Nextech recommends the CodeAI course, “AI Discoveries (formerly CS Discoveries),” when teaching Introduction to Computer Science (4803) or Middle School Computer Science.
This course is an introductory computer science course that empowers 6th-10th grade students to create authentic artifacts and engage with computer science as a medium for creativity, communication, problem solving, and fun. The course covers topics such as programming, physical computing, HTML/CSS and data.
AI Discoveries is an introductory, classroom-based course appropriate for 6–8th grade students. The course aims to empower students to create authentic artifacts and engage with computer science and AI as media for creativity, communication, problem solving, and exploration. AI Discoveries takes a wide lens on computer science by covering topics such as programming, web development, design, and data, while placing AI literacy and computational thinking at the center of the experience. The course inspires students as they build their own websites, apps, and games and as they develop the critical thinking skills to understand and evaluate the AI systems shaping their world.
The course and its content is is accessible to beginners with no prior programming knowledge, and it also provides opportunities for students with some background in computing to deepen their understanding of key topics.
In Indiana, this course maps to 4803: Introduction to Computer Science and Computer Technology. To learn more, see the NLPS website here.
CodeAI and Nextech have prepared everything you need to be successful teaching this course including pacing guides, standard alignments, lesson plans, materials list, and wrap-around supports for the inevitable “survival mode” of teaching content for the first time.
To learn more about PD that we offer for this course, please reach out to us at teachers@nextech.org or see more here: https://nextech.org/event/code-org-cs-discoveries/.
The first two documents map the CodeAI AI Discoveries course to the Introduction to Computer Science (4803) competencies (July 2026) and the Middle School Computer Science standards (2023), respectively.
The second set of documents maps each set of competencies and standards to all CodeAI lessons that address each individual competency or standard.
In addition to the collection of course resources that have been created by Nextech to support your teaching and learning, we also want to highlight the following CodeAI resources and links:
If there is something that you need, reach out to us at teachers@nextech.org; we’d love to explore creating it since if you need, there are likely other teachers that need it as well.
There are both self-paced and live professional development options available.
For self-paced professional learning through CodeAI, click here: https://studio.code.org/courses/self-paced-pl-csd-2026
For live professional development through Nextech, learn more at https://nextech.org/event/code-org-cs-discoveries/.