Conference Presentation at THE CUC 2025: Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

As part of the dissemination and knowledge transfer activities of the AITECH project, the presentation “Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom” was delivered at THE CUC 2025 in Rovinj, Croatia, on November 5, 2025.

The presentation addressed the growing presence of artificial intelligence in education and emphasized the need for both students and teachers to understand its role. In practice, however, teachers often face challenges in explaining complex AI concepts in an accessible and pedagogically appropriate way. This work focused on demonstrating how fundamental AI concepts can be taught through simple, creative approaches that do not require advanced technology.

A particular emphasis was placed on future teachers, from overcoming the perception that they are not sufficiently qualified to teach AI, to providing ready-to-use teaching scenarios and materials applicable in classroom practice. The presentation also highlighted the need to adapt higher education curricula for teacher education programmes, ensuring that students acquire practical competencies necessary for teaching AI and integrating it into future school curricula.

As a concrete example, activities based on the CS Unplugged approach were presented. These activities support the development of computational thinking while offering teachers practical tools to address the perception that AI is too complex for primary and secondary education. The analysis of unplugged methods indicates strong interest among both pre-service teachers and in-service educators, but also reveals a certain level of insecurity regarding their own expertise. This further underlines the importance of systematic teacher preparation and demonstrates that AI can become an accessible, understandable, and applicable topic when adapted creatively to the needs of both teachers and learners.

Authors:

Antonela Prnjak Gadža and Monika Mladenović

Faculty of Science, University of Split, Croatia

Funding acknowledgement:

This activity is part of the project “Artificial Intelligence for Future Technical Education and Industrial Competitiveness (AITECH), IP-UNIST-48”, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026 (NPOO).

The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.