Here's a quick introduction to the course — about a minute and a half on what it covers and how it works. It's worth a watch before you begin.
If you are arriving at this course because AI landed on your desk faster than you expected, you are in the right place. Welcome to Teaching AI Across the Transition Year Programme. Whether you deliver Coding Ireland's Exploring Artificial Intelligence course directly, thread AI through your own subject module, or coordinate the conversation across a whole TY year group, this course is built for you.
This opening lesson does three things. It maps the full course arc so you can see where you are headed. It establishes an honest baseline of your current confidence through the Confidence Audit. And it introduces the idea that everything else rests on: the Lead Learner mindset for AI. By the end you will have your first portfolio entries and a clearer sense of the stance you want to take with your students.
Throughout this course you build a single running document called your Professional Learning Portfolio. It collects every artifact you produce: your Confidence Audit, your written reflections, and the draft policies, task designs and plans from the later modules. Submissions you mark as complete receive individual tutor feedback, and at the end the whole portfolio downloads as one file you can keep for your records. It also serves as a Cosán-aligned record of your CPD, Cosán being the Teaching Council's national framework for teachers' learning. By the close of today you will have your first two entries in it: your baseline audit and your first reflection.
Watch this presentation for an honest framing of who teaches TY AI literacy in Ireland today, a preview of the five modules, and an introduction to the mindset that runs through all of them.
Where This Course Is Headed and Why
Rate your current confidence honestly. There are no right answers, and lower ratings simply help you see where the course can make the biggest difference.
This survey establishes your starting point across the six areas this course develops. You will retake these exact six statements at the end of the course, so this is the baseline against which you'll measure your distance travelled. Your ratings save to your Professional Learning Portfolio as your first entry.
Watch this worked example of a teacher using an AI assistant openly with a TY class. Notice the moment the assistant gets something wrong, how the teacher confirms it, and how the failure becomes the most valuable part of the lesson.
When the Assistant Gets It Wrong
This is your first written portfolio entry. The aim is not a polished plan but an honest first draft of where you sit and what you want to do differently.
Take the Lead Learner mindset you've just seen modelled and locate it in your own anticipated TY teaching.
In this lesson you mapped the course arc, set your baseline confidence, and met the mindset that runs through everything to come. The core ideas:
| Framework / Principle | Why it matters for your teaching | Classroom application |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher as Lead Learner — you model using, verifying and disclosing AI openly rather than claiming domain expertise | AI changes month to month, so expertise dates fast; a learnable stance outlasts any specific tool and removes the need to know everything | When you don't know, say so aloud and run a check with the class, treating "I don't know, let's check together" as a planned teaching move |
| Confident tone, no source — the signature pattern of generative AI output | Students treat fluent AI answers as authoritative; naming this pattern is the foundation of all later critical-literacy work | Before trusting any AI claim, search for the original source independently and name it plainly when nothing credible appears |
| Teach the routine, not the tool — pause, check the source, find the original, name it | You cannot test every tool your students use, but one verification routine transfers to tools not yet invented | Model the four-step routine live on a real example so students can apply it to any AI tool they meet |
| When students know more than you — turn it into structured analysis, not a threat to your authority in the room | TY students often know a specific tool better than you; framed well, that becomes a class asset rather than a challenge to manage | Ask the class what the tool actually does, what it doesn't tell them, and what would convince them it's wrong |
Your baseline Confidence Audit and your first reflection are now saved to your Professional Learning Portfolio, the running document that gathers your artifacts, receives tutor feedback on marked submissions, and forms a Cosán-aligned record of your CPD you can download at the end.
That was the first lesson of Teaching AI Across the Transition Year Programme
Enrol to take the whole course. Your work is saved as you go, and you get a certificate when you finish.
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