going to have to say, ….
going to have to say, “take these three different things and make it your own. What pieces would you use and how would you recreate it?”’ Also related to individualized instruction, Lundy explained AI is “embedded” in many of the online learning tools the district uses. For example, as a student works on math problems on a learning website, AI embedded in the website will detect areas in which the student is struggling and offer problems to bolster that specific skill. This AI impact is less obvious than the AI chatbots that students directly write questions in.
Even with the Medford district’s enthusiasm for AI, Lundy pointed to the need for students to be able to complete work independently of AI. “There is a time and a place where kids still need to memorize things or come up with their own ideas,” she said. A skill she mentioned was knowing math facts, such as what 8x7 equals.
With the growing impact of AI, Lundy stated that knowing how to use it could fall into the category of skills students must know: “I saw that one of the newer college or tech majors is on prompt creation because, in order to get the best use of AI, you have to have a really good question or a really good prompt.” She noted AI tutorials will be included in the digital literacy instruction all students receive.
Lundy said AI can be of use to parents as well as students. If a parent does not know the subject of their child’s homework, the parent can have AI explain homework step by step to the child. Lundy said this application “levels the playing field” for students across the district.
Continuing, Lundy described how AI is used by staff in Medford. Some teachers employ AI to generate “fun” lesson plans or create examples of what a good paper looks like.
“We will use AI to help them but also to help us,” the middle school teacher said. They used AI to write tonesensitive emails, create slideshows, and get ideas for assignments.
Some office staff use AI to write emails and newsletters. Staff in the special education department use AI to write IEPs (they manually input confidential information). Lundy uses AI in her role as superintendent for writing tasks.
To keep staff versed on AI, the Medford district will provide staff with continuing education. Last year, Medford brought in a speaker to teach staff how they could implement AI and streamline tasks. Additionally, select teachers annually attend the SLATE conference on educational technology, where AI has been discussed the past two years. Lundy said she expects the district will need to routinely update their information because AI is rapidly changing.
As the Medford district looks to the future of AI, Lundy said, “We just have to keep learning about it.”
Rib Lake
The Rib Lake school district will look to strike a balance between developing students’ skills independent of AI and teaching them how to effectively use AI.
“We are going to have learn how to deal with its new existence and how to utilize it with our students because it’s not going to go away,” said Travis Grubbs, district administrator. He noted high school students will be more likely to use AI than younger students in the district.
Grubbs compared AI to the calculator, describing how it will be used at some points and not in others, as a calculator is selectively used in math classes from grade school to senior year.
“It’s going to come down to, for that skill, is AI the right tool,” Grubbs said. Giving an English class example, he explained that when teachers assign papers, they typically aren’t focusing on all the components that go into writing. Instead, the teachers usually have students hone in on a specific writing skill or theme. If a teacher views AI use as helpful for students the specific lesson behind an assignment, Grubbs said AI is a plus in that instance.
“I give minimal assignments where students are allowed to play around with AI software or applications,” said Natalie Winkler, Rib Lake high school English teacher. “I want them to understand the difference between the integrity of their own research and writing vs. AI. With the growth of AI technology and access to these tools, my specific learning outcome is how to use AI in an ethical manner.”
For a final paper, a teacher may allow students to get continuous writing feedback from AI on their writing to strengthen their essay. Notably, this poses the risk of students overusing AI to entirely rewrite their paper or accept its suggested changes without thinking about the feedback. “Our hope would not be that AI is creating their final product,” Grubbs said. Returning to the calculator comparison, Grubbs said students ultimately “need to understand what AI spits out.”
“[Students] are not allowed to use AI for any writing assignment in my English classes,” Winkler said. It should be noted other teachers may have a different policy.
To address student AI use, Rib Lake has updated its student handbook to include AI as a means of plagiarism if it is used in a way that a teacher does not allow.
However, the challenge of how to enforce this rule remains. Without a concrete way to detect improper AI use, Grubbs stated teachers will have to take into consideration how to prevent or restrict AI use when designing assignments that AI is not allowed to be used for. “What’s the question that we should be asking so that you can’t just type that into ChatGPT,” he said of this thought process. He also mentioned conducting assessments of students’ learning in ways that are independent of AI, such as paper and pencil exams and live simulations.
Similar to Laura Lundy of Medford schools, Grubbs pointed to AI’s upside for students whose parents are unable to provide homework help. “I am excited for the concept of students potentially having access to personalized learning on the fly where a number of our students miss out on that level of feedback and knowledge from somebody. To be able to have a struggling learner go and reach out to AI for help and for AI to understand their learning style and how they would need [the lesson] portrayed could be impactful,” he said.
“In the classroom, the benefits are that there are many AI tools out there like Grammarly, Canva, and Quizlet to name a few, if used appropriately, they may be used as valuable resources,” Winkler said. Grammarly can be used to correct spelling and grammar, Quizlet can be used to make study sets like flahscards, and Canva can be used to make presentations. Winkler continued, “The drawbacks are that AI applications such as Open AI and ChatGPT can and are used inappropriately, where students submit writing that is written by these applications rather than by the student.”
Regarding staff, several teachers in the Rib Lake district are well-versed with AI. As Medford does with their staff, Rib Lake sends over 10 teachers to the SLATE conference to learn about technology in education annually.
Grubbs stated AI can help teachers at small schools speed up the miscellaneous tasks associated with “wearing many hats,” freeing them up to “have time to plan and do more impactful things.”
“I do use teacher tools such as Canva to make flyers and posters. I also use Brisk AI which is a valuable teacher tool for lesson planning, rubrics, student writing feedback, and editing as well as AI detection for student writing,” Winkler said.
Conclusion
In closing, AI has and will impact students in the Medford and Rib Lake districts. Additionally, its impact, although not obvious, is made on everyone- in or out of school.
“I think that we all need to learn about it, since it is being baked into all our systems. It is not just images or text generation, but how you get hired (or fired) from a job, how work schedules are set, what price you pay for a product. And AI is used to determine what you see or don't see on social media, the ads you see, etc. It is already here,” Dr. Christianson wrote.
As far as learning with the aid of AI, there can be positives, as outlined by the school district leaders, but there are can be negatives. Dr. Christianson referenced an article about how a district in Wellington, Kansas, implemented a system that had students spending most of their time on an online program powered used AI. While they were receiving tailored education, students staged a walk-out to protest the computer-screen filled days.
“Education is inherently social. It is about interactions, not just knowledge transfer,” Dr. Christianson wrote.
On whether AI will change not only how students learn but what students learn, Dr. Christianson wrote: “We don't know the answer yet, but I hope we will see some slowdown in AI developments and hype, and instructors and students can start working through productive ways to apply this technology. Unfortunately, much educational technology is implemented as a costsaving measure, taking our education further down the 'factory' model. We need more project-based learning, where teachers are coaches who help students learn the skills they need to complete the project as they need them. Project-based learning is how we expect students to behave when they stop being students and enter the workforce in some manner or another. That is basically what entrepreneurs do: acquire new skills to solve the problems that appear before them daily.”
