New Delhi, Oct. 25 -- The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has released an activity-based 20-hour introductory module on computational thinking and artificial intelligence for Classes 9 to 12. Developed by faculty members from IIT Madras, IIT Jodhpur and NCERT and aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the introductory module-a foundational learning resource-has five units covering AI in everyday life; how machines learn; why AI gets things wrong; data privacy and responsible use of AI; and the use of modern AI tools. Its approach places practical exercises, discussions and reflection ahead of memorising technical definitions. "The module encourages students to become informed, confident, and responsible users of technology, while reinforcing that human judgement, creativity, and ethical responsibility remain central to learning," NCERT said in a press release on Friday. According to the release, students are expected to maintain a "Curious Notebook", a running portfolio where students maintain a record of observations, reasoning and reflections after various activities in all the units. "This is not a module to be memorised. It is a set of habits to be practised," reads the textbook's Letter to the Students from the module development team. The first unit asks students to identify AI systems they encounter during an ordinary day, from smartphone keyboards predicting words to applications recommending music. The module notes that "pattern recognition is something you do constantly, often without noticing"-from predicting which queue will move faster to identifying a song from three notes. It explains that AI systems are designed to perform these same pattern-recognition tasks, but unlike humans, "they almost never have the context you have". The second unit explains how machines learn patterns from examples, using activities such as training an image classifier to distinguish everyday objects and then deliberately trying to make it fail. The third unit addresses the risks of treating confident-sounding answers as necessarily accurate. The fourth unit examines personal data, consent, fairness and digital safety, introducing students to India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The module asks students to scrutinise the privacy policies of apps they use, considering what information is collected, with whom it may be shared and how long it may be retained. The final unit focuses on prompting AI tools and using them as helpers rather than substitutes for independent thinking. It describes the preferred approach as a "helper-stance", in which students do the thinking and use the tool to improve their work. The suggested teaching plan spans 20 classroom hours. Activities are offered in three modes: using a device for each student or pair; teacher-led demonstrations on a shared screen; and "unplugged" exercises using paper and discussion. The latter allows schools with limited devices or internet connectivity to undertake the core activities. Principals of CBSE-affiliated schools welcomed the new AI module....