and are piloting an exciting new project-based curriculum for students from Year 6 to Year 8. This is part of an initial 3 year partnership between DHA and MIT. The program will focus on a very important STEM topic that is transforming society—artificial intelligence (AI). You probably have heard about it in the news and media—both the exciting solutions and applications that it enables, but also concerns about how it might affect people in unintended ways. Today’s reality is that if you are using online web services, mobile apps, smartphones, social media, etc., you are already interacting with AI-powered systems and technologies. We want to prepare students to be ethical designers and conscientious users of AI technologies. The job opportunities for those with competence in AI are already growing rapidly worldwide across diverse industries and markets, and the future is very bright for students who have skills in computational thinking and artificial intelligence. To help prepare students at DHA to be successful in the AI-powered present and future, we take the approach of “learning-through-making”—otherwise known as Constructionism. Students in this program shall be active learners who will work with other students on creative projects that have personal meaning and tie into their community and social good. In this way, students not only learn technical skills and concepts in AI and computational thinking, but they also learn important teamwork and 21st-century skills such as collaboration, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and design thinking. They will be building computational projects using student-friendly coding platforms like Scratch and App Inventor, both invented at MIT! We will introduce Y7 students to an initial set of learning modules in the 2020–2021 academic year. Over time, we will deepen our offering for Y7 while we also expand to Y8—Y9. We anticipate students will do these activities in two sessions per week during students’ Computer Science class. Sessions will be led by the DHA Computer Science teacher and an MIT mentor per the class schedule. At the end of this three-year period, our goal is to have a full academic year project-based learning AI curriculum for grades Y7–Y9. If all goes well, we will then expand to other grade bands, with the ultimate goal to serve the entire student body of DHA (plan TBD). As this curriculum is under development, we will be iterating and revising these materials using feedback from students and teachers. We will also welcome student and teacher input to make sure these activities are relevant and engaging for everyone. Perhaps the most exciting part is that all this hard work will result in a curriculum that can be used by other students all over the world! We want to make sure it supports a diversity of learners who have a range of interests, learning needs, and styles. Working directly with teachers and students is critical during this innovative development cycle, and everyone will come away with a better understanding of how programs like this are created for global impact. We anticipate that this adventure will impart enduring learnings and experiences that will benefit students well into the future.

Computational Thinking

Computational thinking means thinking or solving problems like a computer scientist. However, before a problem can be tackled, the problem itself and the ways in which it could be solved need to be understood. Computational thinking allows us to do this. Computational thinking is essentially a problem-solving process that involves designing solutions that capitalise on the power of computers. Computational thinking is the tool used by computer scientists to approach new problems. It is the application of rigour and logic when solving new problems, which transcends any particular programming language. This is why many computer scientists who learn the coding language Java can easily learn Python as they have already done the hard work of learning computational thinking, and they’re just using slightly different words to represent their thinking. Students learning how to use block-based languages like Scratch are actually learning the underlying concepts of computational thinking, which makes it so much easier for those students to be successful when they transition to using professional coding languages. And while it may seem that computational thinking is something that only programmers use, it’s a useful tool for analysing all types of problems. Computational thinking is a skill set for solving complex problems, a way to learn topics in many disciplines, and a necessity for fully participating in a computational world.

Scratch

Scratch is a block-based visual programming language and website developed by the MIT Media Lab. It is targeted primarily at children aged 8-16 as an educational tool for coding. Users of Scratch can create projects using a block-like interface.

Project based learning

Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method where students can gain knowledge and skills by investigating and responding to an authentic engaging and complex question, problem or challenge over an extended period of time As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers. PBL focuses on the act of learning through creating a project, as opposed to completing a project at the end of a unit to demonstrate knowledge. PBL is perfect for computational thinking, as projects can contain multiple touch-points for natural inquiry to occur. When students who do not know about loops run into a situation where they have to write code that repeats an action 20 times, they may wonder if there is an easier way to solve the problem than simply copying and pasting the same line of code 100 times. The situation requires a new computational thinking concept: loops. Through PBL, students pick up important computational thinking skills in contextualised situations, instead of just in the abstract.

What’s the latest

Ms. Burrows and MIT consultant Mr. Devasia will be introducing a new AI curriculum module in the Years 6 & 7 classrooms in mid-May. In this Interactive Public Art module, students create an interactive art installation for a classroom by building a unique image recognition model. Working in small groups, students conduct an empathy interview with a teacher in their school to find out the teacher’s likes, dislikes, and goals for the art installation. Students prototype possible installations and build their projects using Scratch and Google’s Teachable Machine, getting peer feedback along the way. After creating their final installation, students showcase their work to their peers, teacher clients, and the school community. This module is designed using the project-based learning (PBL) approach and will run for six weeks during the summer term. Students' progress and feedback will be closely monitored by the DHA instructors and the research team at MIT to explore how the students absorb and apply the concepts and accommodations are implemented for students at all abilities, including SNE students, as well as budding coders who crave additional challenge and independence.