School leaders: If you’re unsure of how you feel about AI (Artificial Intelligence), you’re not alone. 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 certain: 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.
First, what is artificial intelligence? At a high level, AI is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. What’s called “generative AI” learns from the data it has been fed (text, images, video, etc.) to create new content.
From those leaders, we’re hearing that their community members are using AI in various ways to support teachers.
Digital Promise, a global nonprofit organization whose mission is to shape the future of learning and advance equitable education systems through research, practice, and technology, has been working with ten district leaders in its Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools to develop responsible policies for emerging technologies, specifically generative AI.
“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. “Teachers are excited about the potential for increased efficiency and time-saving on planning, writing, and researching, especially the teachers that need additional support.”
For example, 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.
“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 develop the lists themselves.
“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.
Some Students Snorkel, Others are Scuba Divers
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. 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 who may be 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're going to have to use it in their personal lives and in the workforce. Most of our students need to be snorkelers. They need to be proficient users. They need to understand how it works. They can make really informed decisions, or even advocate about the use of AI.
“And then some of our students will be scuba divers—those are the students who are going to be developers and perhaps pursue a career in AI.”
Students seem really engaged in learning in a new way. At the high school level, there has been a noticeable decrease in students skipping class or wandering the halls because they’re actually interested in what’s going on in class.
Phase one of this pilot program was creating practical guidance around AI to make sure that everyone understands what it is, what it is not, how they should be approaching it, and how to evaluate the tools. In 2023, the district joined Digital Promise’s working group around AI policies.
Holloway says the district has received positive reactions from both students and school leaders.
“We have been doing a lot of observation and empathy interviews with school leaders, teachers, and students,” she says, “Students seem really engaged in learning in a new way. At the high school level, there has been a noticeable decrease in students skipping class or wandering the halls because they’re actually interested in what’s going on in class.”
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. “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 had the opportunity to lend their thoughts and be part of the design process. In addition, the district also worked with educators to think of ways to use AI to enhance lessons.
At the high school level, educators used the technology to create essays based on certain topics that met certain standards. The students then evaluated what was created by AI to see if it matched their rubric. They were able to give feedback and share their opinions on how to enhance that piece of writing to be better and more engaging for the person reading it.
“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 stuck to basic guidelines intentionally to give educators, administrators, students, and families some latitude to explore. It has been important for the district to hear feedback from both the staff and students on the use of these types of tools. 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.
“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 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.
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. “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.
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.”
I think what's important is that we are careful not to reproduce the biases in our society and to amplify and magnify those, and to teach students and teachers to be critical consumers of what they're seeing.
Ruiz says that AI can help teachers identify and address potential barriers in their lessons and support students by meeting them where they are. Schools can then provide individualized accommodations for learner variability.
In addition to access issues, AI can also be subject to biases that schools must identify and mitigate. These include, for example, racial and ethnic bias with facial recognition systems, age bias where AI systems may not acknowledge young voices well, and gender bias where voice assistants default to female voices and enforce traditional gender norms.
“I think what's important is that we are careful not to reproduce the biases in our society and to amplify and magnify those, and to teach students and teachers to be critical consumers of what they're seeing,” Ruiz says. “In helping teachers and educators more broadly, and their students and families understand and evaluate these systems, we think some of the risks can be mitigated.”
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 in order to be responsive, not just to AI, but to emerging technologies more broadly. 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, including mitigating accessibility and bias issues.
- Effectiveness. This ensures that the implementation is pedagogically sound and appropriate for different grade levels and subject areas.
- Safety. This includes student safety and 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. 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.”
Parents got to actually see what it really means, and maybe bust some of those misconceptions as well.
The district leaders can also attribute some of their success to the fact that they're working with one another. “They have found community with one another, and this working group specifically, to be incredibly helpful,” Ruiz says.
At Gwinnett County Public Schools, many of the schools in the district are also helping to educate parents and the community about AI. Some schools have hosted family nights where parents were invited to participate in the same learning that the students were experiencing during the day. They also created a parent permission slip where parents could opt in or out of having their child use certain AI tools under teacher supervision.
“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 make sure they were consistent when they talked to the community about AI. 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 is going to 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 make sure 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. 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.”
