AI in Our Classrooms: Part 2

Explore how technology is transforming education with Maria Kainz, a first-year English teacher at Oscar Smith High, and Andrew LeClair, a technology innovation coach from Hickory Middle. Together, they discuss the opportunities and challenges of incorporating AI into classrooms, offering insights on how it can enhance personalized learning and prepare students for a tech-driven world. This episode highlights their dedication to creating thoughtful, ethical approaches to using AI while inspiring meaningful conversations about its role in education. 

The Stories Behind Our Story

Transcript

Exploring AI in Classroom Education

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast.

Speaker 2 0:13

Chesapeake Public Schools is located in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. We proudly serve over 40,000 students in 45 schools and three centers. Join us as we share the stories behind our story by celebrating the people and programs that make us one of the premier school districts in Virginia.

Speaker 1 0:32

Welcome listeners. This is Matt Graham here with Chris Vail and we are excited to bring you another episode here on Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast, and this is part two of AI in the Classrooms. But before we get there, it is November and, Chris, do you have any special things that you do over the Thanksgiving holidays?

Speaker 2 0:52

Well, turkey Day is always special in my house. You know family coming over. We do a lot of the cooking, but I was hoping that AI would help me cook that turkey this year.

Speaker 1 1:03

I definitely could use some AI to help out with my cooking. Fortunate enough that my wife is an exceptional cook. I don't know, you know what she might actually use some AI to spruce up the recipe a little bit. Maybe get a little bit of that Southern Living magazine in there too.

Speaker 2 1:17

Well, you know what and I bet a lot of our listeners use AI to find those side dishes you know that they want to incorporate to their Thanksgiving dinner.

Speaker 1 1:25

Yeah, Well, last episode we had Dr Jeffrey Faust, our Chief Technology Innovation Officer, share with us sort of a broad perspective on how we are using AI here in Chesapeake Public Schools. But in this episode we talk with a teacher a first-year teacher, maria Kynes from Oscar Smith High School, and a technology innovation coach, andrew LeClaire at Hickory Middle School specifically how they are introducing some AI programs with their students.

Speaker 2 1:55

It's exciting information that they're giving us as your student and Chesapeake Public Schools. Students move throughout school. We're going to see the introduction of artificial intelligence more in the classroom and, as they move out to higher ed or to a job, more and more jobs are incorporating AI.

Speaker 1 2:14

Right, it's important to know the skill, how to create these prompts. I mean we're using it here in the communications department.

Speaker 2 2:22

Yeah, and I've sent a lot of you out for professional development on how to incorporate AI and how to better enhance our job.

Speaker 1 2:30

So tune in. We hope you enjoy this episode on AI in our classrooms. So we have with us today a TIC technology innovation coach with us today a TIC technology innovation coach, and we also have a teacher. The TIC is Andrew LeClaire. From what school? I'm from Hickory Middle, and we have Maria from Oscar Smith High School. Andrew, you've been with us for how long now?

Speaker 3 2:56

Eight or nine years I've been in the Hickory community, so I did Hickory High as an English teacher and now I'm over at Hickory Middle as a TIC.

Speaker 1 3:03

Well, both of you, welcome to the podcast. We are happy to have you. Thank you and Maria, you have been with us so long. Right, You've been with us for 10 years already.

Speaker 4 3:14

Oh, it feels like it's been ages. Yeah, I started in January. Actually, I did start with Oscar Smith. In January we moved to Chesapeake just so that I could teach with Oscar Smith High.

Speaker 1 3:25

So what brought you to Chesapeake Public Schools?

Speaker 4 3:27

I was living in Richmond and I'd been in theater for about 10 years left the theater community and was like, okay, what am I going to do next? I really wanted to continue to make an impact in the community and so I went back to grad school at ODU and got my master's in education for English and when I was applying to schools, oscar Smith and Chesapeake really just struck me as the place to be. So I up and moved and we moved to Chesapeake so that I could start at Oscar Smith.

Speaker 1 3:57

And here you are on our district podcast. And then Andrew, what about you?

Speaker 3 4:01

Yeah, so I was teaching English in Florida and I relocated for family and I actually live in North Carolina and I interviewed in North Carolina and here at Chesapeake and I just loved the community. So I make the commute every day to come over here and teach. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 4:18

Well, again, we're glad that you have joined the Chesapeake Public Schools family and we're glad you're here and discussing this topic on AI in the classroom. Let's start with you, maria, since you have a different, unique perspective, I think, because first year teacher coming in and AI is all the buzz, can you share how you are starting to have that AI discussion with your students in your English class?

