Learning from Experience: An Interactive and Ethical Curriculum for Teaching Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

As AI becomes prevalent in society, AI education and AI literacy are also increasingly important fields. Reinforcement learning (RL) plays and will continue to play an intense role in many systems, including online advertising, self-driving cars, and personalized tutoring. There is a corresponding need for education of RL. In my thesis work, I developed activities and materials that teach RL to middle and high school students who don’t necessarily have backgrounds in computer science or AI. Then, I evaluated these materials by teaching a series of pilot workshops. The project had two main goals: effectively educating the students in the workshops, and contributing insights to the ongoing research of AI education. In this thesis, I will go over the curriculum design, as well as the analysis of each pilot.