Imagine walking into a classroom where students of all abilities are engaged and learning at their own pace. Some are working on individualized assignments, while others collaborate on projects. The teacher moves around the room, working with small groups and one-on-one with students, while artificial intelligence keeps track of student progress and recommends the next steps for both students and the teacher. This isn't a scene from an education movie; it's happening in real classrooms today.
In this blog, we'll explore how school boards are using AI in the classroom to support personalized learning and improve student outcomes. You'll learn practical ways to implement AI in your school, including real-world examples to help you get started. EssayGrader's grading software for teachers can help.
What is AI in Education & Its Application in the Classroom
Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the ability of machines to simulate human intelligence. In education, AI includes a variety of technologies that can improve students' learning experience, such as:
- Natural language processing
- Machine learning
- Data analytics
AI can assist with many tasks, from grading assignments to personalized learning programs. It can also support teachers by automating time-consuming tasks such as marking tests, giving them more time to focus on teaching.
Examples of AI in Education
AI is applied in classrooms to:
- Enhance learning experiences
- Personalize instruction
- Automate administrative tasks
- Offer real-time feedback to students
AI-driven tutoring systems such as the Knewton Alta platform adapt to students' individual responses and help them master subjects at their own pace.
Personalized Learning
The Carnegie Learning MATHia program personalizes math instruction for learners, offering targeted support as they practice problem-solving. As students use these programs, teachers gain access to detailed reports that outline class progress and individual performance to help inform instruction.
Automated Grading
In addition to tutoring and personalized learning, AI can help automate grading. Tools like Gradescope, now part of the Educational Testing Service, use AI to quickly sort and organize student responses, even for open-ended questions.
This can help instructors save time and streamline their grading processes to focus on what really matters, helping students learn.
ChatGPT and Its Application in the Classroom
ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model that can generate human-like responses to text prompts. It is one of the most advanced language models available and has the potential to revolutionize the way students learn.
ChatGPT can be used to develop chatbots that assist students with their queries and provide personalized support. It can also automate assignment grading, allowing teachers to focus on more meaningful teaching aspects, such as providing feedback and guidance.
Personalized Learning
One of ChatGPT's most significant benefits is its ability to provide personalized learning experiences to students. By analyzing students’ responses to prompts, ChatGPT can tailor learning experiences to their individual needs.
It can be used to develop customized student learning plans based on their progress and learning preferences.
Grading Automation
Haarlem Campus offers hybrid lessons, meaning students can follow classes online if they cannot attend class. This is an excellent example of how the school adapts to the times and embraces technology to reduce its environmental impact.
Remote Learning
Allowing students to attend classes remotely can reduce the need for students to commute to school, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Hybrid lessons offer flexibility to students with other commitments or who prefer to learn from home.
Chatbots
Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in various industries, including education. With ChatGPT, chatbots can be developed to provide personalized support to students.
Chatbots can assist students with their queries, provide assignment guidance, and even assist with test preparation.
Major Findings: AI in The Classroom
One of the most striking findings from our report is that as of Fall 2023, just a small portion of a nationally representative sample (only around 18% of K–12 teachers nationwide) reported using AI for teaching.
A small subset of those early adopters (8%) consists of super users: teachers who are excited about the potential use of AI in classrooms and are staying current with the latest tools by actively experimenting with AI's uses in their profession.
Early Adopters
I follow some of these super users on social media, and they are coming up with creative and exciting ways to save themselves time while making learning more engaging and personalized for students.
These early adopters predominantly teach middle and high school students, particularly in subjects like English language arts and social studies. This is not too surprising, given that generative AI is advancing most quickly on language and visual models.
Platform Integration
Teachers report using AI primarily via the major virtual learning platforms and systems that have been around for a while, like:
- Google Classroom
- iReady
- IXL
50% of teachers who report using AI in the classroom are using generative AI chatbots, like ChatGPT. A much smaller percentage of teachers are active on more specialized AI classroom tools that provide customized:
- Tutoring (e.g., Khanmigo)
- Lesson plans
- Assessment generators (e.g., Education Copilot and PrepAI)
- Automated coaching and feedback to teachers
Differentiated Learning
Educators report using AI in various ways, but they are likely to use AI to support students with learning differences. AI may make current teacher practices easier or faster.
