What should teachers use AI for? What are teachers using AI for?
Since the release of ChatGPT, the use of AI in schools has become widespread and controversial. What started with students now increasingly includes teachers as well.
In fact, Westport Public Schools is implementing AI to enhance its learning environment through a district-wide effort to deploy simple AI tools for faculty and staff. In the past, there have been a number of programs that teachers have been encouraged to take advantage of.
“The main tools teachers are taught to use with their students [are] AI capabilities within School AI, Magic School, Adobe Firefly, and Canva. All of this is data privacy compliant,” said Nathalie Carignan, Head of Technology.
The administration is currently working on delivering another AI tool that will be implemented in the coming months.
“Teachers who are interested will have the opportunity to try Google Gemini,” Principal Stafford W. Thomas Jr. said. “It’s going to become even more prevalent within the district next school year and certainly next year in terms of the number of professional accounts that teachers can get for free.”
Despite the many resources available, some students believe that teachers should not use AI in any way.
“It is bad for teachers to use AI for tasks that require human subjectivity,” an anonymous student wrote in the Inklings survey. “This includes things like grading, writing assignments and tests, and planning lessons.”
However, some students are seeing benefits from teachers’ use of AI.
“Teachers can leverage AI in ways that push the boundaries of what they can offer their students,” a second survey respondent wrote. “My computer science [teacher] Using AI to create learning podcasts is a great example. ”
Some classes, such as Science Research Honors, use AI openly. Science research teacher Amy Parent lets her students use ChatGPT as lab assistants.
“I’m using [for] “We have a database called PubMed… where you can find papers,” Parent said. [however]AI has a way to find articles faster than PubMed, so we can now support students more efficiently. ”
In contrast, teachers’ use of AI in English departments has lagged far behind. In many cases, teachers are creating paper assessments to further prohibit the use of AI anywhere in the classroom.
“I don’t think what we’re doing in the English department has changed all that much,” said English teacher Mary Catherine Hocking. “But I feel like the format has changed… classes now include on-demand writing, sometimes done by hand to avoid AI input altogether.”
Still, many other teachers are enthusiastic about AI, seeing it as a new way to provide support to students on a scale never before possible. For example, some special education teachers are embracing the technology, which allows them to quickly adjust their lessons to meet a wide range of student needs.
“[I use AI] Toward achieving goals in class [that] We need to create something for our students,” an anonymous special education teacher wrote in the Inklings survey. [“I think] Students can use AI to support their learning, such as creating practice exams and getting explanations for topics or units they don’t understand. ”
But despite its widespread use, transparency around teachers’ use of AI is increasingly being discussed among Staples students. Some students feel that teachers are not transparent about when AI is used to generate assignments.
“That didn’t sit well with me. [the assignment] “They didn’t create the assignment, so why should I?” said Maia Lange, 28, recalling an assignment by a teacher that Lange suspected was created with the help of AI.
Students also reacted strongly when they learned that some teachers are using AI to write university recommendation letters.
“[I feel] [e]“I have lived in the Westport area for years and have been taught that the use of AI is prohibited, especially for important tasks,” wrote a student survey respondent. This just shows that you can’t practice what you preach, and if you can’t even follow your own rules, how can you expect your students to? ”
Despite wavering opinions about teachers’ use of AI in general, 87% of the 115 students surveyed expected there to be a formal policy outlining how teachers may or may not use AI. No such policy currently exists.
Principal Thomas said more comprehensive ideas about the use of AI are continually being discussed at school board meetings.
“Certainly we’re trying to embrace that,” Thomas said. “But it will be done at a different speed and in different sectors.”
