Teachers’ Perspective on Artificial Intelligence Education: an Initial Investigation

Learning about Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a young age can help students become competent citizens able to move through our increasingly digital world with confidence and responsibility. This contribution presents a preliminary investigation in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, and Romania to understand middle school teachers’ perspective on how to best teach digital competencies for AI. It uses the Will, Skill, Tool model as a theoretical lens, and it aims to inform the design of educational content and online platforms to enable teachers to integrate AI education into their classroom. Through a human-centred design process – including focus groups and a survey – needs and requirements were identified for a supportive online educational platform that aids teachers in AI education. The research results showed a positive attitude towards AI education and high motivation to introduce AI-related content at school, which translates to a positive Will factor. Regarding the Skill factor, teachers seem to have a basic level of digital skills but low AI-related skills. No significant problems emerged regarding the availability of resources, but further research investigating whether the Tool factor is accounted for would be desirable. Based on the results, six design implications for a web-based educational platform on AI have been formulated: (i) provide the required basics; (ii) make it relevant; (iii) make it interactive and collaborative; (iv) keep everyone in the loop; (v) make it accessible; (vi) motivate the user. These implications are further discussed to extend computational thinking frameworks to incorporate AI-related concepts and perspectives.