A teacher might use AI to easily create customized homework for students to practice a concept they struggled with in class. Teachers may also use AI to allow a student who reads at a grade 4 level to access high school-level social studies content.
Effective Use
These reasonably common instructional strategies only sometimes accelerate student progress. Understanding how teachers use AI to help students who are struggling or have disabilities and how effective it is is an open question that should be studied soon.
There Are Positive Approaches To AI Policy, But Existential Concerns Loom
While several high-profile cases of school districts banning AI have occurred, our survey results and interviews suggest that most school districts are interested in exploring its positive potential.
Twenty-three percent (23%) of districts had already provided AI training, and another 37% intended to do so at some point during the 2023–24 school year.
Teacher Support
The district leaders we interviewed were more focused on how to support teachers in using AI to make their jobs more accessible than on how to block AI use among students or staff. They recognize AI’s potential to make teaching easier but worry about quickly bringing teachers up to speed.
One leader in a midsized district said, “My personal concerns are that it will not be operationalized evenly in classrooms. It’s just like curriculum. It’s hard to get curriculum consistency, and it will be the same with AI.”
Overcoming Fears
Another leader in a small district similarly remarked, “I’m more concerned that there’s a fear of it … This is something that if you don’t embrace, you’re just going to be doing extra work.” Districts have good reason to focus on training and educator support.
Teachers report that some of the most significant barriers to using AI in classrooms is a need for more school or district guidance and professional development. Teachers and district leaders’ concerns about AI use seem less about school-specific applications and more about student privacy, potential bias in AI, and the impact of AI on society in general.
Existing Policies
The district leaders we interviewed believed that existing district rules could cover cheating and plagiarism concerns.
They did express the need for more policy guidance from trusted sources, like school board associations or respected local school districts. They noted that developing policies around AI is especially difficult due to the technology’s rapidly evolving nature.
Worrying Signs: AI Could Exacerbate Educational Inequality
Our study points to early signs of faster uptake of AI in more advantaged settings. Suburban, majority-white, and low-poverty school districts are about twice as likely to provide AI-use training for their teachers as urban, rural, or high-poverty districts. Advantaged districts are also more likely to plan to roll out training in the coming school year.
What Do School and District Leaders Need to Know About AI?
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You're not alone if you’re unsure of how you feel about AI (Artificial Intelligence). And if you’re excited about the possibilities AI can bring to schools, you’re also not alone. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, one thing is sure: AI is not going anywhere.
School leaders say they have a responsibility to approach it thoughtfully so it can help them realize their vision for teaching and learning.
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
At a high level, AI is a technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. Generative AI learns from the data fed (text, images, video, etc.) to create new content.
AI Can Help Schools and Teachers Become More Efficient
From those leaders, we hear that their community members use AI in various ways to support teachers.
“From those leaders, we’re hearing that their community members are using AI in various ways to support teachers,” says Pati Ruiz, the organization’s senior director of edtech and emerging technologies.
Efficiency Gains
“Teachers are excited about the potential for increased efficiency and time-saving on planning, writing, and researching, especially the teachers that need additional support.” One teacher Ruiz spoke with, who has dyslexia, was excited to be able to use generative AI to develop lesson plans.
AI also helped him develop email messages and other communications to families—a part of his job he found taxing—and ultimately allowed him to stay in the profession.
Student Benefits
“He felt that these additional supports helped him to do his job as a teacher better because it allowed him to attend to the needs of his students,” Ruiz says. Students are also experiencing the benefits and opportunities of AI.
One high school teacher that Ruiz spoke with, who previously spent a lot of time developing vocabulary lists for English learners, taught her students how to use generative AI tools to build the lists themselves.
Self-Sufficiency
“That teacher was able to not just save time for herself in generating those lists, because each student obviously has different needs, but she taught her students to be self-sufficient,” Ruiz says.
Get Students Ready to Use AI in Their Future Careers
Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia (GCPS) has been piloting AI readiness and embedding it into students’ learning experiences across grade levels and content areas.
AI Literacy
The goal is to make students better-informed users and developers of technologies as these technologies continue to advance. GCPS developed a three-course career technical education pathway for students interested in a career in developing AI.