Speaker 4 4:44

Yeah, so for 12th grade English, which is British literature, we are studying Frankenstein and, to kind of give it like a purpose behind why we're reading this book other than it's British literature, we're studying what does it mean to be human? And as AI becomes so ingrained in everything we do, how does AI contrast with that? How do we differentiate what artificial intelligence can provide versus what human intelligence can provide? And so the students are analyzing how Frankenstein's monster, how humans and how artificial intelligence kind of differentiate in that way. And we did a great first introduction where I used AI to create different art writing samples and I used real art and writing samples and I had the students walk around the room and decide if it was AI or real and they would be like totally blown away that EE Cummings was real and the AI created EE Cummings was fake. So they really started to like question created a EE Cummings was fake, so they really started to like question okay, where does our creativity come from versus like AI's creativity?

Speaker 1 5:50

And what's that been like with the discussion with the students?

Speaker 4 5:53

I think they're starting to see it and I was showing them like if you can tell the difference between art that is brought from the internet, where AI is just pulling all of this different art and combining it together, it still doesn't quite look like it's got emotion behind it. And they start to see that and they realize like there is something they bring to the table. It's not as easy as like going okay, chat, gpt, let me write my essay because it's not going to feel like you. And they start to kind of go okay, so what can we do with that? How can we incorporate it in a way where it's still us?

Speaker 1 6:30

Example. I created some of these prompts to help guide this discussion using AI and they came up with some good prompts and I could tell it was AI written. So then I go in and make some edits and use that written. So then I go in and make some edits and use that. How are your?

Speaker 4 6:49

teachers using it in the building that you've noticed, particularly for creating product, if you're going to have a worksheet or if you need a slide deck. A lot of things we've been using have been Magic School. Ai has been a program that's been introduced and teachers find out about it. I just introduced it to one of the other teachers and I was like if you're trying to make a worksheet, check out, check out magic school, because you're going to spend forever trying to think up the perfect questions, or you can start with this and it will give you a starting place. Then you go back in and make it fit your age group. But they really do use like that for slide decks and as a good starting place to kind of build off of.

Speaker 1 7:26

Maria's mentioning programs, and I'm coming to you here, andrew, that's where sort of your specialty is as a technology innovation coach. So what is a technology innovation coach for our listeners out there?

Speaker 3 7:38

So we used to be referred to as TISs last year and they started to. They gave us a new title because they wanted to really capture that we're not just tech support. We're really here to work closely with teachers to help support them in using software in the classroom, to include AI. So we're not just, hey, my Chromebook doesn't work, what do I do? But hey, how do we come up with some really cool lessons and get kids engaged and really use this technology that we've invested in as a district?

Speaker 1 8:11

So you work hand in hand with the teachers, and there's one at every school. Dr Faust was mentioning that, as a group, the TICs have been started to receive training on AI.

Speaker 3 8:22

Yeah, so I'm probably a special case in that I've gotten to do a couple of coaching conferences and I was able to go to Denver, colorado, over the summer and so really the whole I went to the ISTE conference.

Speaker 3 8:36

And so one of the biggest or their biggest focus, I can say for sure, was AI. It's not new. Pretty much since you've had predictions software on your cell phone, you know that's all powered by AI. Now we're just using it more specifically, like we know we're using it, and so that's really exploded in the last year. You know, when they opened it up to like students, teachers, kind of just in TIC meetings, playing back and forth with, hey, how are you using AI? But in Denver, yeah, pretty much every session all day long was how to use AI effectively, how to write prompts, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 9:15

Right and then obviously give best practices for our teachers and also for our students as well. Dr Felson mentioned that Gemini is available and you just mentioned Magic School. Can you tell us, Andrew, a little bit about Gemini in the schools?

Speaker 3 9:29

Sure. So yeah, teachers do have access to Gemini, students do not have access yet as far as I know. I don't know if they will. That's more of a Dr Felson thing, but Gemini is powered by Google, so I think, to just give background, chatgpt is sort of like the baseline AI that everybody knows.

