Where Is the AI? AI Literacy for Educators

Abstract

This paper responds to the emerging call from researchers of many disciplines (computer science, engineering, learning sciences, HCI community, education) to address the need for fostering AI literacy in those with or without technical backgrounds. There is an urgent need for research to support educators’ understandings of the potential challenges and opportunities surrounding the appropriate and responsible use of AI tools in formal education spaces. This contribution to the scholarly literature is based on three years of reflective data gathered from an author-instructor’s experiences of working with graduate students who identify and analyze AI applications in an introductory AIED course. The course was designed by the author-instructor to critically examine ethics, bias, privacy, inclusion, data collection and explainability in popular AIED tools. The emerging scholarship on AIED is reviewed to identify common understandings and justifications of AI literacy. Reflective data is shared to highlight the need for educators to better understand the implications of integrating AI applications into teaching. This article is intended to inspire the promotion of AI Literacy for educators (AILE) and to contribute to the development of meaningful AI literacy frameworks and guidelines.