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iSAT Curriculum Series: Forward to the Future: The Self-Driving Car Curriculum Unit for Middle School STEM Classrooms

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 21:05:34 +0000

iSAT Curriculum Series: Forward to the Future: The Self-Driving Car Curriculum Unit for Middle School STEM Classrooms Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 15:05

By Jeff Bush

Jeff Bush is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science at ��ֱ�� Boulder. He is also a theme lead at iSAT. His research focuses on the intersection of technology, STEM teacher learning and professional development with sub-topics of mathematics education, computational thinking, physical computing, formative assessment, complex instruction, Artificial Intelligence, user experience research, compassion, and equity.

In today's AI obsessed technological landscape, the Self-Driving Car (SDC) Unit puts students in the fast lane for learning innovative and responsible AI skills. Aimed at giving students technical proficiency, ethical judgment skills and hands-on collaborative skills, this unit dives deep into the complexities of programming autonomous vehicles while integrating cutting-edge AI-embedded technologies.

What is the Self-Driving Car Unit and How Does it Work?

The Self-Driving Car Unit immerses students in the exciting world of autonomous vehicles, putting them in the driver’s seat with an interdisciplinary approach. It begins with an engaging launch phase, featuring videos and discussions that highlight the real-world challenges and ethical dilemmas associated with self-driving cars. Students explore scenarios where a self-driving car must make split-second decisions, such as navigating around obstacles or deciding when to hand control over to a human operator.

As the unit progresses over 12-15 classes (typically spanning 3-4 weeks), students steer into the fundamental concepts of AI and robotics. They learn about data collection, training classifiers, neural networks, and the ethical implications of AI decision-making. Practical sessions involve programming their own miniature SDCs using platforms like the BitCar, where they implement features such as line-following, obstacle avoidance, and mode switching between autonomous and human-controlled operation.

Students participating in the Self-Driving Car Unit are seen here testing features they have implemented, such as line-following, obstacle avoidance, and switching modes.

How is This Unit Helping Kids in Classrooms - Specifically with Collaboration?

Central to the success of the Self-Driving Car Unit is its emphasis on collaboration. Students are organized into groups, each specializing in different aspects of SDC functionality like line following or object avoidance. This structure encourages teamwork as students share knowledge, brainstorm solutions, and troubleshoot challenges collectively. They then come together into a mixed group with one expert from each group; students teach about their feature to others and learn about the other two features from their peers. This peer-to-peer teaching not only reinforces understanding but also promotes effective communication and collaboration skills essential for future careers in STEM fields.

How is This Unit Tied into Our AI Partner CoBi?

Our AI partner, CoBi, plays a crucial role in enhancing the learning experience. Throughout the unit, CoBi provides support for collaboration and meta-reflection on how to best work in groups. Students collaborate in small groups and then CoBi gives them examples of how they did a good job upholding their co-negotiated class community agreements. This helps students develop these critical collaboration skills and be more adept at applying those skills in new contexts. The positive reinforcement and noticings help prevent a surveillance relationship and keep pushing students’ thinking by using actual examples from their class.

The integration of an AI partner such as CoBi aligns seamlessly with educational standards such as AI4K12 and CSTA, emphasizing computational thinking, problem-solving, and the societal implications of technology. This holistic approach prepares students not only to understand the mechanics of self-driving cars but also to critically analyze and contribute to the ongoing development of AI technologies.

In conclusion, the Self-Driving Car Unit represents a paradigm shift in STEM education, leveraging hands-on learning and AI-driven support to cultivate a new generation of innovators and problem-solvers. By exploring the three way intersection of robotics, AI, and ethics, students not only gain technical skills but also develop the collaboration and critical thinking abilities necessary to put the pedal to the metal in a technology-driven world. As we continue to build more AI-powered curricula, this unit stands as a testament to the power of integrating cutting-edge technology into educational curricula.

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iSAT Curriculum Series: Games Unit

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 16:14:59 +0000

iSAT Curriculum Series: Games Unit Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/26/2024 - 10:14

By Monica Ko

Monica is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science at ��ֱ�� Boulder. At iSAT, she investigates how inclusive co-design processes can empower teachers and students with diverse identities to better understand how AI learning technologies can be used for good in their schools and communities.