“We use this analogy that every student has to swim,” says Sallie Holloway, director of artificial intelligence and computer science at GCPS. “AI is everywhere. They will have to use it in their personal lives and the workforce.
Skill Levels
Most of our students need to be snorkelers, proficient users, and understand how AI works so they can make informed decisions or even advocate for using it.
“And then some of our students will be scuba divers. Those are the students who will be developers and perhaps pursue a career in AI.”
Students Are Clear: AI Is Not a Teacher
The Fox Chapel Area School District in Pennsylvania has also been experimenting and piloting new ways to use AI as it works with Digital Promise to develop policies for AI and other emerging technologies.
“It’s going to take humans staying in the loop, being part of the development, and being very thoughtful and engaged to make sure that AI is used in a way that's beneficial,” says Mary Catherine Reljac, the district’s superintendent.
Continuous Improvement
“I think that's the place that we're coming from as an education organization, and that's why we're experimenting and trying things out so that we can learn better and be better, and better, and better, as it becomes more commonplace.”
The district engaged in a rapid design process with an edtech startup for an early literacy tool that uses AI to generate text. Educators and students could lend their thoughts and be part of the design process.
Student Feedback
The district also worked with educators to develop ways to use AI to enhance lessons. At the high school level, educators used technology to create essays on certain topics that met specific standards.
The students then evaluated what was created by AI to see if it matched their rubric. They could give feedback and share their opinions on how to enhance that writing to be better and more engaging for the person reading it.
Ethical Guidelines
“We set some very basic guidelines to start the year,” says Reljac. “Do not use personally identifiable information in AI tools. Be aware of bias. AI tools should never replace good instruction. It's always to enhance.”
Reljac says they intentionally adhered to basic guidelines to give educators, administrators, students, and families some latitude to explore. The district has also valued feedback from staff and students on using these types of tools.
Student Insights
Conversations with students helped Reljac realize that students thought AI could help improve their productivity, but it could never replace their teachers.
“They felt that their teachers knew them better than any of the artificial intelligence tools that they had used thus far, which I thought was really a neat thing,” she says. Holloway heard similar reactions from the students at Gwinnett County.
Human Connection
“Students are really hesitant about AI replacing the human side of education,” she says. “They want a teacher. They want a relationship. They want that human connection. But they see a lot of opportunities where AI could help with efficiency and productivity tasks.”
The Risks of AI in Schools
Just as AI brings incredible opportunities for schools, there are also some risks to consider. “Primarily, we're thinking about safety, transparency, impact, and ethics,” Ruiz says.
“The primary risk for schools is, I think, a lack of awareness because, to be good users of these systems and tools, we need to be critical consumers. Schools As “Critical Consumers” “Just as AI brings incredible opportunities for schools, there are also some risks to consider. Primarily, we're thinking about safety, transparency, impact, and ethics,” Ruiz says.
Critical Thinking
“The primary risk for schools is, I think, a lack of awareness because, in order to be good users of these systems and tools, we need to be critical consumers.” Ruiz says there is a risk to schools when AI systems and tools are presented as “magic.”
It is important, she says, for people to understand what AI is—and what it isn’t. “There's a lot behind that black box that we can help people understand, and in that way, increase people's ability to access these systems and tools,” she says.
Critical Thinking
When it comes to AI in schools, accessibility is an important topic. “We think about this a lot at Digital Promise—using these tools to remove barriers for people so they can have equal access to information and learning opportunities,” Ruiz says.
“We think about supporting learners who are neurodiverse or who have physical disabilities to ensure that products they use, including these AI systems and tools, are accessible.”
Evaluating AI Policies and Tools
So, how can district leaders ensure responsible use in their schools? Digital Promise has built an AI Literacy Framework to help districts understand how to best use, understand, and evaluate AI systems.
The organization is also working with leaders in its League of Innovative Schools network to identify five topics that their policies need to include to be responsive, not just to AI but to emerging technologies more broadly.
Ethical Considerations
The five topics are Transparency of the tool and its use. Districts should openly communicate with the community about the tools and the process for adopting them and integrating them into the ecosystem.
- Ethics: Guiding language should emphasize the need to be responsible, fair, and equitable, mitigating accessibility and bias issues.
- Effectiveness: This ensures the implementation is pedagogically sound and appropriate for different grade levels and subject areas.
