Introducing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in K12 Education to Foster 21st Century Skills: From Theory to Practice

This paper focuses on the interdisciplinary and collaborative approach underpinning the European funded project Edu4AI “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Foster 21st Century Skills in Secondary Education”. The methodology has been conceived to enhance the practice of teaching from course design to content delivery, drawing inspiration from social constructivist theories, and inquiry project based learning instructional methods, combining elements from the maker movement and the educational robotics platforms. The final output of this process has been a particle handbook that comprises ready to use project toolkits, suitable to guide the seamless integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in K12 school curricula, including non-scientific ones. The paper introduces the theoretical frameworks inspiring the toolkits that have been created cooperatively with the teachers’ community and piloted in the school real contexts for validation. One of the toolkit projects is also presented in the article, outlining the corresponding learning goals in terms of both hard and transversal life skills acquired, in order to ensure correspondence with students' learning outcomes evaluation. Following the presentation of the results from questionnaires collected during the project, the article concludes with some key recommendations for practitioners willing to replicate the initiative.