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| Posted on Wednesday, July 22 @ 00:03:18 PDT |
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As artificial intelligence expands across K-12 schools, Massachusetts announced a new $500,000 public-private investment in AI applied learning opportunities for hundreds of students, the Healey-Driscoll administration announced Tuesday.
“I’m happy to announce today that we’re investing a half million dollars to expand applied artificial intelligence learning opportunities for 400 public high school students across Massachusetts,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll at a STEM Advisory Council meeting Tuesday. “That’s (76 high schools, 66 school districts) that will be participating. This is applied AI projects across sectors: advanced manufacturing, healthcare, clean tech, biotechnology.”
The investment is going to students’ paid, virtual summer internships working on applied AI projects and facilitated through a public-private partnership with the Boston-based national nonprofit Brightbound.
Brightbound, which hosted the STEM Advisory Council meeting Tuesday, matched the administration’s $250,000 investment in the internship opportunities. The program is administered by the Massachusetts AI Hub, along with the virtual internship-focused organization Work-Based Learning Alliance.
The AI learning program is focused on “giving students hands-on AI experience, connecting them with industry mentors, and preparing them for high-demand careers,” the administration stated.
The dollars have been distributed across urban and rural districts, Driscoll said, calling the AI learning the “intersection of Massachusetts in the economic development sector, our education sector, and our labor and workforce pipeline.”
“Right now, there’s a lot of fear around AI,” Driscoll said. “Some of it, I think, is well regarded. But we also want to make sure we’re seeing the opportunities that it presents. There’s no better way to do that than engaging with our our next generation of workers, our next generation of entrepreneurs, and thinking about how the work that they’re doing can connect to industry and particularly industries in Massachusetts.”
The internships’ virtual model has students teams meet with professional mentors for two to three hours per week developing “AI-enabled solutions and deliverables aligned to real business needs,” the administration said. The format also aims to eliminate transportation barriers and offers paid opportunities to “broaden” student participation from all areas across the state, officials stated.
“We know that logistics are a huge barrier for work-based learning at scale,” said Brightbound Vice President of Social Impact Liz Texeira, noting efforts to increase opportunities on a “systemic level at scale.”
Texeira said about 79% of students in Massachusetts report they’re already using AI, “but that said, most of them are not sure how to use it.”
“It’s not about displacing or replacing in-person internship, but it’s about building scale and building capacity,” said Prue Clifford, executive director of the Workplace Learning Alliance. “And really being able to catalyze the impact that we can all collectively have on the youth of today and the workforce of tomorrow.”
Students within Innovation Career Pathways, Career Technical Education (CTE), Early College, and Dual Enrollment programs receive “priority placement” in the new program, officials said, but all Massachusetts public high school students can apply.
Education Secretary Steve Zrike highlighted work building on these AI-related programs as the state aims to make AI literacy a component of new statewide graduation requirements.
The administration released a final framework for statewide graduation requirements to replace the MCAS standard in June, including components referencing “artificial intelligence and digital literacy.
” The framework is intended to “inform policy decisions by the Governor and the Legislature” to finalize the requirements in the coming years.
“It is a critical in terms of career readiness and to start thinking about how these skills can be reflected in STEM learning across the Commonwealth,” Zrike said Tuesday, suggesting the “seals of distinction” included in the graduation framework could include AI literacy metrics among others “in ways that are rigorous, meaningful, and accessible.”
The seals hold promise “for students to signal to employers, beyond just the diploma, this another way to demonstrate that they have the skills that employers are looking for,” Zrike added.
The lieutenant governor called new graduation requirement legislation an opportunity to “get it right off the bat” in areas like accessible STEM learning.
“We want as many (students) as possible in early college, in a career-connected experience,” Driscoll said of the requirements. “Knowing that high school isn’t a chore, but more an opportunity for them to see what’s going to be next and to position themselves for success in whatever it is that they might want to do. The best way for us to do that is to have a framework to work under, and then try and support those efforts collectively in many different communities across Massachusetts.
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