- Safety: This includes student safety and the safety of student data, as well as protecting educators.
Evaluation and impact of the tool. Districts should ensure that the edtech tools they use are evidence-based. Many districts have begun to incorporate product certification status into their evaluation processes.
Continuous Evaluation
Districts should evaluate a tool as it is used and determine if its use is beneficial or causing harm. “It's super important to consider the needs of your community as you're developing your policies, because each context is unique,” Ruiz says.
“It's an ongoing process. Start small and start by conducting empathy interviews. I think that's been one of the most successful things that our district leaders have done, and they learned so much from those interviews with their teachers, students, and community members.”
Educating Parents and the Community About AI
Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) in Georgia, for instance, is working to educate its community about AI. Some of the district's schools have organized events to inform parents about how staff members are using AI tools to enhance students' learning.
“Parents got to actually see what it really means, and maybe bust some of those misconceptions as well,” Holloway says. From the beginning, GCPS created key messages to ensure consistency when talking to the community about AI.
Early Engagement
Holloway says she thinks this helped to create buy-in from families early on. What’s becoming clear with AI is that every school community will have a different understanding and different levels of acceptance of the new technology. School leaders agree that it is part of their job to help their communities understand it.
“No matter what, artificial intelligence is here,” Reljac says. “Therefore, it's incumbent upon us to know we have to lead the implementation and the integration of AI into our school districts.”
Early Adoption
“We have to start that conversation now so that we can help our communities to understand.
I am incredibly excited about artificial intelligence and the way that it could change education and life moving forward.”
Efficient Grading
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How Are School Boards Using AI in the Classroom?
When students return to Catholic schools in Ottawa this week, they will be able to use artificial intelligence to help solve math problems and create essay outlines.
Their teachers, too, can turn to AI to generate lesson plans, adjust content to a student’s specific needs, and give feedback on assignments.
Leading the Way
The Ottawa Catholic School Board is paving the way for AI use in the classroom with newly developed AI guiding principles for all grade levels when many school boards across Canada are grappling with how to embrace the ever-evolving technology responsibly.
Setting the Standard for AI Use in Education
The board says it wants to strike the right balance in the ethical use of artificial intelligence, including generative AI, while teaching its 45,000 students about digital literacy.
“It’s extremely important because AI is part of just about everything every student and every teacher will be encountering in their life,” Director of Education Tom D’Amico said in an interview.
Pioneering Efforts
One expert said that, to his knowledge, no other school board in Ontario is taking such concrete steps to develop policies on AI use.
“I’ve been interacting with a lot of Ontario school boards and the Ministry of Education in the last six months, and everyone is pointing to (the) Ottawa (Catholic School Board) like, ‘Well, I think they’ve really got their act together,'” said Mark Daley, Western University’s chief artificial intelligence officer.
Students Reap the Rewards of AI in Classrooms
The board’s students can use AI to help develop ideas for a project or an essay, summarize a complex document, or create illustrations to jazz up a presentation.
For kindergarten to Grade 6 students, artificial intelligence will be primarily teacher-led and generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini will be limited to students who are 13 or older, per rules set out by the service providers.
Complementary Tools
The Ottawa Catholic School Board stresses that it’s not looking to replace the building blocks of literacy with artificial intelligence, such as books, reading, and writing.
“There might just be opportunities with AI that those younger grades have entry points with that can really reshape or re-envision what that assignment or what that endeavour in their activity in the classroom looks like,” said Julian Daher, a learning technologies consultant for the board. “A Grade 1 student is not going to be sitting on a device using artificial intelligence every day.”
Teachers Are Benefiting from AI Tools Too
Meanwhile, teachers will have access to programs such as Brisk Teaching and SchoolAI, which can help them organize their classes, create instructional materials, and make lessons more accessible for students with disabilities or those still learning English.
The board has implemented a rule capping AI input in lesson planning at 80%. The remaining 20% must be personalized and come directly from the teacher who has validated the AI work.
Complementary Tools
D’Amico said the board has also created a privacy and data security framework for staff to follow before using additional AI tools.
“They will review any tool they plan on using (with) students to make sure that for example, it’s not selling information to a third party, not able to sell the data that’s uploaded (and) they’re not uploading student personal information,” he said.
