Syllabus

Artificial Intelligence

Course Essential Questions
  • What is artificial intelligence? 
  • How are computers programmed, designed, and trained for artificial intelligence? 
  • How does artificial intelligence impact our daily lives?
  • How should we determine the acceptable use of AI as technology continues to evolve?

Course Learning Objectives
  • Describe the evolution of artificial intelligence.
  • Explain how programming, machine learning, and neural networks give rise to artificial intelligence.
  • Research and present current applications of artificial intelligence and their potential benefits and risks.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence. 
  • Identify criteria for responsible AI development and use.

Unit 1: Welcome to the World of AI (Weeks 1-3) 

Unit Level Essential Questions
  • What is AI and how has AI evolved?
  • How do computers process images?
  • How do computers understand language?

Week 1: What is Artificial Intelligence?

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Define AI in the realm of computer science. 
  • Describe the historical progression of AI development.
  • Differentiate between general (strong) AI and narrow (weak) AI.

Week 2: How Do Computers See the World? 

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe how computers interpret and analyze visual data. 
  • Describe examples of computer vision in common AI applications.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 3: What Types of AI Exist?

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe the types of tasks that natural language processing can perform.
  • Explain how prompt engineering is used to answer questions.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Unit 2: Programming for AI

Unit Level Essential Questions
  • How do computers use algorithms to answer questions?
  • How is code used to make computers predict and make decisions?

Week 4: How Computers Make Decisions 

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Explain how algorithms are used to teach machines.
  • Describe different types of algorithms.
  • Create models of decision trees and best path algorithms.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 5: Selection Algorithms

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Explain how computer code allows applications to make decisions.
  • Describe the basic parts of a decision-making algorithm.
  • Use selection (if/then) statements to write an algorithm that makes decisions and predictions.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 6: Iterative Algorithms

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Use iteration (looping) and string processing statements to write an algorithm that makes decisions and predictions.
  • Explain how computer code is used to develop natural language processing apps.
  • Program a chatbot utilizing iteration and string processing.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence. 

Unit 3: Machine Learning

Unit Level Essential Questions
  • How are machines trained? 
  • How do computers collect and classify data?
  • What is the difference between supervised and unsupervised machine learning?

Week 7: Training Machines

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Explain the role of algorithms and data in machine learning.
  • Explain the relationship between artificial intelligence and machine learning.
  • Describe the process of training a machine learning model to make accurate predictions.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 8: The Value of Data

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe how data can be used to make predictions and decisions.
  • Explain how data is collected and stored for machine learning.
  • Describe the criteria to evaluate the quality of a dataset used for machine learning.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 9: Types of Machine Learning

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe and provide examples of the three categories of machine learning.
  • Relate supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning to human learning. 
  • Explain how unsupervised learning is used to find patterns in data.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Unit 4: Machine Learning

Unit Level Essential Questions
  • How are machines trained? 
  • How do computers collect and classify data?
  • What is the difference between supervised and unsupervised machine learning?

Week 10: Neural Networks

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe the general structure and function of neural networks.
  • Describe the relationship between neural networks and machine learning.
  • Identify tasks that neural networks have difficulty with.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 11: Generative Adversarial Networks

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe the general structure and function of a generative adversarial network (GAN).
  • Describe applications and potential uses of GANs in various fields such as art and music.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 12: Deep Learning

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Describe the characteristics of deep learning as they relate to machine learning.
  • Explain how deep learning is achieved through multiple layers of neural networks.
  • Compare and contrast convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks.

UNIT 5: Living in An AI World

Unit Level Essential Questions
  • What are the benefits and risks of AI? 
  • What laws should be passed to protect users of AI?
  • How do we ensure responsible uses of AI?

Week 13: Interactions with AI

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Identify methods in which AI can aid humans and enhance their quality of life.
  • Describe how to apply human-centered approaches in developing AI applications.
  • Describe the current limitations of AI. 
  • Research and present current applications of artificial intelligence and their potential benefits and risks.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 14: Responsible Use of AI

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Analyze the potentially harmful effect of AI on humans.
  • Describe how human biases can adversely affect the design of AI systems.
  • Analyze policies used to ensure responsible AI development and use.
  • Research and present current applications of artificial intelligence and their potential benefits and risks.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.

Week 15: The Future with AI

Weekly Learning Objectives
  • Explain current laws on data privacy and AI applications.
  • Predict possible future impacts of AI on careers.
  • Research and present current applications of artificial intelligence and their potential benefits and risks.
  • Evaluate the social and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence.
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