What would it look like to teach AI literacy the way UC Berkeley teaches data science? hands-on, interdisciplinary, and open? In this episode of My Robot Teacher, Sarah and Taiyo talk with Eric Van Dusen from Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society about how the wildly successful Data 8: Foundations of Data Science course became a scalable model for modern computing education. Eric explains how connector courses and Jupyter notebooks help students from every major learn to code, work with real datasets, and think computationally. Then the conversation turns to small language models (SLMs) and what it means for students to actually “touch the model” - changing parameters, inspecting weights, and understanding tokens and temperature from the inside. Together, they sketch a vision for AI education in public universities: shared “AI sandbox” infrastructure, open tools, and a plan for teaching AI basics. 

Chapters

[0:00-4:05] Chapter 1 - Introduction: Is UC Berkeley's Data 8 the Blueprint for AI Education?

[4:06-13:52] Chapter 2 - Inside Berkeley’s Data Science “Connector Course” Ecosystem

[13:53-18:03] Chapter 3 - Jupyter Notebooks: Breaking the Textbook Paradigm with Live Code

[18:04-26:12] Chapter 4 - SLMs vs. LLMs: Why Smaller is Better for Teaching

[26:13-28:45] Chapter 5 - If AI Does the Work, What Skills Are Left?

[28:46-34:04] Chapter 6 - Why Public Universities Need an AI Sandbox

[34:05-37:44] Chapter 7 - on “Touching the Models” and Public Infrastructure

[37:45-40:20] Chapter 8 - Hey Nvidia! We’re not just consumers. 

[40:21-46:43] Chapter 9 - How AI Can Actually Make Teaching Better

[46:44-50:37] Chapter 10 - A Model for AI Literacy Education: Applying the Berkeley Data Model to AI Studies

[50:38-52:09] Chapter 11 - Join the Conversation on AI in Higher Ed

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.

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Tags/Keywords

AI in Education, Higher Education, Data Science, UC Berkeley, Data 8, Eric Van Dusen, Small Language Models, Jupyter Notebooks, EdTech, Artificial Intelligence, Python, SLM vs LLM, Connector Courses, AI Literacy, Public Education, Computational Thinking, Cal State University, CSU, My Robot Teacher Podcast, Sarah Senk, Taiyo Inoue, California Education Learning Lab, AI Infrastructure, Open Source Education, editaudio