Free, practitioner-authored K-12 curriculum teaching students to build AI agents — not just use them.
Created by Jothsna Praveena Pendyala · AI Platform Architect & Senior Data Scientist
⭐ Star this repo if you find it useful · 🍴 Fork freely · 📬 Share with a teacher
AgentEdu is a free, open-curriculum initiative making agentic AI education accessible to every high school student and teacher.
The 6-week course covers:
- What AI agents are and how they reason
- How Large Language Models work
- Tools, memory, and RAG
- Multi-agent systems and orchestration
- Building a real working agent (no code required)
- AI safety, ethics, and careers
No prior AI knowledge required — for teachers or students.
This curriculum was designed and written by Jothsna Praveena Pendyala, an AI Platform Architect who builds production agentic AI systems at enterprise scale (Infosys / AT&T). She is a Claude Certified Architect, IEEE Senior Member, Director of Innovation at ACM Dallas, and co-editor of RAG In Action.
This isn't textbook theory. It's the real technology, made accessible.
agentEdu/
│
├── README.md ← You are here
│
├── curriculum/
│ ├── agentEdu_curriculum.md ← Full 6-week curriculum guide
│ └── curriculum_overview.pdf ← Printable one-page overview (coming soon)
│
├── week-01-what-is-an-agent/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf ← Teacher slide deck
│ ├── student-activity.pdf ← The Agent Hunt worksheet
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── week-02-brain-behind-agent/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf
│ ├── student-activity.pdf ← Prompt Engineering Challenge
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── week-03-tools-and-memory/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf
│ ├── student-activity.pdf ← Memory Bot Build
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── week-04-multi-agent-systems/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf
│ ├── student-activity.pdf ← Design Your Agent Team
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── week-05-build-your-first-agent/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf
│ ├── build-worksheet.pdf ← Student build + demo rubric
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── week-06-safety-ethics-future/
│ ├── lesson-plan.md
│ ├── slides.pdf
│ ├── ethics-debate-guide.pdf
│ ├── final-reflection.pdf
│ └── teacher-notes.md
│
├── assessments/
│ ├── weekly-quizzes.md
│ └── rubrics.md
│
└── teacher-guide/
├── faq.md ← Common questions + answers
├── standards-alignment.md ← CSTA, AI4K12, ISTE
└── tools-setup-guide.md ← How to set up free tools before class
Note: Some resources are still being added. Watch this repo or join the teacher list to be notified.
Option A — Teach the full 6-week course
- Download
curriculum/agentEdu_curriculum.mdfor the complete guide - Download the slide deck and student activity for Week 1
- Email hello@agentedu.org — we'll send you the full kit and add you to our teacher community
Option B — Use a single week as a standalone lesson Each week is designed to work independently. Week 2 (prompting) and Week 5 (build your agent) work especially well as 1-day standalone workshops.
Option C — Run it as an after-school AI club All 6 weeks work well in a 60-min/week after-school format. Many ACM Student Chapters and coding clubs use it this way.
Students don't need to install anything. All activities use browser-based tools:
| Tool | Used In | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Claude.ai | Weeks 2, 3, 5 | claude.ai |
| ChatGPT | Weeks 2, 3, 5 | chatgpt.com |
| Zapier AI Agents | Week 5 | zapier.com/ai |
| Make.com | Week 5 (optional) | make.com |
| Google Slides | All weeks | slides.google.com |
No student accounts required for basic use. Teachers should test tool access from school networks before class (some districts block AI tools — see teacher-guide/tools-setup-guide.md for workarounds).
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Target grade range | 9–12 |
| Total course length | 6 weeks |
| Minutes per week | 60–90 min |
| Prior AI knowledge required | None |
| Prior coding knowledge required | None |
| Tools required | Free, browser-based only |
| Standards alignment | CSTA · AI4K12 · ISTE |
This is an open curriculum. Contributions are welcome:
- Improve a lesson — submit a PR with edits to any lesson plan or activity
- Translate to another language — open an issue and we'll coordinate
- Share your experience — used this in your class? We want to hear what worked and what didn't
- Add a teacher story — written testimonials help more teachers discover this resource
See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
New weeks, translated versions, and teacher resources are added regularly.
- 🌐 Website: agentedu.org
- 📧 Teacher list: hello@agentedu.org
- 📸 Instagram: @jothsna.aitales
- 💼 LinkedIn: Jothsna Praveena Pendyala
- 📰 Newsletter: The Agentic Stack
This curriculum is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
You are free to:
- Use it in any classroom, public or private
- Adapt and remix it for your context
- Share it with other teachers
Please credit: AgentEdu · Created by Jothsna Praveena Pendyala · agentedu.org
Aligned with AI4K12.org Big Ideas framework.
Inspired by the gap between what students are taught about AI and what is actually being deployed in the real world.
If this curriculum helped your students, please ⭐ star the repo and share it with one other teacher.