At iSAT, part of who we are and what we do is dedicated to creating engaging STEM and Science curriculum units that highlight the power of collaborative learning. We then incorporate our AI Partners to enrich these units further. We are excited to present a series of blog posts showcasing these curriculum units, starting with a spotlight on the Games unit.

What is the AI Games unit?

The AI Games unit is a 2-3 week instructional unit that invites middle school students to figure out sources of bias and racism that emerge within a video game and gaming community, and envision how humans and AI might be used to imagine new kinds of gaming communities. The unit focuses on Minecraft and opens with a story about a teenager who has vastly different experiences playing Minecraft on two different servers. After reading the teenager’s story, students generate questions they have about AI, Game design, servers, and about moderation. These questions are then organized on a question board that drives the direction of the unit. In the following lessons, students investigate the kinds of moderation rules that exist across different games and gaming communities; they read about how humans and AI systems are used to moderate behavior. The curriculum encourages students to think about moderation strategies that not only ban “bad” behavior, but also those that recognize positive behaviors. These experiences lead students to think about the ideologies that underlie these moderation systems, as well as the limits and affordances of AI, Humans + AI, or Humans-only approaches to moderation.

Students also learn about sentiment analysis, a natural language processing (NLP) technique that is used to moderate a player’s affective state during gameplay. To better understand what this actually involves computationally, students build their own sentiment bots and discuss how their lived experiences and the volume of training data influence the models’ predictive power. Finally, students apply these ideas to their own gameplay by creating rules for moderation and enacting them during a multiplayer game of Minecraft. From this experience, they realize how challenging the work of moderation is and the importance of both context and interpretability in making these decisions – and how AI and humans can work together to create more just moderation systems.

Minecraft Education includes all the biomes of normal Minecraft along with the two different world-modes, creative and survival. Pictured here are the controls for creative mode along with a new character wearing a pre-loaded skin in the Cherry Grove biome

How it’s Helping Students in the Classroom

Students are really excited to bring in their expertise with video games and online communities into this unit! It is a hallmark feature of the unit and reflects iSAT’s design principle of both soliciting and building from students’ everyday knowledge. When students are engaging with the AI Games unit, they bring in their knowledge about servers, positive and negative experiences of gameplay, and the importance of context and relationships in deciding whether players are joking or being insulting during gameplay. We know that students have some ideas about AI and its role in online communities, and this unit deepens this knowledge by getting students to understand how moderation works, how it influences human behavior, and what is important to pay attention to when developing these systems if our goal is to create more just futures.

One of the most powerful supports for this kind of learning is our AI partner, CoBi! Short for Community Builder, students are introduced to CoBi at the beginning of the lesson, and CoBi is used multiple times to monitor how students collaborate during the unit. In essence, students are not only learning about moderation, but they are also experiencing AI moderation at the same time! This “meta” experience allows them to more deeply understand how AI systems work, their potential fallibility at various points of their inception, and how humans can become the co-constructors (and not merely users) of more just moderation systems.

Furthering Our Mission of Developing AI partners

The enactment of the AI Games unit addresses two of iSAT’s goals. First, it helps us better understand what and how students can learn about AI systems at the upper middle and lower school grade levels. There are currently no standards for AI learning in US classrooms, and this is one way for us to gather empirical data about what students are ready to explore on this topic. Second, the integration of CoBi into the Games unit directly supports the generalizability of the models that power CoBi’s analytical pipeline. Providing CoBi with training data across all of our Strand 3 units ensures that its impact is not just specific to one curricular unit, but that it can be used more widely across classrooms enacting different content. Third, having students simultaneously investigating and experiencing moderation makes the learning come alive in classrooms! Embedding CoBi within the AI Games unit creates unique opportunities for students to analyze and critique where CoBi is doing well and where it needs additional support and training data. This positions students as partners who provide critical feedback on the development and refinement of our AI partners.

