Pilot update

AABoard and OCMD complete Summer 2026 AI Explorers pilot with UCI survey support

August 2026

AABoard and Orange County Music & Dance (OCMD) completed the Summer 2026 AI Explorers pilot in Irvine, California. The seven-day, in-person program ran from August 1 through August 8 and included approximately 20 middle school students and 20 high school students in separate cohorts.

The pilot created a real classroom setting for examining how a general AI literacy program translates from curriculum and platform design into student experience. It also generated implementation evidence that can inform instructor preparation, activity design, and future program launches.

Program experience

Students used a custom learning platform with videos, quizzes, generative AI tools, and small creative coding and game-building activities. The curriculum introduced AI foundations, responsible use, safety boundaries, privacy, and the creation of text, media, and interactive projects with AI-supported tools.

The program was designed as a broad introduction rather than a single-tool training course. Its implementation offered an opportunity to observe how different age groups responded to platform-based instruction, creative production, and instructor-guided activities.

Student and parent feedback

A team from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) was invited to survey participating students and parents and to conduct student focus groups. These activities were intended to provide an additional feedback channel for understanding participant experience and identifying areas for future improvement.

Formal survey and focus-group findings have not yet been published. AABoard will not attribute conclusions to the UCI team until the relevant analysis has been completed and made available by the researchers.

Early implementation lessons

Initial implementation reflections reinforce an important lesson for AI education: adequate curriculum content does not by itself guarantee an effective classroom experience. Student engagement is shaped jointly by activity design, instructor capability, pacing, opportunities for hands-on work, and the relevance of the final outcome to learners.

The pilot also highlighted the need to validate instructional delivery before a program enters the classroom. Future launch-readiness work should include observed demonstration teaching, micro-teaching, and realistic rehearsal—not only completion of platform or policy training.

Next steps

The next phase is expected to combine participant feedback, implementation records, instructor reflections, and curriculum review. Areas for consideration include more sustained hands-on challenges, stronger team goals, clearer project outcomes, and a performance-based instructor-readiness process.

AABoard will use the pilot as a documented implementation case for improving how AI literacy programs are prepared, delivered, monitored, and reviewed in real learning environments.

Evidence boundary

This announcement documents completion of the pilot and the feedback activities that accompanied it. It is not a controlled study, a certification decision, or a report of UCI findings. Participation was substantially subsidized and included enrollment incentives, so recruitment speed should not be interpreted on its own as evidence of paid market demand. Public conclusions will require review of the formal data and supporting records.