I was under the weather on the night of Oct 24, 2024 with coughs. To make the best out of this situation, I enrolled in an online course through UBC Geering Up professional development selection. The course is facilitated through the edX platform and is learning to approach AI for students as a teacher. While the course aims at Gr 4 to 7 teachers, I was curious to see how it can possibly be applied to higher grade levels. The course is structured as a 6-hour self-directed online course offering videos and resources to attempt the exercises yourself.
Chapters 1 and 2 prompted the learner with understanding and assumptions about AI, concepts like the turning test to differentiate between us and a machine. It entails the philosophical discussion of what it means to be a human. In a math classroom, I forsee these topics can spark interesting conversations rather than being drowned with symbols and formulas.
Chapter 2 focused on the idea of algorithms and basic coding concepts which can be introduced to a lower grade. The instructor led some of the coding activities in Scratch language which is easily accessible through web browser. The activities he provided included different types of operators (like If -> then as part of recursions/loops). I see these activities as beneficial in helping students learn basic logical steps in coding and seeing how that is the foundation of AI (or any programming).
Chapters 3 and 4 jumped ahead and began the exploration of Machine Learning and Generative AI. Instead of talking about complicated regression and statistical methods, the instructor used succinct language to explore the idea behind image recognition. For the Machine Learning activity, the instructor offered a free online tool called 'Teachable Machine' which requires users to train an image recognition model by classifying objects to their liking. For the Generative AI activity, the instructor pointed to Eleuther.ai, Google Slides and Google Autodraw to build a visual story from end (story) to end (image). These tools are all accessible and free. I imagine implementing these tools to introduce AI as an activity to lower-grade classes. This can be an exploratory project to tell cohesive stories about math concepts.
Chapter 5 discussed the social impacts of AI on the topics of social media, biases, and automation. It surprised me how blunt the discussion of the risk of job replacement through AI's automation was. While most of the teaching profession is currently at low risk, it was astounding to see unexpected careers which are at high risk of replacement. An example of this is Sport Player which is sitting a medium risk for being replaced by AI Automation. For higher-grade students, I see that I can introduce these discussion topics to be beneficial in the decision of post-secondary discipline or career path.
Overall, this course has provided me with a wide selection of free tools to enable activities for the education of AI. As a math teacher, I can subtly introduce these tools as a way for students to familiarize themselves with AI in a constantly changing landscape.
Thanks Ray! But I’m a bit confused — did you already do this course, or is it coming up in future? Please clarify!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, Ray! This clarifies things and gives lots of information about the pro D course and how you might use what you’ve learned in your teaching. It was interesting to see the variety of UBC Geering Up courses available too — impressive! Thanks for an excellent post, now marked at a 3.
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