Thoughts on the AI Foundations Course

AI Foundations
1

I am curious as to everyone’s thoughts on the AI Foundations Course.

I am not a fan of it, at all in fact, and I’ve been with Code.org for a long time. For me, it’s being used as curriculum for a required freshmen level course and it’s much too difficult for my students. While some students do grasp it, many are frustrated by the complexity of it including myself.

Couple of things:

Unit 1 had some really fantastic lessons but it was much too repetitive and it missed out on some opportunities to do some cool lessons regarding training data. Also, there were some missed opportunities for some fun projects utilizing AI.

In my opinion, Unit 2 is fantastic for an upper-level course. Some issues I had with it:

  • Moved much too quickly as an foundational level course.
    • Parameters
    • Passing objects as parameters
    • Importing user-created functions

While I am being critical of the course, I do think it’s well-done. But for me, it’s just much too difficult as a foundational-level course for freshmen.

I am curious other people’s opinions.

2

I am new to code.org and decided to try just Unit 2 for doing Python Programming., ”Unit 2 - Foundations of AI Programming”.
We are just part way into Lesson 3 and I would say it has been a disaster so far.
I’ll have to spend some time putting together some constructive feedback but it has been super confusing for myself and the students jumping from the platform to the workbook to additional pieces. I know whoever designed it really wants us to print it out, but if you don’t and try to do things electronically it seems to be a big confusing mess.
I feel like the exercises need more examples before jumping into them and some of them seem too ambiguous. The baking a cake exercise had you classifying things but they are very vague and could fit into more than one category, I feel like a bunch of straightforward ones to start with and an example first would make sense. Then maybe do some more ambiguous examples (or not).
I’m trying to decide if I should just cut my losses and drop using code.org and do it from scratch, OR if I will go through each following lesson really carefully and update them all.

Maybe it will get better when it goes into just coding but so far we have all been struggling.

3

What grade level are you teaching?

I agree about the Activity Guides - I just can’t print them out for all my students nearly everyday, it’s just too much. Not to mention the Unit Guide as well.

4

As a devoted code.org user since 2016’s TeacherCon I’m getting similar vibes. I feel like the Python coding levels are rushed - it’s the equivalent of multiple units of CSP coding, squished into one. My kids are struggling, and since I’m learning Python along with them I’m not in a position to create the supports that they need.

I popped over to look at the CSP units, but it’s going to be a lot of work to build that level of support for the Python lessons.

5

It is a mix of 9-12 high school students.

I was planning on giving the students a brief tour of the “Python Lab Documentation” and official Python documentation.
The lab docs could certainly use some improvement. The Painter docs should have at least the following added:

  • summary of all the methods and Attributes at the beginning
  • show a basic usage of the Painter
  • it calls Attributes “Fields”, it should use the correct terminology and be consistent with the slides
    Other parts of the docs:
  • it has all these sections, but they are blank:
    Python Lab Shortcuts
    Mac: Advanced Commands
    Mac: Basic Commands
    Windows: Advanced Commands
    Windows: Basic Commands
  • The Lab docs don’t cover all the material in the lessons such as Variables, Data Types, Objects, Loops, Conditionals. It feels like big chunks are missing.
6

You’re absolutely right it feels rushed. I am teaching parameters to freshmen who are forced into the class because my state is requiring it before I am teaching it to my AP students.

I think it’s important for me to say that I have been a devote Code.org teacher since the beginning but I am finding it difficult to use this curriculum for my needs. And for the record, it appears this curriculum was built specifically for my state’s required course.

7

I noticed the attributes stuff as well. Maybe those chunks are missing because the course just rolled out and they will begin to add to it? I’m not sure.