Elementary students backed by UT’s AI Tennessee advance to national competition

With support from the AI Tennessee initiative — founded and led by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville — a team of elementary students from Alcoa Intermediate School in Alcoa, Tennessee, will represent the state next week in Washington, D.C. Their success brings a classroom-driven vision for artificial intelligence in education to the national stage.

The fourth- and fifth-grade students will be competing in the national finals of the Presidential AI Challenge June 7-10 after winning state and regional elementary competitions. The AI Tennessee initiative assembled faculty from UT and collaborating institutions to support K-12 students and teachers participating in the challenge, designed to foster AI interest and competency by inspiring students and educators to develop AI tools and methods addressing community challenges.

UT, the University of Memphis, Middle Tennessee State University and Fisk University provided workshops, training sessions and ongoing mentorship for participating schools.

“AI Tennessee is considering how artificial intelligence is used across age groups, not just adults or college students,” said Emily Holtz, assistant professor of elementary education in UT’s College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. By facilitating professional internships for UT’s pre-service teachers, she has built close working relationships with local teachers. For the Presidential AI Challenge, Holtz collaborated with Alcoa Intermediate School teacher Hope McDonald, who recruited 35 students to form a new AI club.

AI in a local classroom
Before students began planning their team projects, Holtz and McDonald helped them understand what generative AI is, what it can and cannot do, and key ethical considerations around its use. “Students were able to see that human oversight is still needed and that they need to critically evaluate AI’s outputs,” Holtz said.

Those foundational lessons set the stage for students to think critically about local community challenges and to research causes and solutions. “The emphasis on identifying a community need drove great conversations among the students,” Holtz said, listing traffic infrastructure, homelessness and access to books as a few of the topics the students decided to research.

The winning team wanted to help fellow students overcome anxiety related to homework. They learned through research that doing homework for more than two hours per night can negatively affect well-being, contributing to increased anxiety, disrupted sleep and health issues. That finding inspired the Homework Helper.

The team envisioned their tool as both tutor and timekeeper. Users would ask questions, and the tool would help them solve problems, guiding them without giving them answers. It would also help users manage their time, nudging them to start their homework at reasonable times, balance homework and extracurricular activities, or take other beneficial actions.

“Every elementary team did great work,” Holtz said. “This team was particularly strong because they were inspired to think through the function and details of their proposed AI tool, which wasn’t required for elementary-age students.”

Next-level opportunities
“AI Tennessee has been so supportive of the students and their project,” Holtz said. For example, AI Tennessee funded curricular resources and held a mock Zoom presentation to help the team prepare for the online regional competition.

Now the student team is preparing for the final national competition. They will present their proposal to the judges in person for five minutes and answer questions for 10 minutes. They must clearly describe the community problem, the research that supports their solution and how their idea could be scaled up.

“This project is so valuable,” Holtz said. “The students are not only learning about AI — they’re gaining deep researching skills, public speaking skills and the ability to respond to tough questions under pressure.”

The experience has also supported Holtz’s research program. “Right now I’m looking at how we train preservice teachers to use AI to support lesson planning and instruction, supporting teachers’ cognitive loads so they can focus on what’s most important for their students,” Holtz said. “It was a good opportunity for me to work alongside in-service teachers, planning together how to use and teach AI with this age group.”

At the inaugural AI Tennessee Summit, held in March, Holtz discussed the Presidential AI Challenge with attendees from government, industry and academia. “Efforts to bring AI into education are strongest when shaped alongside teachers, students and community partners, when they are grounded in real classrooms, questions and communities,” she said.

Next week, a real Tennessee classroom and community will be represented on a national stage — and in the national dialogue shaping the future of AI in education.

“We’re all so excited for the students,” Holtz said. “We can’t wait to see what’s next for them.”