Lessons Learned for AI Education with Elementary Students and Teachers
Open accessAbstract
With accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, it is clear that introducing K-12 students to AI is essential for preparation to interact with and potentially develop AI technologies. To succeed as the workers, creators, and innovators of the future, we argue students should encounter core concepts of AI as early as elementary school. However, building a curriculum that introduces AI content to K-12 students presents significant challenges, such as connecting to prior knowledge, developing curricula that are meaningful for students, and creating content that teachers feel confident to teach. To lay the groundwork for elementary AI education, we investigated the everyday experiences and ideas of students in grades 4 and 5 (ages 9 to 11) about AI to inform possible entry points for learning. This yielded themes around student conceptions, examples, and ethics of AI. For each theme, we juxtapose the student ideas with the teachers’ reflections on those ideas as frames of reference to consider in co-designing curricular approaches.
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Lack of training and knowledge may lead to refusal to use AI technology, limiting positive learning experiences or mismanagement of teacher resources.
“Training and knowledge in these areas become even more important as the lack of these may lead to the refusal to use any technology that markets the inclusion of AI, limiting potential positive learning experiences for students or the mismanagement of teacher resources attempting to ban or control the technology (Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2023).”
From From Understanding to Creating: Bridging AI Literacy and AI Fluency in K-12 Education (2025) · cites this paper as Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2023
The benefits of an AI-driven approach for students, educators, and the educational system at large are substantial.
“While adapting to this AI-driven approach presents certain challenges, the benefits for students, educators, and the educational system at large are substantial (for in-depth reviews, see Farhi et al., 2023;Fullan et al., 2023;Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2023).”
From Embracing the future of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom: the relevance of AI literacy, prompt engineering, and critical thinking in modern education (2024) · cites this paper as Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2023
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References 34 · Cited by 120
- Authors
- Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A., Glazewski, K., Jeon, M., Jantaraweragul, K., Hmelo-Silver, C. E., Scribner, A., Lee, S., Mott, B., & Lester, J.
- Affiliations
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- North Carolina State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Anne
- ORCID
- Venue
- International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-06
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 267-289
- ISSN
- 1560-4292 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4295682021
- Cited by
- 120
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 41 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 9
- FWCI
- 15.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Lincoln (University of Nebraska) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1934128, DRL-1934153)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Science Education and Pedagogy
- Keywords
- artificial intelligence in education, elementary school students, K-12 curriculum, AI ethics, teacher reflection, prior knowledge
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