Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools have the potential to reshape education and may change teaching practices in K-12. As such, teachers must prepare students to have the necessary skills that will allow them to learn about these tools and use them productively for their lives and education. This project will pilot a curriculum with new educational methods in preparing pre-service teachers in understanding the fundamentals of generative AI and its potential teaching applications.

In the context of educational robotics, this RAPID project examines the educational equity potential of a task-oriented generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to assist with creative productivity tasks in engineering design. This time-sensitive project will investigate how to support lower-performing learners through development and testing of an AI robot design assistant in a virtual robot-building game.

Schoolchildren are exposed to hundreds of digital tools each year, many of which are already driven by AI technologies. Parents and teachers must consider how to incorporate these learning tools into their daily lives at a rapid pace. Yet, very little is known about the current use and perceptions of AI among these key stakeholders. This time-sensitive RAPID project will identify the opportunities and challenges that arise for parents, teachers, and youth regarding the use of these AI-driven technologies in K-12 education.

The recent development of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Bard present new opportunities and challenges for learners in the elementary and middle grades. Despite their potential for facilitating and supporting scientific reading and writing, there are pressing concerns about how AI tools can produce harmful, biased, and false content, which then gets reproduced by users who lack sufficient critical evaluation skills or do not understand the importance of evaluating AI-generated content.

While Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve both science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching practice and students' overall classroom experiences, it is critical to better understand how teachers can more easily adapt it within their classrooms. In particular, supporting AI-driven tool adoption in resource-poor schools is crucial to address educational inequities. This RAPID project addresses an urgent need to facilitate integration of AI technologies into schools to maximize benefits while reducing the burden on teachers? time.

Young learners need opportunities to build critical awareness surrounding AI. To rapidly expand inclusive access to AI education, K-12 educators need activities that (a) are low-cost, (b) do not require specialized technology, (c) can be led with little prior knowledge of AI and used in settings with time constraints and competing curricular needs, and (d) have clear learning objectives and tie-ins across disciplines. ?Unplugged? activities that are playful, hands-on learning experiences that foster learning about AI without programming can address these constraints.

This project explores how high school youth communicate with AI tools and assesses how they learn to use AI tools in context. Though students are using these tools widely, inciting much public discourse, very little is known about how, why, and when they use AI tools, or what they understand about the tools. Through curricular exploration, this study evaluates how historically marginalized high school youth of color interact with AI tools to write papers, write program code, or study for science tests.

Large language models (LLM) represent a new and rapidly changing technological advancement for K12 STEM learning. It is critical at this point in time to investigate and provide pathways for including justice, equity, inclusion, and community cultural capital and wealth in designing LLM-based educational systems. In the context of developing an AI chatbot, this RAPID project will research the ways in which teachers can plan universally designed and culturally relevant and responsive K12 STEM learning activities and environments.

Large language models, especially ChatGPT, have seen exponential growth and have demonstrated early potential to transform teaching and learning. Given the rapidly changing field, there are limited systematic studies on how students and teachers are engaging with these new generative AI tools, leaving schools with little to no data to help them integrate AI in K-12 education. This RAPID project aims to develop a general framework and accompanying computational tools to understand how students and teachers are engaging with generative AI tools.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into advanced manufacturing has promising potential to revolutionize productivity and generate new jobs in smart manufacturing. There is an urgent need to investigate "what to teach" and "how to teach" AI in order to prepare future workforce with the necessary AI skills, as most K-12 educators and schools lack the knowledge and experience to teach students AI skills for smart manufacturing. This project will initiate an age-appropriate career-driven AI educational program for high-school students and evaluate its effectiveness.