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Responsible Innovation in AI: Fostering Ethical and Sustainable Progress

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 18:31:04 +0000

Responsible Innovation in AI: Fostering Ethical and Sustainable Progress Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/17/2024 - 12:31

Responsible Innovation in AI: Fostering Ethical and Sustainable Progress

For a bit more than a year–effectively since the launch of Open AI’s chatbot ChatGPT at the end of November 2022–Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the talk of the town. It has incredible potential to revolutionize industries, improve our daily lives, and address complex societal challenges. However, as AI becomes increasingly pervasive, the need for responsible innovation is more critical than ever. AI partners, specifically in education, offer the potential to transform the way students learn, how teachers instruct, and how educational institutions operate. But the adoption of AI partners in education must be guided by ethical considerations, equity concerns, and a commitment to ensuring that students’ concerns are addressed and interests upheld.

When developing educational AI tools, we must prioritize privacy and data security, taking the utmost care that student information is protected from misuse or breaches. Transparent data practices and clear consent processes for data collection are essential components of responsible AI. From the inception of iSAT, we adopted the framework of responsible innovation, as described by Stilgoe, J., R. Owen, and P. Macnaghten in Developing a framework for responsible innovation, which means “taking care of the future through collective stewardship of science and innovation in the present.” This framework was specifically developed to guide scientific and technical research in sensitive areas, such as genetics and geoengineering. It reflects the kinds of questions the public asks of scientists and expects scientists to ask of their own work; for example: Is this safe? Can I trust this information (is it reliable and credible)? How does this affect me/my community? It is particularly appropriate in the area of AI, where there are significant ethical concerns about anticipated and actual harms of AI technology, as well as the unequal distribution of harms in society such as in the criminal justice system, education inequalities, and the digital divide - just to name a few. This framework is reflected in our methods, our commitment to inclusive processes involving diverse stakeholders, and our ethics frameworks and training for Institute members.

By focusing on responsible innovation when it comes to AI in education, we hope to achieve a broader impact of our Institute - leading the nation towards a future where all students— especially those whose identities are underrepresented in STEM—routinely engage in rich and rewarding collaborative learning by working in teams composed of diverse students and AI partners. In this envisioned future, STEM classrooms become strong knowledge-building communities where student-AI teams engage in critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving as they investigate (local) scientific phenomena, solve real-world problems, or develop solutions for all kinds of design challenges.

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The Importance of Teacher Collaboration When Developing AI Partners for Education

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 15:56:40 +0000

The Importance of Teacher Collaboration When Developing AI Partners for Education Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/18/2024 - 09:56

The Importance of Teacher Collaboration When Developing AI Partners for Education

by Rachel Lieber - former teacher and research professional for iSAT for the Insitute's first 3 years.

Teachers are the ones in the classroom. They have a deep and lived understanding of their students, community, and school culture. Not only do they know what it takes for students to thrive, they know the challenges and obstacles of introducing novel ideas, whether it’s a new book or a piece of technology. Teachers also have an immediate understanding of their students’ diverse aspirations, interests, and needs. In other words, when it comes to questions of usability and accessibility of our AI partners, a teacher’s critical feedback is essential.

Over the course of our extensive collaborations with teachers, we have learned a great many things about the responsible integration of AI partners in classrooms. For example, we have come to learn that teachers are not concerned about technology taking their jobs. Educators understand that the complexities of their jobs cannot and should not be transposed into an algorithm. Their work is so much more than relaying information: they create community and develop confident learners and critical thinkers.

Teachers themselves are lifelong learners and eager to try technology that can make their lives easier or that enhances learning for their students. However, they can sometimes be bombarded by new technologies and new ways of doing things that are often not helpful. This has added a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to incorporating new technologies into their pedagogies, and if teachers are not enthused about technology coming into their classrooms, they are less likely to use it. Therefore, it is essential to include teachers early in the development process so that we get to hear their hopes, dreams, and concerns from the very beginning and develop technology that can provide meaningful solutions to these very real challenges.

