The Sleeping Giant Wakes: Building AI Literacy in Higher Education
Document Type
Presentation
Abstract
AI has been around for several decades. It has been mostly embedded in the domains of computer science, natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning, to name a few. Today, the perceived sleeping giant is awake and roaring. AI continues to permeate many domains that touch our professional and personal lives, including learning, training, education, healthcare, criminal justice, marketing, business, transportation, climate, and creative arts.
When a technology seamlessly interacts, influences, and integrates into the life of a common man, it is our collective responsibility to create, build, and sustain a workforce that is literate and cognizant of the power, applications, and ethics behind the technology. AI literacy is, therefore, imperative for institutions, organizations, governments, and societies particularly as we are still in the process of building guardrails around this double-edged sword.
Being literate and knowledgeable about AI is no longer a choice, given the transformational impact, both positive and negative, on jobs, industries, and governments. AI literacy o as “the ability to understand, use, monitor, and critically reflect on AI applications without necessarily being able to develop AI models.” AI literacy has emerged as a new skill set that everyone should learn in response to this new era of intelligence (Ng. et al., 2021).
This paper discusses strategies to implement the four key tenets of AI literacy for all stakeholders in higher education, including students, faculty, administrators, and alumni): 1) Know and understand, 2) Use and apply, 3) Evaluate and create, and 4) AI Ethics. (Ng. et al., 2021). Integrating AI literacy into existing curriculum using Bloom’s taxonomy as a framework and current best practices along these four dimensions will be outlined.
Keywords
AI Literacy, AI higher education, AI literacy and Bloom's taxonomy.
The Sleeping Giant Wakes: Building AI Literacy in Higher Education
AI has been around for several decades. It has been mostly embedded in the domains of computer science, natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning, to name a few. Today, the perceived sleeping giant is awake and roaring. AI continues to permeate many domains that touch our professional and personal lives, including learning, training, education, healthcare, criminal justice, marketing, business, transportation, climate, and creative arts.
When a technology seamlessly interacts, influences, and integrates into the life of a common man, it is our collective responsibility to create, build, and sustain a workforce that is literate and cognizant of the power, applications, and ethics behind the technology. AI literacy is, therefore, imperative for institutions, organizations, governments, and societies particularly as we are still in the process of building guardrails around this double-edged sword.
Being literate and knowledgeable about AI is no longer a choice, given the transformational impact, both positive and negative, on jobs, industries, and governments. AI literacy o as “the ability to understand, use, monitor, and critically reflect on AI applications without necessarily being able to develop AI models.” AI literacy has emerged as a new skill set that everyone should learn in response to this new era of intelligence (Ng. et al., 2021).
This paper discusses strategies to implement the four key tenets of AI literacy for all stakeholders in higher education, including students, faculty, administrators, and alumni): 1) Know and understand, 2) Use and apply, 3) Evaluate and create, and 4) AI Ethics. (Ng. et al., 2021). Integrating AI literacy into existing curriculum using Bloom’s taxonomy as a framework and current best practices along these four dimensions will be outlined.