Undergraduate Facilitators as Role Models for Middle School Learners within an AI Summer Camp

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes ubiquitous in children's lives, it is crucial to introduce new and effective ways to teach the younger generation about AI. This study describes the experience of training undergraduate students as middle school AI summer camp facilitators. These undergraduates participated in a professional development session prior to camp for 9 days (54 hours), and then facilitated AI learning and camp activities within the two-week camp. Our findings indicate that the undergraduate facilitators benefited greatly from this experience, in turn providing benefits to the middle school learners. The undergraduates developed both professional and conceptual skills. By interacting with the facilitators as "near-peers", the students learned about AI in a fun, engaging, and supportive way. These findings contribute to our understanding of how to effectively teach young learners about complex AI concepts.