Junior AI Coder

Parent Course Outline

Practical AI learning for curious young builders

Junior AI Coder introduces AI concepts through guided, project-based activities. Students progressively build a personal AI assistant, test behavior, discuss safety, and explain what they made.

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Course Introduction

This six-lesson activity course helps children understand AI as a tool they can question, test, and improve. Activities are designed for iPads, classroom discussion, and guided assistant-building challenges.

Suitable Age

Recommended for children aged 10-14. Lessons use simple English, step-by-step tasks, and teacher demos before independent practice.

Device Requirements

Each student should have an iPad with a modern browser and internet access. CodeHS sign-in may be required by the school or teacher.

Six Lesson Summaries

1. Conversation and Prompt Rules

Students train Byte to hold safe conversations and follow clear prompt rules.

2. Intent Classification

Students classify short messages so an assistant can understand what the user wants.

3. Assistant Skills and Task Routing

Students connect each intent to a useful assistant skill.

4. User Preferences and Memory

Students explore safe ways an assistant can remember preferences.

5. Knowledge Retrieval and Simple RAG

Students retrieve useful facts from a small knowledge set before answering.

6. Personal AI Assistant

Students combine conversation, intent, skills, memory, and knowledge into a final assistant demo.

Learning Outcomes

  • Explain basic AI ideas such as prompts, inputs, outputs, labels, intent, memory, retrieval, and testing.
  • Use guided activities to change assistant behavior and observe results.
  • Identify privacy risks and avoid sharing secrets or personal information.
  • Present a project clearly using evidence from tests.

Teaching Approach

  • Teacher demo first, then guided student exploration.
  • Short discussions and practical demos to support understanding.
  • Project-based assessment through demos and reflection.
  • No traditional examination.

AI Safety and Privacy

The public demos do not ask for student names or personal information. Students are reminded not to share passwords, addresses, phone numbers, or other private information in AI tools.