Teacher Focus
D’Amico said he doesn’t see AI replacing or minimizing the role of teachers but rather allowing them to focus more on the students.
“We see it saving some time but allowing them to better relate and improve relationships with students, and that’s going to lead to better student achievement,” he explained.
Digital Literacy Lessons Teach Students to Navigate AI Safely
He said the board’s new digital literacy lessons, emphasizing critical thinking, aim to help students understand the risks of AI pitfalls such as academic cheating, deep fakes, and incorrect or misleading information.
“We’re viewing that as a great teaching opportunity for our students to think critically about what’s generated by AI with text and images and is that continuing with the biases that have been created by previous generations or is it something that they can do to try and reverse that and have a better world,” D’Amico said.
Digital Literacy
The Western University professor Daley said digital literacy lessons are the most important aspect of the school board’s AI education goals. “It is preparing students to inhabit a world where they have this very powerful technology and there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that,” he said.
How Districts Are Responding to AI & What It Means for the New School Year
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School districts are responding in divergent ways to artificial intelligence’s potential to reshape teaching and learning, and most have refrained from defining a districtwide stance for schools to navigate AI, according to a review by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University.
By searching for district communications and media coverage in each state from fall 2022 through summer 2023, CRPE identified districts publicly responding to AI last school year. We conducted more thorough research on these districts and cataloged their specific responses.
ChatGPT Focus
Most of the reactions have revolved around ChatGPT, the extensive language learning model-based chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022.
Many large districts were initially wary of the new technology, with New York City, Los Angele, and Seattle issuing high-profile bans on students using ChatGPT, largely because of concerns over cheating.
Changing Attitudes
But many are adapting. New York City Public Schools lifted its ban in May, with Chancellor David Banks acknowledging a mindset shift and a determination to “embrace its potential.”
Walla Walla Public Schools in Washington State reported that while it blocked ChatGPT to “get out ahead of it,” the district doesn’t plan to stop it long-term. In April, the district established a committee of teachers learning to use ChatGPT to work on related policies.
Embracing Potential
In California’s Palo Alto Unified School District, Superintendent Don Austin embraced ChatGPT’s potential to enhance learning and improve efficiency.
Likening AI pushback to early resistance to calculators and the internet, the superintendent encouraged everyone in his district office to use the technology this spring.
How is AI Helping Students?
While most districts that the CRPE reviewed have yet to release precise plans for using AI, some are exploring opportunities.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District introduced a tool called Amira, which functions like a literacy tutor. It listens to students read and corrects mistakes in real-time.
Pilot Programs
The district piloted the tool at four schools last spring and had a small group of teachers experiment with it to help create unit and lesson plans.
Newark Public Schools is piloting Khanmigo, an AI-powered tutor bot created by Khan Academy to give students individualized support in core subjects.
Personalized Tutoring
The program responds like a human tutor, offering personalized prompts, diagnosing errors and helping students develop deeper reasoning skills, and gives teachers real-time reports.
Mesa Public Schools in Arizona and Austin Independent School District in Texas are piloting AI-enabled early warning programs that track student performance and send alerts if kids are off track.
Predictive Analytics
Mesa’s program collects academic, social, and emotional data from teachers and students to predict up to three months in advance whether a student will pass or fail coursework.
Teaching Students About AI
Other districts are designing curricula to build students’ AI literacy. Most are in states creating conditions to help steward the advancement of AI curriculum.
Baltimore County Public Schools announced plans to launch an AI program at three high schools this year to feature on-the-job learning. The program is a byproduct of a 2020 state innovation grant, which funded district staff to develop a curriculum and lead an advisory council.
AI-Focused Schools
In Georgia, the Gwinnett County district is opening up a K-12, AI-themed cluster of schools that will provide progressively more sophisticated study of AI across content areas.
This will include related activities and vocabulary in core subjects, and Gwinnett hopes that piloted lessons will spread across the entire district.
Statewide Initiative
The Georgia Department of Education worked with Gwinnett to write new academic standards so all schools in the state could launch their own AI courses.
A dozen districts in Florida, including those in the Tampa area, are rolling out AI and data science programs this year in partnership with the University of Florida.
