Oxford professor Rebecca Eynon urges schools to teach students how to shape artificial intelligence rather than only adapt to it. Her research shows many pupils lack basic digital skills and teachers are uncertain where digital literacy belongs in the curriculum. Eynon recommends an AI curriculum built on critical thinking, inclusive hands-on design projects, and shared responsibility for ethical, legal and environmental impacts. She stresses that governments, educators and tech companies must also share accountability.
3 Ways Schools Can Teach Students to Shape AI — Not Just Survive It, Says Oxford Professor
Oxford professor Rebecca Eynon urges schools to teach students how to shape artificial intelligence rather than only adapt to it. Her research shows many pupils lack basic digital skills and teachers are uncertain where digital literacy belongs in the curriculum. Eynon recommends an AI curriculum built on critical thinking, inclusive hands-on design projects, and shared responsibility for ethical, legal and environmental impacts. She stresses that governments, educators and tech companies must also share accountability.
09:59 PM, 11/18/2025Society
3 Ways Schools Can Teach Students to Shape AI — Not Just Survive It
As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes classrooms, workplaces and everyday life, Professor Rebecca Eynon of the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Oxford's Department of Education warns that schools risk teaching the wrong lessons if they focus only on coping with technology.
"AI is not just something to react to, but something that people should actively shape in relation to the kinds of education, and indeed society, we want."
Research from Oxford's Towards Equity-Focused EdTech project, led by Eynon, found that many young people are less digitally capable than adults assume. Students often struggle with basic tasks such as managing files or sending emails, and teachers are unclear where or how digital literacy should fit into the curriculum.
Three priorities for an AI curriculum
- Critical thinking: Teach students to interrogate the social, political and economic systems that shape technology. Lessons should explain how bias enters algorithms, how misinformation spreads, and how companies monetize data so learners can question — not just use — AI systems.
- Inclusion and design: Add hands-on design projects that connect technology to real community needs. Activities such as investigating bias in datasets, prototyping tools for local problems, or auditing simple AI models help students see themselves as creators and civic participants rather than passive end users.
- Responsibility and accountability: Embed discussion of ethical, legal and environmental impacts across subjects. Students should learn about governance and regulation, but Eynon emphasizes that responsibility for tackling AI's harms cannot fall to young people alone.
These principles should be integrated across the curriculum — not limited to computer science classes — so more students understand how digital systems shape society and their futures.
"There is a societal responsibility that does not just fall on young people to find ways to better govern, regulate, and change AI," Eynon writes. Governments, schools and technology companies must share accountability for AI’s ethical, legal and environmental challenges.
Practical classroom suggestions include short projects that expose algorithmic bias, collaborative assignments that map how data is collected and sold, and cross-curricular units linking AI topics to history, citizenship and media studies. By combining critical analysis, inclusive design and shared responsibility, schools can help students shape the technologies that will shape their lives.
Read the original article on Business Insider.