When has such a short, easy to pronounce acronym created such a stir? Heck, most of us have already eliminated the periods and just refer to it as AI. Not to be confused with AL, as in Al Bundy or Al Roker. If you don’t know either of them, copy and paste their names in ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer).
The idea for this started during an AI workshop that I was giving in January 2024. I was all set. I had no annoying icebreaker, a slick intro exercise, and plenty of examples of artificial intelligence (henceforth called AI). We were rolling. We practiced using ChatGPT together, and had a few laughs at what it produced. We compared responses and learned about its generativeness. I had even provided a short list of other tools to try and a list of ways that teachers can use them. The participants, mostly teachers, all did great. Then we began to have some wonderful, rich conversations that elicited unanswerable questions. Ones that I hadn’t considered. It was awesome, except as the presenter, I felt like I should have all the answers. We’re all teachers right? It’s hard to admit that we are not all knowing. But being a good teacher requires that you be able to admit that you don’t know everything. I promised the group after our daylong sessions that I would dig in to help provide answers to the unanswerable that arose. This is my attempt to start that process. It’s not a final answer to the questions and concerns, but it’s a first step. I appreciate that AI is correcting this as I write it. Thank you spell check and predictive text for all of your help. They won’t accept thanks, they’ll just always be there, never at rest.
The questions that prompted this were the following:
How do we use AI with older students?
How do we get other teachers to understand the benefits of using AI for themselves
This was the hardest question… How do we convince other teachers that using AI to help them teach and create content is not cheating their profession? Professional integrity seems to be their concern.
What about teachers that fear that AI will take their jobs? I think this is part of #3, but I’ll address it separately.
Full disclosure, none of this was written with the assistance of AI, except for the aforementioned spell check and predictive text. Also, while I am writing this, my middle school son is online playing Fortnite with his friends. I don’t fully understand it, but I guess that’s comically fitting for this situation. Learning to understand something new, and accepting it for something that I may not ever understand, but acknowledging that it is part of his world.
It may also help if you knew a little more about me. I’m 51 years old and I started teaching in 1996. I dealt with none of this back then. Heck, we only checked email once a week when I started. My, how things have changed. I was a middle school PE teacher for 10 years, a building administrator for 6, and for the last 11 years have worked with educational technology as a director and most recently as a consultant. I’ve read countless books, attended the best conferences and have a good feel for common sense approaches for questions and strategies. None of this is quote level resourced, just a compilation of what I know and think. It should be read as such.
Today’s Questions
Fear of the Unknown
We live in a world that is more and more connected every day. Tech advancement is taking place at a pace never seen before by mankind. So much so that it is intimidating and scary for many people, especially Gen X folks and older. It must feel like it would be if you were a 16 year old learning to drive (again). Imagine all of your driver education training took place on residential streets. You felt comfortable and could navigate with ease. However, without notice, your instructor told you that you had to immediately jump on the highway. Everyone is doing 80 MPH or more and weaving in and out of all the lanes. Imagine your elevated pulse and sweaty palms approaching the on-ramp! It’s likely that teachers who have been able to stay on the residential streets ( for better or worse) have that same feeling when they are introduced to new educational technology, especially AI.
We need to be mindful of their fears and apprehension. If we’re honest, we’re all fearful of this, or something like it. Heights, crowds, snakes, spiders, roller coasters, etc. You get the idea. They are most likely good people with great intentions for their students. They should not be dismissed as obstinate, lazy, or stuck in their ways. It’s likely that their ways have served them well, however their ways are no longer serving today’s students. The process of getting them onboard will take time. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have the luxury of easing into this if they haven’t already started. The explosive pace of development and growth of technology, especially AI tools will outpace their learning curve if they don’t start now.
Introduction to AI at a natural entry point is key. Experiencing it in non-threatening ways is a great start. Once they know and understand what AI is, they’ll likely discover that they’ve been using it for a while in their personal lives (Siri, Alexa, streaming service suggestions, etc.) While learning about it in this way is a strategy, it’s important that it not be optional. They must be required to do it in the same manner that their students are expected to learn new material. It may not be easy, but there’s really no other option for them.
