Missing Step Analysis

This worksheet is designed for students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 to strengthen understanding of how AI agents function through the perception-reasoning-action-learning cycle. Students read short case studies describing malfunctioning systems-such as robot vacuums, chatbots, traffic lights, health apps, and music recommenders-and identify which key step is missing or broken. For each scenario, learners explain what should have happened and how the missing step caused the failure. The activity builds diagnostic reasoning, systems thinking, and clear explanation skills.

Learning Goals

• Understanding AI Workflows (Grades 5-7) – Students identify perception, reasoning, action, and learning within AI systems.
• Identifying Missing Process Steps – Learners determine which stage failed and why that caused incorrect behavior.
• Cause-and-Effect Analysis – Students explain how breakdowns in one step affect the entire system.
• Systems Thinking & Interdependence – Learners understand that AI systems rely on ordered, connected processes.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to support technology literacy, science systems thinking, and ELA analysis standards.
• Realistic Debugging Scenarios – Uses familiar technologies to make abstract processes concrete.
• Clear Diagnose-and-Explain Structure – Guides students from identifying the missing step to explaining the fix.
• Flexible Classroom Use – Suitable for independent work, small groups, review lessons, or assessment.
• Builds Engineering Mindset – Encourages students to think like system designers and troubleshooters.

This printable worksheet helps students understand that intelligent behavior depends on every step of the AI process working correctly. Learners practice diagnosing failures, explaining missing stages, and connecting system behavior to underlying processes. Ideal for classroom or homeschool use, this no-prep activity strengthens critical thinking, comprehension of AI workflows, and confidence analyzing how complex systems function and fail.

This worksheet is part of our AI Agents collection.