UKICER 2025 – Keynote: Teaching Responsible AI Literacy in Schools: Perspectives from academics and teachers (part of the main conference programme)

Speakers: Judy Robertson, Serdar Abaci, the Data Education in Schools Team and the AI Teachers in Residence

Generative AI has the potential to disrupt education, whether used by learners or their teachers. The impact of GenAI tools on learning outcomes at school level is not yet known, although there is some promise from initial empirical work. However, given the impacts of Generative AI on society, there is a need to educate children and young people about AI, even while the educational impact of using AI is explored.

This talk will be jointly presented by a team of researchers and teachers who collaborated to develop lessons to support secondary school teachers in teaching their classes about AI. We will describe the principles behind the AI curriculum across four strands of work: the relationship of AI to Children’s Rights and ethics, AI literacy, critical thinking, and the responsible use of AI to support learning. We will explain our AI Teachers in Residence model and why we thought it was important to co-develop it with teachers across a range of secondary subjects, rather than focusing solely on computer science teachers. Some of our AI Teachers in Residence will present the materials they created and share how they have been used in classrooms so far. There will be opportunities for the audience to discuss with the teachers how best to teach AI in schools.