Google Spends $25M on AI Training for Teachers
By Alyson Klein
Google.org, the tech company’s philanthropy arm, plans to invest over $25 million to support five education nonprofits in helping educators and students learn more about how to use artificial intelligence.
The initiative plans to reach over half a million K-12 and college students, as well as educators, giving them the skills they need to use AI responsibly in the classroom and the workplace.
Teens are more likely to use AI tools responsibly if their teachers discuss the technology’s potential benefits and pitfalls, according to a survey released Sept. 18 by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that examines the interaction between youth and technology.
But most educators aren’t getting the training they need in AI.
More than 7 in 10 teachers said they haven’t received any professional development on using AI in the classroom, according to a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey of 953 educators, including 553 teachers, conducted Jan. 31 to March 4.
The survey data show that teachers who are in urban districts, those in districts where at least 75 percent of students receive free or reduced-price meals, and those who teach elementary grades are more likely than other educators to say they haven’t received any AI training.
“As AI skills are increasingly seen as foundational digital skills, it’s crucial that teachers are prepared to guide students in understanding and responsibly using the technology,” Maggie Johnson, the vice president of Google.org, said in an emailed response to questions from Education Week.
A big focus of Google’s grants will be developing and delivering culturally relevant curriculum for AI, and ensuring AI literacy lessons reach students from a range of demographic groups.
AI tools tend to reflect long-standing societal biases. One way to mitigate that problem, experts say, is to include people from many backgrounds in developing the technology.
In fact, districts already doing deep work on AI literacy, such as Georgia’s Gwinnett County schools, say part of their mission is to ensure students from groups historically underrepresented in tech fields—such as girls and students of color—can access AI coursework.
“Bringing a broader group of people with varied life experiences into using these tools actually does help identify and help improve bias,” said Richard Culatta, the CEO of ISTE+ASCD, in an interview. Culatta’s organization—which provides professional development to educators for a variety of skills—will be one of the beneficiaries of the Google investment.
Culatta emphasized that teachers need to understand how to talk to students about AI’s bias problems.
“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges, is that there’s bias in all these tools and in lots of technology,” Culatta said. “But when it just sort of sits there and we don’t call it to our attention, that’s really where the danger is.”
ISTE+ASCD will receive $10 million of the $25 million over three years to reach about 200,000 educators. The organization will collaborate on its AI-related initiatives with six other organizations that focus at least in part on teacher and/or leader training: the National Education Association, Computer Science Teachers Association, Center for Black Educator Development, Latinos for Education, Indigitize, and PlayLab.
The work will include “deep dive professional learnings” aimed at helping educators understand AI better, including online courses and webinars. Culatta said the sessions will explore questions such as: what is AI and how does it work?
“AI is not magic. We have to be really clear about that,” Culatta said.
The goal of the Google investment is to build ‘enduring AI skills’
ISTE+ASCD plans to also create communities that allow educators to share best practices on using AI, and conduct research to make sure that their efforts are having the desired impact.
The work won’t focus on specific AI tools but on the technology more broadly, Culatta said.
“In order to help kids be successful, what we really need is to help them have enduring AI skills, because the tools will change,” Culatta said. “The tools that we’re using today are the least capable AI tools that we’re ever going to see, because they’re just going to keep getting better.”
Other grantees include:
- 4-H, a nonprofit that offers students the chance to complete projects in agriculture, health, science, and other fields. It will provide training on AI to rural students and educators.
- aiEDU, a nonprofit focused on equitable AI literacy. It will help deliver AI curriculum to rural and Indigenous communities.
- STEM From Dance, a nonprofit that uses dance to engage girls in science, technology, engineering, and math curriculum. It will help girls use AI to enhance dance choreography through sound, animation, and technology.
- The 5th grantee, CodePath, will create industry-reviewed AI coursework for Black, Latino, and Indigenous college students who are studying computing.
Alyson Klein is an assistant editor for Education Week.