Bridging the Gap — SNSF-Funded AI-Literacy Training for Secondary Teachers in Ticino

The project 'Bridging the Gap: Empowering Teachers about AI Education' pairs the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA, USI-SUPSI) with the teacher-training faculty DFA/ASP to build AI competence among middle and upper-secondary teachers in the Swiss canton of Ticino. The Swiss National Science Foundation approved a CHF 200,000 Agora grant (LAAGP0_223920, 1 September 2024 – 31 August 2026), led by principal investigator Francesca Mangili.

The grant funds public-facing science-communication and co-design work — rather than classroom delivery alone — to build teacher AI competence covering the ethical, social, cognitive and pedagogical dimensions of AI.

Around twenty middle and high-school teachers from Ticino worked with IDSIA/DFA researchers to design and test teaching activities covering algorithmic bias and generative-AI use in the classroom. A validated baseline questionnaire (published October 2024, combining established AI-literacy and attitude scales) was administered before the co-design workshops to measure teachers' starting confidence, AI use and training needs.

This is an honest, early-stage case: as of mid-2026 the publicly available materials describe funding, methodology and workshop activities, but no post-training outcome results have yet been published. It is included for its transparent, publicly funded design and pre-registered measurement approach, not for proven learning gains.