On Aug. 18, Common Sense Media released results from a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. teens detailing their use of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as the lack of available resources to support lessons on AI literacy.
Simultaneously, the nonprofit organization released a new Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum for grades 9-12 that it says pairs AI literacy with the critical-thinking, creativity and connection skills students need to navigate the technology.
“Young people today are growing up in an environment where there is less friction and taking the easy way out academically is right at their fingertips,” Common Sense Media’s Chief Program Officer Yvette Renteria said in a statement. “Our curriculum is designed to ensure students are engaging with AI and technology through a critical lens, with a focus on building the human capacities that will help them succeed both in and out of the classroom.”
According to findings detailed in the survey, about 70 percent of students report using AI for schoolwork — and nearly two thirds of those say they’re using it in ways that are considered to be offloading the critical-thinking aspects of their lessons.
For example, among students who are AI-users, 63 percent say they get an answer to their schoolwork from AI, whether they use it verbatim (25 percent), rewrite it to sound like them (31 percent) or edit it to include what they know (35 percent).
Additional key findings show that:
- Forty-four percent of those who use AI for schoolwork have had an AI tool blocked on a school network or device, but 59 percent of them just switched to a personal device to get around the ban.
- Among those who use AI, 38 percent say having it leads them to generate fewer of their own ideas, and 39 percent say they feel like they’re missing out on learning when they use AI to complete assignments.
- Only 27 percent of teens say a teacher has ever talked with them about how to use AI safely.
To address these concerns, Common Sense Media’s new curriculum includes lessons focused on the questions, topics and challenges that students face today related to media and AI literacy, online safety and financial literacy.
Topics include deepfakes and consent, where students explore why using someone’s likeness without their permission is a violation and why the harm is real even when the image isn’t; social media and parasocial relationships like those in “fandom” culture; why social engineering works and how it’s related to “hacking trust;” and financial literacy, where students use math and real dilemmas to uncover how design — not chance — shapes online spending.
