FROM THE DEAN
Toward AI and Computer Science Literacy
As we apply AI tools to a range of fields and business sectors, we’re seeing the effect on our lives through new or enhanced products and services. AI tools created for the field of education, however, have resulted in improved learning outcomes, but not a flood of products to the marketplace. The impact of the work in this field has profoundly positive effects extending far beyond our school.
The educational goals of SCS and its partners outlined in this issue of The LINK address large-scale challenges: improving access to quality instruction both within and outside the context of the education system, shaping the pedagogy of individualized learners and learning methods — and AI’s ability to address these simultaneously — and helping to build a U.S. workforce of the future equipped to remain competitive in our tech-driven world. These challenges and the stories featured in this issue are categorized in two areas of focus: 1) bridging the technology gaps at all educational levels to best prepare the nation’s workforce of future technologists, and 2) building AI into educational models and systems to increase learning outcomes.
From reflecting on Mark Stehlik’s life work and illustrious career advising and teaching SCS students to AI-driven tutors for grade-school students, and from the CMU TechBridge: Coding Bootcamp upskilling program’s expansion into AI to making computer science curriculum available at the community college level and beyond with the SAIL() program, SCS commits significant resources to a range of computer science literacy projects.
We also look at the study of AI’s effects on our young people and how to best include them in the process of building better educational models, as well as finding ways to use the power of AI to tailor each educational approach to individual students, thereby maximizing each learner’s potential. This work is exemplified in two different articles: one about the work of SCS’s Tom Mitchell who has partnered with Marsha Lovett, director of the Eberly Center, and the other about the additional partnership of the center with research teams led by Hoda Heidari and Ken Koedinger.
In all, the issue gives an overview of the depth and breadth of SCS’s commitment to the greater conversations happening in education. I hope you enjoy these stories and learn a bit more about the research and approach SCS has in the field of education.
Martial Hebert
Dean, School of Computer Science