Faculty participate in AI workshop for middle school teachers

Mary Frances Early College of Education faculty discussed training Georgia educators to teach artificial intelligence (AI) concepts to middle school students at a recent workshop hosted by the College of Engineering.

In June, the ImageSTEAM workshop brought together University of Georgia faculty and middle school teachers to discuss best practices for incorporating AI lessons into their curriculum. John Mativo, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Workforce Education and Instructional Technology with a joint appointment in the College of Engineering, hosted the event with Ramana Pidaparti, a professor in the College of Engineering.

ImageSTEAM, a National Science Foundation-funded project, provides training and resources to students and teachers in AI and visual computing through a partnership between UGA and Arizona State University. Mativo and Pidaparti direct the ImageSTEAM project with Arizona State faculty members Suren Jayasuriya and Kimberlee Swisher.

Dax Ovid, an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Raymond Schenk (Ph.D. ’22), an alumnus of the workforce education program, took part in a panel discussion at the workshop with three College of Education faculty members:

• Denis Dumas, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology
• Julie Luft, Athletic Association Professor of Science Education and Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education
• Xiaoming Zhai, an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education

“It was wonderful to meet with the teachers on this project. They are the translators of AI to STEM classrooms,” Luft said. “Drs. Mativo and Pidaparti were visionary in creating this project, which took advantage of their growing expertise in this area, and their work ensures our K-12 students are prepared for tomorrow.”

Fourteen middle school educators attended this year’s workshop in Driftmier Engineering Center Prior workshops, held virtually and in Barrow County, welcomed 22 teachers between 2021-2023.

“It was satisfying to witness transfer of knowledge and skills as former workshop participants guided the new participants in making and choosing AI tools to create lessons for their classes,” Mativo said. “One of the major goals of education is to reach the transferability level, which enables tackling ill-structured and new problems by using previous experiences. The workshop was a success.”