The AI Triplet: Computational, Conceptual, and Mathematical Representations in AI Education

Expertise in AI requires integrating computational, conceptual, and mathematical knowledge and representations. We propose this trifecta as an "AI triplet," similar in spirit to the "chemistry triplet" that has influenced the past four decades of chemistry education. We describe a rationale for this triplet and how it maps onto topics commonly taught in AI courses, such as tree search and gradient descent. Also, similar to impacts of the chemistry triplet on chemistry education, we suggest an initial example of how considering the AI triplet may help pinpoint obstacles in AI education, i.e., how student learning might be scaffolded to approach expert-level flexibility in moving between the points of the triplet.