Transdisciplinary AI Education: The Confluence of Curricular and Community Needs in the Instruction of Artificial Intelligence

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into education has the potential to transform the way we learn and teach. In this paper, we examine the current state of AI in education and explore the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating this technology into the classroom. The approaches currently available for AI education often present students with experiences only focusing on discrete computer science concepts agnostic to a larger curriculum. However, teaching AI must not be siloed or interdisciplinary. Rather, AI instruction ought to be transdisciplinary, including connections to the broad curriculum and community in which students are learning. This paper delves into the AI program currently in development for Neom Community School and the larger Education, Research, and Innovation Sector in Neom, Saudi Arabia s new megacity under development. In this program, AI is both taught as a subject and to learn other subjects within the curriculum through the school systems International Baccalaureate (IB) approach, which deploys learning through Units of Inquiry. This approach to education connects subjects across a curriculum under one major guiding question at a time. The proposed method offers a meaningful approach to introducing AI to students throughout these Units of Inquiry, as it shifts AI from a subject that students like or not like to a subject that is taught throughout the curriculum.