Eighty teachers from four states recently completed intensive training on how to teach artificial intelligence (AI) to middle schoolers, part of a growing initiative to make AI education more accessible and engaging for students across the country.

The AI4GA program, launched through a National Science Foundation grant and now supported by Google, continues to grow through expanded teacher training and curriculum development. It was initially led by Christina Gardner-McCune (University of Florida), Dave Touretzky (Carnegie Mellon University), and Bryan Cox (Georgia Tech). The curriculum was co-designed with educators and faculty, including Georgia Tech’s Judith Uchidiuno.

Now in its fifth teacher cohort, AI4GA is focused on upskilling educators, many of whom don’t have a background in computer science. Participants in the latest group included science, English, math, and social studies teachers from Georgia, Florida, Texas, and New York.

“We did a really good job with Georgia, so now we’re scaling up,” said Cox, Kapor Fellow in Georgia Tech’s Constellations Center for Education in Computing.

The curriculum introduced the cohort to machine learning, automated decision-making, natural language processing, and other foundational concepts in AI. They also learned about AI applications, including autonomous robots and self-driving vehicles.

Read the full story here from the College of Computing >>