Curriculum Integration
This is part of the university’s broader goal to infuse AI into K-12 curriculum across the state. The state is also providing funding to train teachers.
Supporting Teachers as They Incorporate AI Into Their Teaching
A few districts reviewed use AI to strengthen teacher practice or generally orient educators to technology as a teaching tool.
This year, Spokane Public Schools in Washington, St. Vrain Valley School District in Colorado, and Keller Independent School District in Texas piloted an instructional coaching platform called AI Coach by Edthena that films classroom instruction and uses AI to offer teachers feedback and assists in developing an “action plan” to implement suggestions.
Teacher Training
Prince George’s County Schools in Maryland launched training sessions this summer to help teachers incorporate AI into their lessons. The sessions are part of a three-year agreement with nonprofit training partner aiEDU, which provides curricula and learning resources.
Improving Communications and Operational Efficiency
Districts are using AI to provide individualized guidance to students and parents. In April, the School District of Philadelphia announced a chatbot to answer parents’ and guardians’ questions online and track whether issues were resolved.
In August, the Los Angeles Unified School District unveiled a “student adviser” chatbot that provides parents real-time access to grades, test results, and attendance and assists its “Individual Acceleration Plans” program.
Student Support
Mesa Public Schools is one of many Arizona districts using AskBenji, a chatbot digital assistant that helps students navigate the federal student financial aid (FAFSA) application.
Districts are also using AI-powered technology to support safety and operational efficiency. Broward County Public Schools in Florida use AI to track individuals using their appearance and facial expressions.
Operational Efficiency
Denver Public Schools use AI-powered, self-driving floor cleaners, and Iredell-Statesville Schools in North Carolina use AI to detect student illnesses as part of their pandemic response.
Essential Questions About AI in 2023-24
A year ago, few districts or stakeholders paid much attention to AI. Now, it’s clear that this technology will evolve faster than districts can develop formal training and guidance for staff.
Leaders must respond by considering how they train their workforce to use AI responsibly and prepare for fundamental shifts in teachers’ roles and students’ opportunities in the coming years.
We suggest that districts:
- Engage early adopter educators to discuss strategies and guidelines
- Communicate regularly and transparently with parents
- Train teachers on responsibly using AI
- Partner with organizations, industry and higher education institutions who have AI expertise and can weigh in on best practices
We also urge state education departments and regional associations to provide guidance and tools to help districts navigate AI. Students, parents, teachers, and employers are looking to districts to do this well and provide a safe learning environment that reflects the 21st century and beyond.
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The Urgent Need to Update District Policies on Student Use of Artificial Intelligence in Education
The rapid development of AI is causing great concern in education, especially around the potential for widespread misuse of leading-edge products like ChatGPT.
ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot with never-before-seen capabilities, has the power (along with other AI tools) to reshape education because it can mimic human processing of text and other data and create content.
Initial Challenges
The Atlantic ran a feature story declaring that the first year of college with AI ended “in ruin” because students could abuse the new technology to complete many traditional types of assignments, and professors lacked understanding about how to preserve the intellectual integrity of their courses in the quickly changing environment.
During winter 2022–23, many districts (including Los Angeles and Oakland Unified School Districts in California and New York City Public Schools) banned the use of ChatGPT because of the risk that students could use it to cheat.
Changing Landscape
Much has changed since, making those well-meaning policies outdated. Unlike earlier technological revolutions (such as the internet), AI cannot be kept out of the classroom because it is inexpensive and pervasive (many students already have ChatGPT on their phones).
There is an obvious incentive to use it: A user can quickly generate text with AI that can pass as having been written by someone.
Widespread Adoption
A recent national survey found that 51 percent of educators and 33 percent of students aged 12 to 17 used ChatGPT for school during the 2022–23 academic year. AI can be an asset for students and teachers only if district policies proactively define “the sandbox” for its classroom application.
All districts need to enter the 2023–24 academic year with a clear policy for using AI and educator training to support the policy.
Ethical Use
This will help avoid a widespread misuse of AI while leaving open opportunities to take advantage of the technology’s educational benefits.
What Are the Benefits of AI Policies in Schools?
To understand the need to move from banning student use of AI to creating policies for responsible use of AI, we need to understand what large language models (LLMs) currently do and how they are progressing.
