A New Season of the AI Start Project for Teachers Starts

Applications are now accepted from those willing to participate in the AI Start project that was set up by the Academy of Artificial Intelligence for Schoolchildren run by Sberbank’s Investment to the Future Charitable Foundation with the support of the MIPT School of Applied Mathematics and Informatics (SAMI) and the Neuronet Infrastructure Center on the basis of the MIPT School Development Fund.

AI Start is a project for teachers interested in launching a technology club on artificial intelligence at their educational organizations. As part of the project, teachers will be able to take a free professional development course “Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Methodology of Teaching in Basic and High School”, where they will learn how to teach students the basics of programming, Python, and how to start studying data analysis, machine learning, and neural networks. Upon completion of their training, teachers will receive standard certificates from the Moscow City Pedagogical University (MGPU), and have access to expert and information support in launching their AI Clubs, with an option to claim financial support at a later stage.

You can apply by May 25.

In 2023, over a thousand applications from 76 regions of Russia were submitted for participation in the project. During the season, 97 school clubs were launched, where more than 1,300 children are now being trained. Last season's teachers noted high-quality content, and gave project development advice:

“We liked the program, and its well-designed learning path was particularly helpful. Obviously, experienced methodologists were involved at the design stage, and they managed to break qualitative material down into portions and adapt it so that children understood quite well even those topics that were not part of the school curriculum. Besides, relevance and quality of teaching materials were beyond reproach.”

“Before AI Start, I took several artificial intelligence courses at different sites. The course offered by the AI Academy proved to be the most elaborate and weighty, and the information obtained can be integrated in the school education process without any special modifications, especially in the extended education system. The most valuable materials for practical work with children were no-code systems and datasets. However, the magnitude and complexity of the material showed that few schoolchildren (and even educators) were able to fully master the course. Take a look at the final course papers: the vast majority of those papers are on Data Visualization, the simplest and most easily aggregated topic. I think it is reasonable to divide the course into stages with increasing complexity, where trainees can obtain a tangible deliverable at each stage, and receive a graduation paper with some motivation to advance to the next stage. This would generate feedback and help assess the level of training of cadets in an objective manner. I am grateful to the AI Academy for the AI Start project and the subsequent support, this is very timely and significant assistance in promoting AI knowledge among educators and schoolchildren. Thank you for your work!"

The  Academy of Artificial Intelligence for Schoolchildren is a project of the Investment to the Future Charitable Foundation implemented with Sberbank's support since 2018. The aim of the project is to generate interest and develop applied skills in the field of artificial intelligence among schoolchildren.


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