The effectiveness of a teacher development course on artificial intelligence teaching empowerment

To prepare the next generation to live in a world filled with countless artificial intelligence (AI) applications, it is necessary to cultivate students’ AI literacy in K-12 education. Key to the implementation of AI education in K-12 is teachers’ capability. We propose a seven-step model to structure a lesson for learning to teach AI based on the four content-related dimensions of the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework. A 6-hour teacher development course that incorporated the seven-step model was implemented with 79 in-service primary school teachers who were required to teach AI after the course. We evaluated the effectiveness of the course using a newly designed instrument of AI teaching empowerment. Exploratory factor analysis yielded three factors: (1) AI meaningfulness, (2) AI application, and (3) AI teaching self-efficacy. All three factors were akin to the three constructs identified in the empowerment literature. The t-test results suggested significant improvement in AI teaching self-efficacy after the course, but no significant changes were found in AI meaningfulness and AI application. These findings indicate that the 6-hour course was effective in enhancing teachers’ self-efficacy in using AI technology and in teaching AI. However, the course could be enhanced to improve their understanding of AI meaningfulness and AI application. We will re-evaluate the teachers’ perceptions after they practise teaching AI in their classrooms and will further develop the teacher development course. Copyright © 2022 Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education.