Project Kick-Off and Press Release
Three AI projects focus on professional development for K12 teachers and higher ed faculty.
State Council of Higher Education for Virginia recently put out a press release about the three projects funded by this year’s Fund for Excellence and Innovation grant (excerpt below).
George Mason University will partner with four other institutions – Bridgewater College, James Madison University, Roanoke College and the University of Virginia – to develop research, resources and a series of workshops to aid faculty with AI integration in the classroom. This work will be supported by a business and industry advisory board to inform curriculum design.
Old Dominion University and Suffolk County Public Schools will create a regional education collaborative focused on defining curricular pathways for students. The collaborative, titled COVAConnectAI, will be constructed by applying a design-thinking model and will collaborate with local business and industry.
Virginia Commonwealth University, Goochland County Public Schools and Henrico County Public Schools will design summer workshops for K-12 teachers to produce AI resources for the classroom. Additionally, the team will build curricular pathways between K-12 and higher education involving high-quality, work-based learning experiences for students.
“These three teams will build a foundation that other education providers in the Commonwealth can emulate as they look to incorporate AI into their efforts,” said Alan Edwards, SCHEV interim director. “The ethical and responsible use of AI in our schools, colleges and universities is key to preparing Virginians for the workforce of the future.”
After meeting with the other project leads, I am very excited about the complementary aims of our three projects and interested to see where we can collaborate on some of the development and dissemination pieces. Our first activities are mostly planning ones - getting our project assessment/evaluation plan in place, developing expectations and outreach plans to begin recruiting for our business/industry advisory board - but we are hoping to hire at least one of our 3 research assistant positions soon - so if you are a student at George Mason or the University of Virginia, feel free to reach out for more information!
What do you think?
One of the goals of our project is to prepare students to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools ethically and responsibly. If you could teach your students one thing about AI tools, what would you teach them?