Threat to Their Job
AI has been considered by some, including me, to be the first real threat to white collar work. Before very recently, if you were college educated and were experienced in your field, you were pretty safe from being replaced by automation. November 30, 2022, changed all of that. On that date, ChatGPT was launched by San Francisco–based OpenAI. It was the first time that the world was given access to AI tools that they could easily control through simply typed prompts. Suddenly, everyone was able to generate content that appeared like it was human produced. AI tools like ChatGPT could create content that previously took teachers long hours to create. ChatGPT could do it in seconds. For some, this must feel like it did in the 1980’s when autoworkers were replaced by robots. Will teachers face that same fate?
Fortunately, no one wants to get rid of teachers. As it is there are not enough to fill our nation’s demand. So from a sheer supply perspective, teachers are very safe. But going beyond quantitative reason, there is an even better qualitative reason to not be concerned about replacement. What is the most important part of a teacher’s job? Being human!! We have to remember that we are teaching people (kids) first, not subject matter. You teach kids, not (pick your subject). Kids like everyone need a connection to others. It’s in our DNA. Teachers’ “humanness” is more important than ever.. As long as teachers keep this in mind, they can actually make themselves more valuable by using AI to do mundane tasks, so that they can establish relationships that provide empathy, guidance, and understanding that AI cannot replace.
Their Integrity
This one was a surprise to me. During our discussion at our AI workshop, one teacher told me that some colleagues were reluctant to use AI because of cheating. Initially I thought, I’ve heard this before and I’ve got an answer to this. I assumed they were referring to student cheating. As we dug a little deeper, they said that it wasn’t about the students, it was about themselves. They reported that some teachers felt that part of their job was to create original (human-created) content for their classes. They went on to say that these teachers’ aversion to using AI came from a sense that using AI to craft materials for their students was a form of professional cheating. These same teachers had no problem using canned curriculum supplied by the district, or paying for content through teacherspayteachers.com. This was a real head-scratcher for me. So it wasn’t about it not being their own content, it just had to come from a human. I wondered to myself what they would say if the canned curriculum was AI-generated. I refrained from asking for fear that I would really be confused by this conundrum. As I think back to this conversation, I can’t help but ask (again), “What is the most important part of a teacher’s job?” It’s being human, not being a content creator. There is certainly nothing wrong with creating one’s own content (I enjoy it), but at the end of the day, what is really important? What do students remember about a class or teacher? The experience and the relationship they had with their teachers. The moments, human moments, that helped define their lives. Moments that made them laugh, maybe cry, and hopefully learn. Students don't care how or where the content came from. They’ll likely not even remember most of the content. 35 years later, I surely don't. Using AI isn’t cheating. It’s working smarter, not harder.
Student Cheating
Oh boy, this will be a fun one! We can go a few different directions with this.
Let’s start by talking about the word cheating. What is your definition of cheating? Is buying a pre-made meal and bringing it to a friend's house cheating? What about using a chainsaw vs. an ax to cut down a tree? It all depends on what you’re specifically being asked to do. Have you ever repeatedly swung an ax? If you are just being asked to bring some food or cut down a tree I’d say that neither of these are cheating. It’s all about the end goal. We have to be specific in what we are asking students to do when it comes to assignments. If we were asked to prepare a meal for a cooking competition or cut down a tree as part of a lumberjack competition, then both cases would definitely be considered cheating!
So let’s bring this back to school, academic standards, students and cheating. The conversation almost always starts and stays with the essay. That five paragraph one that you have likely not written since college. The one that is rarely done in the “real world.” Let me preface this by saying that I firmly believe that being able to write (physically and skillfully) is a critical skill that everyone should possess. It is a way of showing that someone can think critically. But even before readily accessible AI came on the scene, many students struggled to do it well. So maybe our approach has been flawed for a while. As I wrote this (using a pen and paper with thoughts from my human brain), I don’t remember the last time that I wrote this much. Note, this “essay” was not assigned to me. I’m doing it because I feel compelled to do it. As I wrote it, I found this to be a wonderful way to process thoughts and ideas, as well as great practice for improving my penmanship. I’m doing it because I found a NEED to do it this way that a Google Doc or bot generated essay could not fulfill. In our clickbait, swipe-left, fast-paced world, I found this to be a great escape. A chance to slow down and be human. Perhaps working in ed tech for a while has brought about a “tech fatigue.” Whatever the reason I had for creating this in this fashion, it is happening. Not assigned, recommended, or required, and without any expectation for how it will turn out. Maybe I’m just learning to like this?
