Comparing Student Reactions To Lectures In Artificial Intelligence And Physics
By Tommaso Dorigo | January 21st 2024 04:19 PM
In the past two weeks, Tommaso Dorigo visited two schools in Veneto to engage students with the topic of Artificial Intelligence. The first visit was to a school in Vicenza, and the second to a school in Venice. The crucial difference between the two visits was the age of the attending students. The school in Venice, Liceo Marco Foscarini, was a classical liceum with high-schoolers between 16 and 18 years old. In contrast, the school in Vicenza was a middle school, and its attending students were between 11 and 13 years old.
Despite concerns that the content might overwhelm the younger students, the lecture was an effective testing ground to spot differences in the reaction of the two audiences. In Vicenza, the lecture had to follow speeches from the school director, the mayor of Vicenza, and a couple of other introductions. However, to Dorigo’s surprise, the middle schoolers in Vicenza followed with attention and in full silence the 80-minutes-long talk. They also interrupted with witty questions and showed a keen interest in the lecture’s contents.
Dorigo was impressed by the rapid succession of questions at the end of the presentation, covering topics from artificial intelligence to particle physics and even details about the SWGO experiment and astrophysics.
