AI + Coding with Students

[bbrundage]

Hello everyone,

I teach technology classes to upper elementary students. My primary focus with this age group is on establishing a solid foundation for computational thinking. We do a fair amount of offline work before they dive into working with code blocks, and our projects generally do not extend beyond 3-4 weeks (2 sessions/week). AI is definitely a powerful coding partner for professionals, and I do address that with students as a mini lesson on AI literacy; however, my students are still developing their foundational problem-solving and algorithmic thinking, so I don't see AI as having any direct role within my computer science curriculum. I'm curious about a few things, though:

1. Am I completely wrong? Is there a valid role that AI could play when coding with 3rd-5th-grade students?

2. At what grade level or level of coding skill mastery should AI-assisted coding tools be introduced?

3. What guardrails could be put into place to ensure that AI is not getting in the way of students' understanding of coding concepts?

4. What about vibe coding? I could actually see the use of this that isn't necessarily tied to the coding unit. There is a lot of critical thinking and problem solving that goes into creating and refining something via Gemini Canvas. I'd still be hesitant with my youngest students because of how they perceive the role of AI; however, there could be some merit in using this process with my oldest group.

I'd love to hear insights, classroom guidelines, or lesson experiences as I think through my coding curriculum (and beyond).

[MsGibsonAbroad]

Hi there! This sounds like such an engaging and exciting unit! 

Last school year, one of my 5th-grade students decided to research Vibe Coding for her PYP Exhibition. She interviewed an expert, read about it, and watched videos. She learned about what it wasn, the pros/cons, and how it can create more space in the world of coding for underrepresented groups. She wrote leveled readers to teach both lower and upper elementary about VibeCoding and created artworks around it. For her 'action', she wrote 7 handwritten pages of 'code' (descriptive writing) to create a game demonstrating how Vibe Coding works. I took photos of her handwritten instructions, uploaded them to Gemini Canvas and her game was created! She didn't have time to rewrite for any iterations but it was amazing for her to see her descriptive writing come to life in the app she envisioned. I'm not sure if this helps but hopefully sharing how this was used in the upper elementary setting. 

[MaddalenaB]

Dipende dcome usi IA e in quale grado di scuola. Esempio io propongo l’intelligenza artificiale per superare gli ostacoli cognitivi tra infanzia e i primi 3 anni della Primaria, in quanto faccio visualizzare concetti astratti come le metafore in modo da rendere comprensibile con l’immagine (Storytelling illustrato, l’AI genera immagini di supporto).

In 5a Primaria analizzi i Bias per evitare che l’AI ostacoli l’apprendimento, punto sul monitoraggio del processo, cioè invito gli alunni a diventare investigatori  a ricercare le allucinazioni (sicurezza e etica) a sviluppare il pensiero critico. Inoltre con Canvas progettare un intervista e valutarne tramite la discussione la coerenza del personaggio richiesto. Infine consegnare dei moduli da completare a metà e alla conclusione del lavoro per capire se si sono resi conto degli errori dati dalle risposte dell’AI e se è il caso di imparare a dare delle istruzioni precise per migliorare la qualità delle risposte. Per quanto riguarda le superiori i ragazzi dovrebbero aver imparato a non fidarsi ciecamente dell’IA e saperla utilizzare non come no strumento magico ma come aiuto per accrescere il proprio potenziale. 

[MaddalenaB]

fantastico potresti condividerlo anche a noi? grazie