So maybe our challenge isn’t so much about ‘what do we do about AI cheating’, and instead it’s about ‘why do they want to cheat at all’. Is it possible to expose and connect students with the joy of writing (or other AI-able thing) so much so that they’d feel like they are cheating themselves (not the teacher) and won’t want to use it? Maybe, maybe not. But the idea that AI (ChatGPT) birthed cheating on essay writing is silly. In the 1980’s we ‘cheated’ on them, the only difference is that we used a typewriter. So I don’t think it’s fair to blame the cheating on AI.
So what did we learn here? I believe that if someone finds a love for something (writing, a sport, or a spouse) that they won’t want to cheat. So let’s focus on how to build an appreciation and value for what kids do, and not spend so much time policing it.
The Future of School
There is little time left to wrestle with what we need to be doing. I believe that we are in an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. Maybe AI is the kick in the ass that education needed. AI growth and accessibility to it is outpacing all of us. Everyday I get dozens of emails giving me a new top 10 list of AI tools I should try. They get better and better every week. While educators are just learning about them, kids are already using them. The tortoise isn’t going to catch the hare in this situation. The hare never stops or sleeps.
We must come together as professional educators to learn about, experiment with, and develop strategies for how our students are going to use AI. Education repeatedly says (predictably) that we are preparing 21st century learners. We are a quarter of the way into the 21st century and many students are still learning in the same fashion that we taught in the 1980’s. Worksheet packets, textbook chapter tests, and boring lectures are totally unacceptable. We must do better and do it now!
The first step is to acknowledge the need for change and that AI is a large part of it. People either need to get on the train or they will be left behind. Education (from school boards to custodians) need to understand the situation and become part of the process of understanding it. This means that everyone needs to learn about AI and experience it for themselves. This must be a positive approach. We can’t call people out, and make people feel dumb. I addressed this in chapter 1. Edicts and ‘Thou shall not…’ approaches for teachers and students will be heeded like the speed limit on the highway.
Many people already use it personally and just don’t realize it. Exposure needs to be formal and there needs to be ample time for them to play with it. I call this ‘Digital Recess’. This will only work if there is some guidance and that the exposure is ongoing. A 2 hour PD will not be enough. Educators need to see effective and appropriate AI usage modeled over time by peers who have experience with it. Throughout the process, there need to be conversations about how it went, how they felt, and their questions must be addressed. For those who resisted its use, they need to feel like it has been ‘legalized’ and that their concerns were unnecessary.
AI is both an amazing and an amazingly dangerous tool. I compare it to the automobile. We wait a long time to let humans drive a car, and only with expert, loving guidance do we allow them to drive on their own. 99% do very well. That same approach needs to be used with AI.
Student Use of AI
In the last chapter I left off with a car driving example. Driver education. Let’s get more specific and talk about how this looks for using AI. At what age do we start? What strategies do we employ at each level? Use this simple table to start.
K-2 - Zero. Absolutely none with students. Teachers use it for themselves to create lesson plans, simple assessments and personal use.
3-5 - Define AI and introduce what it is. Where is it found in their daily lives. There is no expectation that they use it independently
Use controlled examples of Computer Science, Digital Citizenship and Machine Learning
SchoolAI.com
Scratch coding
Dash Robots
Teachable Machine
TinkerCAD
Common Sense Education
6-8 - Begin using AI with students. Let them see your interaction with AI. Chat with AI as a class. Try these examples:
Grade AI’s response to prompts. Have students check AI’s ability to deliver accurate responses and look for inaccuracies and ‘made up’ responses.
Predict what AI will say before you give it a prompt.
Use a collaborative whiteboard (or analog methods) to collect student predictions.
Use it to kickstart ideas
Use it for fun
9-10 - Treat it like a Google search or an old school World Book entry for research
Math: Acknowledge it as a tool for finding solutions. Have them analyze output for accuracy
‘Legalize’ its use and require that it be cited for a resource
Arguably no different than citing websites, analog sources, or encyclopedias
11-12 - Lay out boundaries for its use, set expectations, and let them use it like a tool that they’ll use in a career
At this age, assignments should be AI-Proof.
If you are still asking low level Bloom’s questions or things that are easily done with AI, reconsider their use
Get over the fact that students are going to use AI for completing work if you are unwilling to modify what you ask them to do