The Computer Science Teachers Association is launching a multistate, $11-million initiative this summer to prepare thousands of K-12 educators to teach foundational computer science and artificial intelligence skills.
The “AI PD Weeks” will bring teachers together for weeklong hands-on learning, collaboration, and practical strategies for teaching AI in K-12 classrooms. It kicks off between June and August in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, and South Carolina. CSTA plans to add four additional states in the second year of the initiative.
It comes as some people have questioned the necessity of learning computer science at a time when generative AI tools make coding more accessible. However, computer science education experts argue it’s still valuable to learn to code along with other foundational computer science principles, because those are the skills that will help them better navigate an AI-powered world.
“[Computer science] teachers overwhelmingly believe that AI belongs in foundational computer science,” said Bryan Twarek, the head of research and innovation for CSTA. “Many are already teaching it, and yet they also feel not yet equipped to do so effectively, and so this project is very much designed to meet that moment.”
The two-year initiative is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth.” A major focus of that order is training teachers on how to integrate AI into their instruction and workflows.
“This investment will equip thousands of educators with the tools needed to bring AI and computer science into the classroom, turning the Executive Order into action and preparing the next generation to become innovators, builders and leaders,” said Brian Stone, who is performing the duties of the NSF director, in a press release.
Providing teachers with professional development on ed tech—AI specifically—remains a challenge as district and school leaders juggle other pressing priorities, and because many districts and schools lack in-house expertise on these fast-evolving technologies.
In the three years since ChatGPT first gained widespread attention in the K-12 world, though, there has been progress in the percentage of teachers who are receiving professional development on AI, as more major technology companies and education organizations provide free teacher training and resources.
As of March, 58% of teachers reported receiving at least one professional development session on using AI in their work, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. That’s double the percentage from the survey conducted from January to March 2024, when 29% of teachers said the same.
“The amount of support that teachers need right now is massive,” said Kim Kefalas, the lead elementary technology teacher at the Linden school district in New Jersey, who is responsible for providing training to her colleagues.
Technology is changing “incredibly fast that it is impossible for people to keep up,” even for Kefalas, who says she’s more knowledgeable about ed tech than many teachers.
While she has colleagues who are skeptical about AI, there’s a big group of teachers for whom “it’s not so much that they don’t want to [use AI], they just don’t know how,” Kefalas said.
That’s why professional learning opportunities, like CSTA’s, are important, she added.
Kefalas’s colleagues want to learn from other teachers about practical ways to incorporate AI into their lessons and how they can use it with students, she said. They also want someone to provide feedback on their experiments.
“Hearing from real-world teachers, ‘This is a program that I’ve used, and I’ve seen success with it,’—that’s what they want to see from these PDs,” Kefalas said. Kefalas will be attending and hosting a session at the AI PD Week in New Jersey.
Beth Smith, a STEM teacher in Indiana attending the AI PD Week there, is hoping to gain ideas on how students can use AI in creative and interactive ways.
Smith doesn’t want her students “just feeding [assignments] through the machine,” she said. Many parents in her school community are worried about AI disconnecting kids from reality and from each other, so Smith is hoping that conversations include the downsides of AI, such as its environmental impact and the growing backlash against kids’ overuse of technology.
“I would love for CSTA to balance the PD and not just be rah-rah-rah about it,” Smith said. “Why are we having these conferences but not talking about the counterargument to this?”
Each AI PD Week is designed and led by the state’s CSTA chapter, with the content and structure based on what teachers in that region need, Twarek said. Teachers will be able to choose from a mix of in-person and virtual workshops and experiences and pick ones that are most relevant for their role and interests.
During the one-week intensive summer program, teachers will have the opportunity to learn about the basics of machine learning, how AI systems use data to recognize patterns and make decisions, how to evaluate outputs for accuracy and bias, when AI is appropriate for solving a problem, as well as examining its societal, environmental, ethical, and personal impact, Twarek said.
CSTA’s AI PD won’t be a one-and-done training, though. Teachers will have ongoing professional development opportunities throughout the school year provided by their local CSTA chapter, Twarek said. Teachers will have a variety of in-person and virtual sessions they can attend to continue their learning. CSTA will use the NSF grant to provide stipends to compensate teachers for participating in 12 to 16 hours of school-year PD.
As part of the grant, CSTA will also conduct research to examine how teachers integrate AI concepts, tools, and ethical considerations into instruction when supported by intensive professional learning and ongoing support.
“There’s not very much research that [explores] how teachers actually do [integrate AI concepts] in meaningful and ongoing ways, so we want to study that,” Twarek said.
