Exploring the Future of Science Education with AI Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges

Timeline for submission:
Abstracts due 5 February 2024
Invitations for full papers issued 28 February 2024
Full Papers due 1 August 2024

Dear Colleagues,

Tools using generative and supervised AI are creating new ways to harness information and impact science learning in pre-college classrooms. Learning sciences research is informing advances in how we design and study such tools to bring benefit to diverse students and teachers. Yet, richer evidence from classroom studies is needed to understand both the potential and pitfalls of AI in education. There is reason to be cautious as AI tools can proliferate the biases of dominant narratives, discourage teacher or student agency, and take up limited school resources. What have we learned about ways to use contemporary AI tools in science education?

The Special Issue provides a platform for education researchers and particularly research practice partnerships to report on current classroom research on the use of AI in science education. We seek empirical investigations of powerful AI tools that have implications for K12 classrooms. We encourage papers that synthesize research findings and identify implications. The audience for this Special Issue includes educators, administrators, and policy makers.

The Special Issue will capture the opportunities and challenges in using AI to strengthen teaching and learning in science. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Research showing how contemporary AI tools deployed in classrooms can deepen student understanding;
• Investigations that draw on AI to infuse social justice into science instruction;
• Studies exploring the ethical and privacy issues of using AI in science instruction;
• Investigations of promising AI supports for teacher practice in science classrooms;
• Studies of assessments using AI that capture student understanding;
• Studies that use AI to capture students' experiences and intuitions to personalize science instruction;
• Syntheses of research using AI to strengthen science instruction.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• technology
• AI
• machine learning
• NLP
• science teaching
• science learning
• curriculum
• pre-college education