Cultivating Artificial Intelligence Literacy through Linguistically Inclusive Integrated Elementary Curriculum via Educational Robotics

Computer Science (CS) education has predominantly focused on secondary students, leaving elementary school teachers concerned about time constraints and the pressure to cover other subjects. This project addresses this challenge by developing integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) curricula utilizing the advantages of educational robotics for grades 4-5 students in linguistically diverse classrooms. It also seeks to provide teacher professional development for implementing these integrated units and to conduct educational research. The language-rich curricular resources generated by this project will be disseminated for adaptation and use by other districts nationwide and will serve as a model for designing linguistically relevant integrated AI curricula. The project will enhance the knowledge base on developing novel elementary AI curriculum materials. A design-based research approach will be used to iteratively design and field-test the proposed curriculum. This three-year Medium Research Practice Partnership (RPP) project will involve two cycles of design and development of the integrated units and an examination of student learning fostered by these units and associated professional development. Through design-based research, the project team will develop and iteratively refine the integrated curriculum, and address the following research questions: (1) How does participation in the project influence elementary teachers’ AI teaching efficacy beliefs? (2) How does participation in the project influence elementary teachers’ perceptions of emergent multilingual learners (EMLs) and teaching EMLs? (3) How does participation in the integrated units impact students’ AI conceptual understanding and practices, and their attitudes towards AI? Twenty-five elementary teachers and approximately 600 elementary students (grades 4-5) from schools primarily serving underrepresented populations in Clark County, Nevada, will be directly impacted by this project. This project is funded through the Computer Science for All: Research and RPPs program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.