by Katherine Bibidakis & Pinelopi Dimitroula

by Katherine Bibidakis & Pinelopi Dimitroula, Elementary School Faculty

Exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the Conscious Citizenship (CC) framework was one of the most fascinating, innovative, and educating initiatives during the 2021-2022 school year. As part of the AI Elementary team, our focus was to guide our faculty in broadening our understanding, expanding our comfort level, and building connections with the future of AI at ACS Athens. Through several meetings, our faculty members, including ourselves, familiarized themselves with the process of investigating what initially seemed uncharted waters of AI.

As we embarked on the AI exploration journey, we first guided the faculty in investigating existing and prospective AI relations within their respective area of expertise. Next, the ACS Athens faculty members reflected on the current role of AI in their discipline and how they, as experts in their field, have experienced AI. Subsequently, the meeting was steered toward discussing the importance of AI and student learning in the 21st century. One of the commonalities within the groups’ discussions was that AI use is already around us!

As a segue to the topic of the next meeting, the faculty began considering the possibilities of integrating AI into their classes. At this point, the AI Curriculum Progression Charts, as developed

within ACS Athens, and their collaborative analysis from the Elementary faculty, played a crucial role in considering their potential in designing future lessons. Initially, the faculty was given ample time to carefully examine the contents of the charts, followed by the opportunity to think about how their current teaching practices related to these progression charts. Lastly, the faculty considered new potential applications they could integrate into daily lessons and ultimately into the curriculum. From these discussions, the faculty came up with concrete ideas on how they can use AI to help students in the 21st century and to create a supportive environment that meets the needs of all students.

Lastly, the Iterative Phase was designed by merging the goals presented in the progression charts with the goals outlined in the syllabi of each discipline. The meetings were structured in a way that allowed us to facilitate as the faculty researched and made connections based on progression charts and specific scope and sequence. As this process was successfully concluded, some of the main questions yet to be explored are: ◉ What is the big picture of AI?

◉ How is AI making living and life on the planet better?

◉ How is education changing? What does this progression mean, and how are we to interpret it?

Overall, the faculty were extremely receptive to the topic of AI! We are impressed and proud to witness how welcoming our colleagues were to this new initiative. As the next cycle begins this school year, we are excited to see how AI will be integrated into the ACS Athens community. We believe that this new technology will be transformative for the way students learn. In this fast-changing world, we will always strive to be the best educators for our students, and we thank the ACS Athens community for all their support.