From AI Intuition to AI Literacy: A Dual Framework for K-12 Education

AI literacy has become a central framework for guiding the integration of artificial intelligence inK-12 education, emphasizing conceptual understanding, practical application, critical evaluation, andethical judgment. These competencies are essential for supporting informed and responsible use of AIsystems. However, classroom practice suggests that students often learn to engage with generative AIthrough exploratory and experiential interactions, experimenting with prompts, observing systembehavior, adapting strategies, and reflecting on outcomes, before they can fully articulate formal conceptsor rules. To account for this experiential dimension of learning, this position paper introduces AI intuitionas a complementary educational construct. AI intuition is defined as an experiential, inductive form ofunderstanding that develops through iterative interaction with AI systems and supports context-sensitivejudgment under uncertainty. We propose a dual framework that situates AI literacy as a structured, largelystatic set of competencies alongside AI intuition as a dynamic learning process. We discuss pedagogicalimplications for K-12 education and outline directions for future research on experiential learning withAI.