Her district offers Cyber Week, an optional week during the summer for teachers to explore innovative teaching practices. Last summer, the theme of Cyber Week was AI.
Additionally, the district hosts low-stakes, one-hour monthly meetings where teachers can explore generative AI without expecting them to immediately integrate it into their classroom or teaching. “I believe that the absence of that expectation of an outcome … breeds more innovation in our schools,” Guidotti said.
The wider implications of AI
Part of experimenting with AI is helping teachers improve teaching.
Although AI tools may seem useful in everyday tasks, generative AI tools for instructional design need to take a critical view, according to Marc Watkins, director of the Mississippi Institute for Teachers.
Watkins highlighted the Harvard AI Education Project as a resource for teachers interested in learning more about the ethical use of AI and practical tools. The Modern Language Association also collaborated with the Conference on College Composition and Communication to form a Writing and AI Working Group dedicated to developing guidelines and resources.
“When it comes to creating content for distribution to students, we ask teachers to be transparent” about using AI-generated activities or lesson plans, Guidotti said. When a teacher discloses to students their own use of AI, it creates the opportunity for a broader conversation about when it may or may not be appropriate to use AI in an educational setting, he said. -he added.
According to Dukes, AI is not particularly good at creating programs. Instead, he suggested using AI to generate creative word problems and activities that fit into an existing curriculum.
“Experimentation (with AI) can be useful and fun, especially if the teacher is intellectually engaged in this process and pays close attention to it, because AI makes a lot of mistakes,” Dukes said.
Dukes also warned against explicit and implicit bias when it comes to using tools like AI detection software and AI scoring, particularly if the outcome is to be evaluated in with a view to sanctions or disciplinary measures. “(Teachers’) biases are going to shape the decisions they make about who to investigate, and that has implications,” Dukes said.
Protecting student privacy and data, copyright infringement and disclosure of their use are also important ethical implications to consider when using AI as a teacher. For example, “you definitely don’t want to give ChatGPT the names of your students,” Dukes said.
According to Watkins, AI that provides feedback to students like OpenAI may prioritize white standardized English vernacular, leaving out students who may speak and write in a different cultural setting. Students may also “have neurodiversity that requires bringing a different level of nuance to the assessment process,” Watkins continued.
Even with an agreed set of policies and tools, change is inevitable. According to Dukes, the real challenge is that in a few years, once there is a better understanding of AI technologies, “then we might have a whole new generation of AI capabilities and AI-based tools “.
Teachers still hesitant to use AI
For Marcus Luther, a high school English teacher in Oregon, the implementation of AI in the classroom and K-12 education has been too rapid. He does not use AI in his lesson planning or in his classroom, and his current program standards do not require him to teach his students about the use of AI. He does not feel comfortable enough with the ever-evolving technology of generative AI to use it outside of curriculum standards in a thoughtful, ethical, and academic manner.
He said he took a professional development session on AI tools for teachers, but the approaches he saw didn’t make him feel supported in implementing AI in the classroom because of the broader implications.
What he’s looking for is to deepen the learning process and isn’t sure the tools he’s seen achieve that, but he might favor a “shortcut to efficiency.”