One of the most effective things we have done at iSAT is to actively seek out criticism and look at all the potential outcomes, both positive and negative, of any given technology’s purpose in the classroom. Our technologies are not developed in a bubble; instead, our technologies are developed iteratively for use in classrooms and with teachers (and students) being integral parts of the co-design and evaluation process from the very beginning. When teachers share their ideas and knowledge surrounding how to make AI-enabled technologies fun and engaging and really help us think about how this technology is going to enhance their work and not just become one more thing they have to manage in the classroom, it keeps us focused on the question “How can our AI partners support teachers and students in a way beyond what the teacher is already doing?” For example, a teacher wants to know when a group is struggling and when they might need some additional support, or when a student is not actively collaborating and participating with others in the group. Teachers know they cannot be everywhere all at once so getting this type of information is something they simply cannot do on their own.

Our technologies need to be nimble enough so that teachers can adapt them to different circumstances. For example, teachers know the second a lesson starts tanking, but seasoned teachers also know how to pivot and course-correct. Their toolbox is filled with tools for engaging and motivating students to learn and work together. Humans are dynamic and K-12 students can be particularly unpredictable. These teachers work every day to reach and teach every student who walks into their classrooms; they know the value of collaboration in the classroom and how it can lead to higher-level thinking, increased self esteem, responsibility, and leadership skills. That knowledge, combined with their experience in engaging and motivating students daily, is invaluable for institutes such as iSAT that are engaged in developing educational support technologies specifically for the classroom.

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Value of K-12 Education / Higher Education Collaboration in Advancing Public Education

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:08:01 +0000

Value of K-12 Education / Higher Education Collaboration in Advancing Public Education Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/09/2024 - 17:08

Value of K-12 Education / Higher Education Collaboration in Advancing Public Education

By Axel Reitzig

Bio: Axel is currently the Executive Director of Innovation at the Innovation Center of the St. Vrain Valley School District. He is focused on developing innovative, dynamic and high-quality programming, both at the Innovation Center as well as across SVVSD.

There is one team-building activity that I have used for many years, both with students as well as with adults. It’s called Minefield and works like this: participants partner up and one gets a blindfold; the other is the guide who endeavors to bring their partner across the ‘minefield’ (a 20’x20’ space with boundaries on each side and ‘mines’, e.g. pieces of paper, distributed throughout). The goal? Bring the blindfolded partner across the minefield without, well, blowing him/her up!

There are different rules that can be imposed on the partners: for example, use only verbal commands or only taps on the shoulder. It’s a fun activity that fosters collaboration and innovative communication and definitely builds a sense of team. But here’s the real point of the exercise: in the activity, as in life, we often are working with others who either ‘see’ much more than us or, conversely, ‘see’ much less. This is figurative, of course, and certainly dependent on context. For example, a mentor has more insights into how certain things can or should be done than a learner. Figuratively speaking, the mentee is blindfolded and the mentor gives guidance through all the pitfalls that a new team member probably will encounter. Of course, in a different context, the mentee might well be the one who understands the minefield and can guide others through it.

This idea - that negotiating progress often requires collaboration between people with different levels of experience and understanding - applies to organizations as well as to people and teams. Consider the field of education. This field includes an extremely broad, diverse range of needs, goals, and experiences. Depending on one’s context, the minefield of challenges can look very different and require very different approaches to managing and getting through.

As a long-time PK-12 public educator, I have developed a lot of expertise in wending my way through a variety of different ‘mines’ as well as opportunities specific to my context. As it turns out, my wife is a long-time higher education educator. While there is certainly overlap between our two experiences, there are also clear differences. We have had many good discussions over the years comparing and contrasting our experiences!

So this gets me finally to the point of this blog post. Namely, what is the value of collaboration between PK-12 and higher education? Lots! Above all, we share the same fundamental vision, which is to develop capable, confident individuals ready to succeed in a highly diverse, complex world.

Because of our different contexts, however, how we achieve this vision may look different. And if we are not communicating and collaborating, then our efforts might well end up working against one another. Through my conversations over many years, not only with my wife but with my higher education colleagues and collaborators, I have a much better understanding and appreciation of the challenges and opportunities awaiting our students once they have graduated. Conversely, I hope, these folks in higher education better grasp the PK-12 landscape. And just as in Minefield, allowing one another to take the lead when it makes sense is mutually beneficial and greatly improves our chances of success.

