ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN SCHOOLS - How districts in Taylor County plan to use, or not use, the technology

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN SCHOOLS

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a popular topic in education circles, including in school districts in Taylor County.

Some educators are concerned over AI’s ability to write papers and solve equations, questioning what it will mean for students’ learning and academic honesty to have access to something that can “think” for them.

Other educators advocate embracing the technology. The Medford district generally falls into the embracing category, and the Rib Lake district leans toward embracing.

“The advent of easy-to-use Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has started an arms race in academia between students who use AI and faculty trying to detect that use. This unproductive battle must end, and faculty can help broker peace by rethinking assignments and using LLMs where appropriate,” Dr. J Scott Christianson wrote. Dr. Christianson (interviewed via email), director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and associate teaching professor at the University of Missouri is an expert in the field of emerging technologies.

According to Dr. Christianson, a rethought assignment “is one where the faculty and student don't know the answer in advance.” He gave the example of asking students to assess the effect of Harry Truman’s presidency on their families’ history instead of generally asking them to assess the effect of Harry Truman’s presidency in general, as this would be harder to simply ask ChatGPT to complete, though a student still could.

On student AI use in general, Dr. Christianson wrote, “Like all new technologies, there is a lot of hype about the capabilities of AI and Generative AI. Only by working directly with these systems will students be able to separate the hype from the reality, understand the issues with implementations, and be able to decide how they want (or don't want) to see these systems used. I am a big advocate for experimentation, and I think as teachers we need to be encouraging students experimentation with this technology in a constructive way.”

For readers who are unfamiliar with AI, the most popular type of AI is called ChatGPT. It is available to anyone for free on the internet.

AI like ChatGPT is different than Google or other search engines because AI generates content. For example, on Google, someone could type “what was the score of the Packers’ game” and get results related to what they searched. On ChatGPT, someone could type “write a 1,200 word essay about how the book The Catcher in the Rye uses symbols to explore themes of adolescence and loneliness,' and ChatGPT would generate the paper according to what was asked.

Here is a piece of an essay ChatGPT wrote in response to that prompt: “In the Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger masterfully uses symbols to explore the themes of adolescence and loneliness. Through the red hunting hat, the Museum of Natural History, the title itself, and the carousel, Salinger delves into Holden Caulfield’s internal struggles as he grapples with the complexities of growing up and his profound sense of alienation. These symbols reveal the multifaceted nature of Holden’s character, highlighting his desire to protect innocence while simultaneously confronting the inevitability of change and loss.”

It should be noted that when asked the same question, the generated text varies, and the person who prompts the question can request the text be more like a 9th grader wrote it, request it mention a different symbol in the book, or prompt ChatGPT to make any other modification to the essay.

Alongside writing, generative AI can solve math equations, design lesson plans for teachers, make computer code, and create images and video.

With AI being a relatively new and quickly-evolving technology, it has many grey areas. In education, there are many unknowns about how to best use AI. “It can help with research, with brainstorming, reviewing materials or essays for gaps in understanding and lots of other things. However, we need to evaluate if it is really better than other ways to accomplish the same task. Just because it is AI doesn't make it better,” wrote Dr. Christianson.

Medford

In Medford, AI is already being used by administrators, staff, and students.

“It’s limitless,” said Superintendent Laura Lundy of AI’s applications to education.

Lundy said she views AI as a tool that can positively change how students of all ages learn and underscored the individualized instruction that AI affords: “I think no matter where you are, it can push you a little further.”

As an example of AI’s individual instruction, Lundy said students can ask AI chatbots like Magic School AI (similar to ChatGPT but designed for school use) to give them ideas of what to write about, adding students can get sentence by sentence feedback and suggestions: ‘The student gets the [writing] prompt, and the student says, “I don’t know what to write. Can you help me?” And AI assistant says, “Well, how about some of these ideas?” So, the student says, “Alright, I’ll take this idea,” then starts to write and says, “Can you help me with the next line?” AI can go, “Well, what about this?”’ She added,“If you’re able to come up with your own ideas from your imagination, great. I think it’s a tool to help others who maybe need a little help.”

A middle school teacher described how they use ChatGPT to generate short stories, let students read the stories for five minutes, and then have the student write a story on their own, using the AI generated story as inspiration.

With AI chatbots’ capabilities to generate entire essays or show the steps to math equations comes the risk of students misusing the technology. While the Medford district is in the works of making policies and procedures regarding the proper usage of AI, their general stance at this time is students should follow specific assignment guidelines. For some assignments, AI use will be allowed. For different assignments, it will be allowed in a different capacity, and some assignments may be done without AI.

“Our usage policy says you can use it to get ideas. You can use it to say I’ve written my essay, help make it stronger, make it have parallel sentences, make sure that I’m not overusing words. So then it becomes kind of more of the editor than the writer of your essay,” Lundy said. It is up to teachers to determine what capacity of AI editing is appropriate for each assignment.

The middle school teacher said student misuse of AI hasn’t been a significant issue. “It comes down to you trust them, and you work with them.” They noted only one student misused AI in their class.

Brad Borchardt, a math teacher at MASH, said the AI students use for homework assignments in his class is PhotoMath, a program that provides the steps and answer to a math question a student takes a picture of. “Like most technology, I view that as a very useful tool if handled appropriately. If a student uses that app to confirm a correct answer or to figure out how to get the answer given, great learning is taking place. That student may then be able to go on and do similar problems without using PhotoMath again. However, if the student simply completes the whole assignment by PhotoMath and isn't thinking about processes and solutions, that is the same thing as copying someone's work and no learning is taking place.”

To ensure students are learning, Borchardt talks with students in class to determine their thought processes, giving feedback to help them learn to do the work independently, which, in the end, is how he assesses students. “When it comes time for a test and a quiz done on paper in class, the student's knowledge of the topic will be evident and AI is not useful to them in that setting,” he said.

Turning back to writing assignments, as of now, there is no reliable way to detect whether a student used AI to write or modify an essay. This could pose challenges to teachers as they try to ensure that students are following assignment guidelines. For example, there is no foolproof way to determine whether a student used used AI to generate the main points of an argumentative essay when they were only supposed to get feedback on sentence flow.

“You have to rethink how you’re giving assignments,” Lundy said. She described how this may involve teachers assigning work that “has kids look at it and evaluate and analyze rather than necessarily having to do all of that writing.” An assignment like this is less about “creating from scratch” than traditional writing assignments.

To illustrate what this type of writing assignment could look like, Lundy cited her brother’s experience as a software engineer: ‘For years, he hasn’t been writing the code. He’s been taking pieces of code and putting them together in a different way to create the software that he wants to create. I think that’s how school is going to have to think about it. Instead of saying, “I’m going to have to write the same essay that my brother wrote two years ago,” I’m