Use of AI in education is rapidly growing along with concerns about ways it might impact learning. There is a lot of responsibility on educators to help students understand how AI technology works, how it generates information, and the ways users can analyze results for correctness and bias. In this episode, Leslie talks to us about the potential uses for AI in STEM education, approaches educators can take when discussing AI use in their disciplines, and how they can help students learn empowerment and become interested in thinking about creative ways to use this technology.

Bio:

Leslie Bondaryk is the Chief Technology Officer at the Concord Consortium in Concord, MA, and a 2024 EdSafe AI Fellow. Her career has been spent introducing new technologies to educational research and publishing projects across computer science, mathematics, engineering and sciences, including the first Web Calculus text, The Analytical Engine Online (PWS Publishing, 1998), and Schaum’s Interactive Outline Series (McGraw Hill, 1994-2000). She is the author of papers, articles and book chapters on technology adoption in classrooms, citizen science, and more recently on collaborative technologies in STEM software. Her research interests include AI to support learning, data visualization, physical experimentation in classrooms, collaborative learning technologies, and novel interfaces to communicate modeling concepts. She is also the former owner of Wackenhammer's Clockwork Arcade, a STEAM entertainment venue that tried to teach concepts in math and physics while playing games.

References:

Andy Zucker and Penny Noyce on Spotting Scientific Misinformation

Concord Consortium's course on AI and how it works (Gr 8-12 appropriate)

Article about integrating AI into a language arts curriculum