This kind of vertical alignment and collaboration is productive for many other reasons. But, for me, one of the most impactful things is that I know I can rely on my higher education teammates for their expertise and guidance when it comes to things mostly outside of the scope of PK-12. In return, I hope that I have helped guide them through experiences in the PK-12 space.

This is the 4th year of our collaboration with iSAT and ��ֱ�� Boulder. The scope of this work has grown and changed and brought great value to our teachers, students and community. We couldn’t have done this without relying on the expertise, vision and guidance of so many members of the iSAT team! Thank you for this - we look forward to more successes and opportunities over the coming years!

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How to Unleash the Power of Collaborative Learning

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 16:49:08 +0000

How to Unleash the Power of Collaborative Learning Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/04/2024 - 09:49

Author: Sidney D'Mello

Bio: Sidney D’Mello is the Principal Investigator of iSAT, and a Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Department of Computer Science at the University of ��ֱ�� Boulder (since 2017). He was previously an Associate Professor in Psychology and Computer Science at Notre Dame (2012-2017). He received his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Memphis in 2009.

How to Unleash the Power of Collaborative Learning

According to the science of learning, students learn better from interactive activities where they talk, act, deliberate, and reflect compared with passive and (superficially) active behaviors, such as taking verbatim notes while listening to a lecture. Asking open-ended questions, peer teaching, and group problem-solving are some of the most effective ways to promote deep learning. Collaboration also helps students develop interpersonal and teamwork skills, which are key 21st century competencies.

Here are three ways to unleash the power of collaborative learning:

Transform assessments into learning opportunities. In an artificial intelligence course I teach, I use “power of two” quizzing. Immediately after submitting their individual quizzes, students complete the same quiz again, but this time working with a peer to provide a team response. Though this can lead to more grading, the ensuing discussions and deliberations are well worth the effort.

Employ online games to engage students. Remote collaborations can be effective when centered around well-designed group activities. For example, my colleagues and I conducted a virtual summer camp where students from across the country teamed up to play Physics Playground, a highly engaging learning game that leverages the power of play to boost students’ creative potential.

Use artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate small groups. Teachers can’t be everywhere at once, so when it’s time for breakout groups, some students might struggle, go off task, or disengage. Now in its fourth year as an Institute, the NSF National AI institute for Student-AI Teaming, is addressing this challenge by developing “AI partners"—intelligent systems that help teachers to facilitate collaborations with small groups of students in an ethical and equitable manner. iSAT envisions AI partners working with teachers to catch the teachable and eureka moments that excite students and spark ideas. The AI helps provide insightful nuggets from students’ conversations to teachers and guide authentic whole-class and group discussions.

Don’t be afraid of the messiness that results from collaborative activities. Learning is a contact sport, and encouraging and supporting students to discuss, explain, reason, negotiate, and problem solve is challenging but immensely rewarding.

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Prioritizing Collaboration: A Look at our Partnership with CIRCLS

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 19:37:09 +0000

Prioritizing Collaboration: A Look at our Partnership with CIRCLS Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/01/2023 - 13:37

Partnering with a diverse group of students and teachers to develop the next generation of collaborative learning, iSAT is dedicated to transforming classrooms into more effective, engaging, and equitable learning environments. Our research community believes partnerships and shared knowledge are crucial to advancing our goals, and our partnership with The Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences (CIRCLS)—a research hub led by Digital Promise with EDC, SRI, and the University of Pittsburgh—is proving to be a perfect match!

CIRCLS: A Hub for Research on Emerging Learning Technologies

CIRCLS is a community-based hub for National Science Foundation (NSF) funded researchers who explore and investigate technologies that will be available to learners in the future. CIRCLS connects research projects—especially those emphasizing research and emerging technology for teaching and learning (such as what iSAT is working on). The key activities CIRCLS focuses on are: building community, mapping the work (sharing expertise and brokering relationships), advancing the work (creating and leading activities that rise above what any individual project can accomplish on its own), and amplifying and disseminating (publishing a community report that discusses the work of the community as a whole and more).

