by Carla Tanas

Preparing Students For The Age Of ΑΙ Requires Enhancing The Schoolwide Curriculum To Include Both Artificial Intelligence And Conscious Citizenship

by Carla Tanas, Dean of the Institute

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has progressed rapidly, and the future is arriving faster than expected predictions. AI has become an integral part of our lives, and it is time to prepare for the age of AI by investing in education and training.

AI has many advantages: minimizing human error, reducing risk-taking on humans, around-the-clock availability, help in ordaining jobs, digital assistance, and faster decision-making. AI may even have a lower error rate than humans if coded accurately.

The best examples of AI in daily life could be seen in agriculture, finance, healthcare, navigation, criminal justice, and security, to name a few. Yet, AI does pose future threats, including invasion of privacy, autonomous weapons, loss of human jobs, and AI terrorism.

It remains up to us to choose how to upgrade our skills and knowledge and be part of a world where artificial intelligence makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new data and perform human-like tasks.

To adapt to this new complex system, we need to be able to identify the multitude of factors, perspectives, or interactions that might be associated with or contribute to particular outcomes. The context of the larger system is made up of networks of systems we can see as well as those we can’t (values, biases and decision-making rules that influence the way people think).

Education plays a vital role in transitioning sustainably and peacefully into this new realm. A holistic educational approach is a necessity to be able to focus on the constituent parts that interrelate and define how systems will work over time. Preparing our youth for the age of AI requires enhancing a schoolwide curriculum where incorporating artificial intelligence goes beyond our technology classes, where it belongs academically, but rather permeates the skills, concepts, and dispositions of AI in all other academic areas across our school in every grade (from K-12) and every discipline (math, science, history, art, literature, physical education, foreign language, social studies, psychology, and so on).

As our world transforms and machines become more intelligent, we must redefine our humanity and existence to include relationships with intelligent machines and each other. Defining the guidance that we need to provide humans is the role of today’s educational institutions, more importantly, K-12 institutions where children are defining their identity, character, and fundamental way of being. Empowering students for the future goes beyond helping them develop skill sets, but rather a way of thinking.

In January 2020, I developed and led a framework to integrate Artificial Intelligence and Conscious Citizenship (AICC) across our schoolwide curriculum so that we may empower our students to increase their human intelligence, including mindfulness, creativity, and interconnectedness, so they are prepared to engage with, manage and lead tomorrow’s advances and innovation for the good of humanity to improve life and living on the planet.

To bring this framework from an idea into a schoolwide reality, a think tank and implementation team were both created to include administration, faculty, and staff members1 who, as a team, worked hard to create a new holistic way of thinking within the school.

Beginning with the basics of defining our meaning of Artificial Intelligence and Conscious Citizenship that represented our vision at ACS Athens, we concluded that:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)” is a human-like intelligence demonstrated by machines, and

Conscious Citizenship (CC) is one who places value on being fully human while connecting with a higher purpose; one who values human life and the relationship with all living things, and takes responsibility for transforming skill into action, through ethical decision making, to ultimately improve life and living on the planet.

Our common definition laid the foundation for devising themes and topics around AI and CC, separately, which framed our processes to onboard faculty members across the school to make connections to their class curriculum. Faculty spent the academic year of 2021/22 during their selected professional development days to constructively research, envision the knowledge they wanted students to gain, assess the key questions they wanted to ask students, as well as, the potential ways to evaluate the success of student learnings.

After a two-year journey behind the scenes, we continue to grow our AICC strategic plan by including the introduction of an Innovation Lab that will include virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, STEAM (within a makerspace), and artificial intelligence, which will allow for further hands-on learning, experimenting, and exploring from insightful research to solution-oriented products. Our vision for the Innovation Lab is that it will serve as a hub for AICC development for our students, as well as for those in the surrounding community since we hope to welcome other students in the coming years.

Some additional growth projects that we have planned include the introduction of a new AICC digital library which to date already includes over 600 titles and continues to grow. Furthermore, additional programs under the AICC umbrella will be offered across the school to our students as we continue providing professional development processes for our faculty and staff members, who are directly responsible for educating our students. In addition, educational opportunities for our parents and the community as a whole are all in the pipeline.

1 A special thanks to ACS Athens President Peggy Pelonis, Academic Dean Julia Tokatlidou, Academy Principal David Nelson,Assistant Academy Principal Evelyn Pittas, Middle School Principal Joletta Galozzi, Elementary School Principal Sophia Moros, Assistant Elementary School Principal Valeria Laitinen, People Manager Andromachi Fragkou, Coordinator of Professional Development and Accreditation Adviser Julie Crain. Many thanks to Teacher and Staff Antonios Karampelas, Spyros Arsenikos, Christos Pakos, Liana Tsigaridi, Tabitha Newton, Zoe Karatza, Victoria Poulou, Angela Chamosfakidis, Sophia Thanopoulou, Stavi Dimas, Christina Venos, Pinelopi Dimitroula, Katherine Bibidakis, Christina Rocha, Natalia Dadidou, Venie Gaki, Sophia Tsinakis, Panagiotis Mologousis, Stephanos Achilleas.

Transitioning to an AI-centric world

Our world is transforming as more companies build AI-based solutions. We are encountering systems of change. Below is a birds-eye view of one example on the horizon, autonomous vehicles, which will impact many industries. How should education react to new labor needs, resources, infrastructure, policies, and economic models that will expand to include more roles supporting the production, maintenance and operation of self-driving cars? What questions should we begin asking students when the driver seat transforms from being human-centric to AI-centric?

Resources

From petrol and gas to electricity. Can corn become a fuel source?

Infrastructure

From roads, bridges and traffic lights to all of it becoming smart. Can you create an app to support the system?

Manufacturing Jobs

Designers, engineers, mechanics focused on safety, speed, and design as key performance indicators. Now philosophers are joining product design conversations to write algorithms. Do ethical discussions and idealistic perspectives control our future? Service Jobs

From taxi drivers, chauffers, bus drivers, delivery drivers, heavy truck drivers what new jobs can these individuals transfer to with their capabilities? What upskilling do they need?

Policies Emerging Economies

As car companies will become mobility companies vehicles will be shared or rented for very short periods. A new sharing economy emerges. How can you imagine this new transformation impact other industries? What additional services can a mobility company offer?