Navigating the AI Landscape: A Personal Account from The Classroom
From Theory to Practice: Cultivating AI Literacy for Pupils
As part of their exploration into AI Literacy within our Digital Learning curriculum at The Pilgrims' School, our Year 8 pupils were fortunate to participate in an interactive session led by Justin Pinnells, Academic Director of CATALYST by Winchester College.
The workshop provided an engaging introduction to the evolution of language acquisition and the advancement of large language models.
Pupils were engaged in a variety of activities, including a quiz that challenged them to distinguish between human and AI-generated images and music compositions. A lot of fun!
A highlight of the session was a live Turing Test, where pupils had to discern if responses were provided by a human or a machine. In a close outcome, the machine demonstrated its impressive capabilities by winning the test!
Finally, Justin Pinnells introduced the students to a GPT-based character he developed named 'Alex Mercer'. Through a series of questions, the pupils discovered Alex's non-human nature, sparking a deeper understanding of AI's capabilities and limitations.
Whilst it is a small start in our plans for developing AI knowledge and skills, it was wonderful to see the pupils stimulated in such a traditional way. It also generated some follow on questions which I am keen to explore. They are:
At what point (and age) do we introduce AI Literacy?
How do we build on lessons such as this with its application?
How can all pupils access this learning?
How do we skill up more teachers to teach this?
If you are reading this and would be interested in providing insights or contributing to an AI Literacy curriculum, please get in touch.