The CIRCLS community knows that emerging technologies can raise or lower barriers to learning and that barriers to learning have emerged along lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and other aspects of identity. Most researchers within the community view addressing these barriers as a moral imperative and seek to adopt practices in their exploratory research projects that can contribute to liberating learners from these barriers.

CIRCLS Partnership with iSAT

The iSAT and CIRCLS partnership is both mutually beneficial and a natural fit. iSAT aims to advance AI in support of student collaborative teamwork and both AI and collaborative learning are big topics in the CIRCLS community. A very important part of iSAT’s research is the Learning Futures Workshops hosted every spring. These workshops are planned and hosted by Michael Chang, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of California Berkeley, who splits his time between both iSAT and CIRCLS. These workshops help iSAT to better understand youths’ dreams for the best-case scenario use of AI in classroom settings and the feedback from the youth also helps to inform traits of the AI Partner. This very much resonates with the CIRCLS community, who also feel that the insights arising from engaging with youth during these workshops are very important. In an interview, iSAT was able to dive a little deeper with CIRCLS Principal Investigator Jeremy Roschelle and our shared postdoc Michael Chang to get their perspective on what is gained from this partnership.

Students work together during a Learning Futures Workshop team-building activity

iSAT: What opportunities do you feel the CIRCLS-iSAT partnership brings to the CIRCLS community?

Jeremy: The insights arising from youth engagement are important; we don’t have enough of these insights in the CIRCLS community (especially regarding what youth dream in regard to emerging technology). Also, the insights about how to engage with youth; it’s not easy work, and iSAT has become sophisticated about how to do it. In another activity also led by Michael Chang, we partnered with iSAT to develop a research tool called Conjecture Maps that can be used by the many projects in our community to help their computer scientists and learning scientists work better together. The conjecture mapping has a lot of value. And we’re hoping iSAT will contribute reports about their work that we can amplify to a larger audience.

An example of a conjecture map for Community Builder - one of iSAT's AI Partner Metaphors

iSAT: Where do you see AI benefiting education (teachers and learners) the most? How can AI in education be an asset instead of something viewed negatively?

Jeremy: Our CIRCLS team prefers an “intelligence augmentation” perspective on AI, rather than the more common perspective which views AI and people as separate and parallel. AI can be positive when it aligns closely with human goals and enables people to better achieve their aims. In the Learning Futures Workshops, we’re seeking to better understand how youth envision AI helping them. Generally speaking, AI can be an asset when it is designed to support people and keep people in the loop.

iSAT: Can you elaborate on what has been the findings from the Learning Futures Workshops and how this helps progress the work that CIRCLS / Digital Promise is doing?

Michael: The Learning Futures Workshop seeks to surface the hopes, dreams, and concerns of youth and teachers around the use of AI to support collaboration in classrooms. First, the workshop makes a contribution to co-design by supporting participants from dreaming within inequitable institutions. Second, our participants have pushed us to think about how AI might be able to support relationships between classroom actors; this is largely a new metaphor for AI/Ed. These findings dovetail nicely with the work of CIRCLS, which seeks to support the research community in developing and sustaining equitable futures. Please read here to learn more: https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/7670

Learning Futures Workshop participants spend time in a lab

iSAT: What has your experience working with iSAT and CIRCLS been like? What most excites you about your role, and what challenges you the most?

Michael: In my capacity designing and running Learning Futures Workshops for iSAT, participants dream of a wide range of expansive possibilities. While iSAT can realize (or at least move us closer) to some of those possibilities, if we are to truly enact youth’s hopes and dreams, the work cannot happen solely within iSAT. Through CIRCLS, I am excited to share the methodologies and findings developed in the workshops in order to support others in realizing expansive futures for school. Generalizing the work to the CIRCLS community is a major challenge, as it raises key questions for the field about how we translate important concepts across disciplines (and sub-disciplines) with varying commitments, ideologies, and epistemologies.

To learn more about CIRCLS, visit their website and subscribe to their newsletter.

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