LLMs recognize language patterns based on the mathematical models that underpin them and the data (e.g., texts) on which they have been trained. The first models were constrained and could create new text or answer questions based only on curated training sets.
Model Evolution
In their next significant evolution, these systems could interact with texts beyond those they were trained (e.g., an article that a student was assigned to read) and data from other systems (e.g., learning management systems like Aeries or Canvas).
The limited number of creators of the models and training sets made it possible—at first—to target AI models with federal or state regulation, so districts had a viable option at the time of waiting for others to make policies regarding the use of AI.
Model Proliferation
In 2023, however, the number and range of AI models expanded unprecedentedly.
What is more impactful is that these models are no longer authored by a select group of researchers and commercial entities but instead are created by people worldwide.
Anyone can rent a server (for less than a dollar an hour) and download many increasingly powerful AI models from open repositories like GitHub or Hugging Face. Because virtually any device (including phones) can now access AI, banning it is no longer a viable policy option.
Overcoming Limitations
There is no practical way to block all AI websites in schools or limit student access to AI after school. The plethora of models and their increasing quality will likely thwart efforts to detect when AI has been used to cheat. So, districts must shift tactics from banning AI to channeling its power.
How to Build an Effective AI Policy for Schools
Districts need to develop policies outlining appropriate uses of AI by students and adults over the summer (to be ready for fall 2024).
The best uses of AI in classrooms occur when teachers are knowledgeable about the technology and can create situations where they guide how students use it, instead of failing at attempts to prohibit the use of AI entirely.
A district’s policy for use of AI should have three main components:
What can students do with AI?
AI is already inexorably integrated into many dimensions of our lives. To prepare students for the world they increasingly inhabit, they must be taught best practices for using technology.
Assignments bound appropriate student use, and teachers will reasonably have different expectations for distinct assignments and how students demonstrate learning and mastery.
What can students not do with AI?
At the most basic level, students should not consider any work done by an AI to be their own. Doing so is a form of cheating that is hard to detect in a take-home (or other unmonitored) context.
What should guide educators’ use of AI?
A recent U.S. Department of Education report and related materials laid out broad guidelines for using AI in education, including the idea that humans are key to the appropriate use of AI in teaching and learning.
Educators need to redesign some central tasks requiring critical thinking (e.g., research projects, essays, and analytic writing) and how they are assessed under the assumption that students have access to AI.
Critical Thinking
Especially because AI creates more possibilities for misinformation (and current AI systems have documented biases that can be highly impactful in educational settings), the use of AI in a democracy cannot be allowed to come at the cost of students’ critical thinking and reasoning skills.
How To Train Teachers for AI Policies in Schools
Districts need to train teachers about AI to reap the instructional benefits and avoid the worst consequences of unfettered use.
Even while the use of AI is becoming more widespread, a survey conducted by Education Week in April 2023 found that 14 percent of teachers didn’t “know what AI platforms are.” An additional 47 percent thought that AI will have a somewhat (31 percent) or very (16 percent) negative impact on teaching and learning.
Basic training should help teachers understand:
- The principles of appropriate use of AI
- The capabilities, biases, and risks that AI brings
- The kinds of assignments are most likely to incur use or abuse of AI (e.g., take-home essays, research, and homework)
- Where the most significant risks of bias lie in using AI outputs to support decision-making
- Ways that AI can help save time on varied and complex instructional tasks (e.g., formative assessment and personalized learning)
For teachers of classes that typically rely heavily on take-home written assignments, additional training will likely be needed on drawing boundaries around appropriate use of AI and accurately assessing student knowledge and skills in this new context.
Preparing for the Future of AI in Education
Districts need to secure the resources required to assign a team or an individual the role of following developments in AI based on these assumptions:
- Students have access to AI and will use it
- With sufficient guidance and support for educators and students alike, AI can have benefits for education
Proactive Policies
AI will continue to increase its presence in all of our daily lives. Banning students from using AI models is no longer feasible and does them a disservice in preparing them to be independent thinkers in today’s and tomorrow’s society.
Districts need to act during the summer of 2023 to create policies that define the appropriate use and misuse of AI while beginning the more protracted process of preparing to make AI work for their educators and students.
