Implementation plan

Grades 6–8 Implementation Plan

Pacing, prerequisites, and extensions for the middle-school band.

The activities

  • Grade 6 — Real or Generated?. A photo and a quote are spreading fast online — and neither one is real. Generative AI made them. Crack four locks to learn how to tell. (TEKS §126.17)
  • Grade 7 — Bias in the Machine. An AI keeps giving answers that quietly favor one side. It isn't an accident — it's the data. Crack four locks to trace where bias comes from. (TEKS §126.18)
  • Grade 8 — Build with AI, Responsibly. You're allowed to create with AI — but doing it honestly takes judgment. Crack four locks to learn how to use AI as a tool without crossing a line. (TEKS §126.19)

Pacing

  • One activity ≈ 25–40 minutes, including debrief. Younger classes may need two sittings.
  • Run one per grading period, or cluster them into a two-week AI-literacy unit.
  • Order matches the grade sequence; each grade deepens the pattern → data → bias → responsible-use arc.

Prerequisites

  • A browser and the activity link. No accounts, installs, or logins.
  • Students should be able to evaluate short arguments and are ready for real vocabulary: training data, bias, hallucination, disclosure.
  • Teachers: skim the activity’s teacher launch page and the correlation guide first.

Extension & differentiation

  • Home-language pairs. Use the 🌐 picker so newcomers reason in their strongest language, then answer.
  • Author-a-clue. Students write a new clue (or a real-world example) for the skill they found hardest.
  • Reason aloud. Require a spoken/written justification before each lock check; grade the reasoning, not the click.
  • Bridge to a media-literacy or intro-to-CS unit; have students evaluate a teacher-vetted example of AI output using the Grade 6–8 criteria.