LLMs to Support K-12 Teachers in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: An AI Literacy Example

TL;DR

CRP in K-12 AI literacy faces time, training, and resource barriers. The paper introduces CulturAIEd, an LLM-based tool that combines demographic customization, a CRT checklist, rubric-based feedback, and just-in-time coaching to help teachers design culturally responsive AI literacy activities. A four-teacher pilot shows increased teacher confidence in identifying culturally responsive opportunities and in applying meaningful CRP modifications, with perceived improvements in efficiency and guidance. The work demonstrates the potential of teacher-LLM collaboration to operationalize CRP in AI education while highlighting the need for larger studies, improved interfaces, and training to mitigate biases and superficial adoption.

Abstract

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is vital in K-12 education, yet teachers struggle to implement CRP into practice due to time, training, and resource gaps. This study explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can address these barriers by introducing CulturAIEd, an LLM tool that assists teachers in adapting AI literacy curricula to students' cultural contexts. Through an exploratory pilot with four K-12 teachers, we examined CulturAIEd's impact on CRP integration. Results showed CulturAIEd enhanced teachers' confidence in identifying opportunities for cultural responsiveness in learning activities and making culturally responsive modifications to existing activities. They valued CulturAIEd's streamlined integration of student demographic information, immediate actionable feedback, which could result in high implementation efficiency. This exploration of teacher-AI collaboration highlights how LLM can help teachers include CRP components into their instructional practices efficiently, especially in global priorities for future-ready education, such as AI literacy.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Study Design
• Figure 2: CulturAIEd Design