5 Steps to Creating an AI-Ready Learning Environment
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1. Cultivating a Culture of Innovation to Support AI in the Classroom
Before integrating artificial intelligence into classrooms, schools must first foster a culture of innovation. Culture drives everything. Fostering a culture of innovation that encourages experimentation is a prerequisite for creating fertile ground where AI can thrive.
District leaders like to use the word “innovation,” but they often interfere innovation out of fear. A culture of innovation allows for exploration and mistakes.
Experimental Approach
We must be bold, willing to take risks, and acknowledge that experimenting with new technology will involve hiccups and failure points. Having structures in place to understand where the entry points to introduce AI are will help smooth its integration into the classroom.
For example, an entry point for elementary students is learning to use AI to find prompts for a creative writing piece. In contrast, a middle school student could use AI to study and research datasets to later aid in visualization.
Cultural Audit
One caveat: If you have a culture where initiatives continually fail, you need to audit your culture to ensure you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Are you listening to all your stakeholders – teachers, parents, and students? Are there entry points that consistently prove challenging?
2. AI as a Tool to Help Educators
Messaging is essential to generating enthusiasm for implementing AI. District leadership must present AI as a tool to reduce prep time and the proverbial grunt work teachers endure as part of their daily routine.
We must highlight that AI is a resource that frees up teachers to have more time to engage in more meaningful interactions with each student. And that's what we all want.
Resource Room Support
Think of the resource room teacher who needs to quickly create review materials for the children on their caseload.
Teachers can swiftly create those materials, giving them more time to interact with students and eliminating the stress of creating 3-5 subjects worth of material per student, using AI tools such as:
- Magic School AI
- Almanack
- Diffit
- Curipod
3. Model AI Use at the Administrative Level
To ensure widespread adoption, district administrators, particularly building-level leaders, must model the use of AI. This top-down approach involves district leaders actively using AI tools to reduce their prep time, boost their productivity, and enhance the quality of their interactions with teachers.
Financial Efficiency
Administrators can use AI tools to better track school monies spent to avoid wasteful expenditures, speed up clerical tasks, such as tracking absenteeism or tardiness, and fulfill requests to find a specific bit of information in a 200-page study.
Instead of spending hours Googling for resources for the faculty meeting, the building principal can use Perplexity for precise searches or Gamma.ai to generate stunning slides filled with foundational content when preparing a presentation.
Modeling Adoption
The superintendent is pivotal in initiating the adoption process, guiding school administrators, and creating a seamless integration aligned with curriculum goals. This modeling strategy helps build confidence and acceptance among teachers.
It helps to designate someone willing to model how to use AI and start the conversation. Ideally, the superintendent or an assistant superintendent modeling it for their cabinet will help spread the word about how they use it.
4. Gather a Cohort of AI Pioneers
More companies are beginning to roll out paid subscription models for use in the classroom. Educators need to know what makes sense for their needs.
Gather the pioneers (the teachers already exploring AI's potential) and start bi-weekly or monthly conversations so all benefit from their experiences. The cohort can discuss how AI has made their lives easier and explore how to make AI adoption more efficient and desirable.
Collaborative Learning
It’s more comfortable for teachers to leap into the unknown after seeing colleagues successfully use it. These teachers can form a collaborative group to identify effective ways AI can enhance teaching and learning.
They can be valuable resources for shaping district-wide strategies and identifying secure and scalable AI solutions. Once they develop an inventory of what is safe and scalable district-wide, they can start sharing it with other buildings.
5. Create Incentives for Learning and Adoption
As school districts consider how to implement AI, they should fund comprehensive, scaffolded professional development time to allow teachers to learn the technology, use it to its full potential, and navigate the hiccups that will likely develop.
To encourage teachers to explore and implement these technologies, offer incentives such as in-service credits, graduate credits, or paid registration for courses and conferences.
Professional Development
Districts can also investigate the various AI education platforms to see if they provide in-house professional development. Investing in ongoing professional development ensures teachers can leverage AI to its full potential and stay updated on the latest advancements.
One of districts' biggest challenges when implementing new instructional technology is understanding that learning the technology is more than just a one-and-done scenario.
Continuous Learning
Continuous professional development is essential. Whether through updates to existing tools or the introduction of new AI solutions, educators need ongoing support to adapt their pedagogical approaches.
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