Speaker 3 9:50

And Magic School AI is powered by ChatGPT. So basically every different AI that you use just kind of has is ChatGPT with a mask. But Gemini is different than Magic School and ChatGPT because it's powered by Google. Now when you look something up and you see like a little star come up and then you have a generated answer, all that's powered by Gemini. It used to be called BARD. That was Google's products, but it's sort of their version of chat GPT and it's powered by pretty much everything in their repertoire of information. So everything that Google has access to fuels the knowledge that Gemini has.

Student Engagement and AI Education

Speaker 1 10:29

With that program and then these other AI programs that are out there. Let's talk about how this is going to affect student engagement and student learning. Maria, what's your perspective about how we're moving with AI in the classroom, with student engagement and student learning?

Speaker 4 10:47

I think it can be one of those both ends so many people are like it's terrifying or it's fantastic and I'm like there's a middle ground because we can use it. But right now, I actually did a survey of my students. I asked them who's turned in an assignment using generative AI and I'm not trying to catch you out, I'm just trying to like get a feeler for what you guys are doing and less than 50% of them said they had used it and a lot of them were like I just don't know where to even find it. And I was kind of just feeling like okay, so we have somewhere to go with this, especially those seniors who are getting ready to go out into the big bad world and need kind of guidance on how to approach AI ethically. So I'm using it as a way to bridge that gap, to get them involved but also step back from the computers. So have conversations around it.

Speaker 4 11:38

How can you use it to help you? Where could it hurt you? But I do think engagement-wise, it has opportunities to get them to play with technology rather than see technology as either a way to get in trouble or a way to distract themselves from everything else and get out of doing work. So I think it can be an engagement tool. It's just how we introduce it first.

Speaker 1 12:03

That's the tricky part. I think you're doing the right track with it because you're having them thinking about the ethical use of it, which I think is great. Andrew, you've had some experience with AI at Hickory Middle. Can you go ahead and talk to us about that?

Speaker 3 12:16

Yeah. So we have a pretty substantial EL population there and students who just don't have a lick of English when they come our way, and so the challenge has been how do we even get them anywhere near the curriculum? And so I had a teacher approach me and say you know, hey, we're reading Night and can you find an audiobook in French for Night? And just to preface that the student doesn't speak French, but it was like the closest link the student speaks Lingala, but it was the closest language. I think that the teacher thought we could get for that student. And so I've been, you know, we've been. We had been talking about AI and it just kind of struck me I was like, wait a minute, I could make this student an audio book in Lingala. So I used features that live on the Chromebook, basically like the, the accessibility features where the.

Speaker 3 13:05

Chromebook reads to you. I activated that and gave it a realistic accent. And then I went to Magic School AI and I dropped the book in and the book's out of copyright. So that was a real thing, to do so.

Speaker 4 13:18

Be careful with that.

Speaker 3 13:20

But I dropped the book in and translated the entire book.

Speaker 1 13:24

And how long did that?

Speaker 3 13:24

take Maybe one minute, if that Maybe 30 seconds, and so it translated the entire book. And how long did that take? Maybe one minute, if that, maybe 30 seconds. And so it translated the entire book and you can upload a whole file too. So that's actually what I did I uploaded the book and it translated the book, it dropped it back in a pretty well-formatted file for me, and then I made this student a side-by-side book the English was to the right and the Lingala was to the left to sort of try to help bridge some of the language gap too.

Speaker 3 13:49

And then I turned on the Chromebook feature and it read the student the entire book, and so we took content that the student would have never been able to access and we made it accessible to that student. And then I was able to also use AI to communicate with the student. I was like, can you give me a summary of what this book is saying? Because I wanted to make sure it's right, because I think we do. We have a tendency to still not trust what we don't know, and so the student typed in his language what his understanding was from what we had read. Because I worked with these students one-on-one to kind of teach them how to use Magic School and all of that, and it was spot on, wow. So we were able to communicate for the first time.

Speaker 1 14:38

That's amazing, and so that's another success of how students getting personalized learning with AI they're engaged, so that does seem like a success. Moving forward with it. Now, with the successes, there's probably some challenges. Have y'all experienced any challenges with AI?

Speaker 3 14:49

So I was an English teacher, so I think the biggest challenge right when AI sort of became available to students. So the most obvious challenge is are students going to do their own work? And so I think that that was sort of the biggest challenge was to know when, I mean, there was a change in the quality of student writing overnight when AI came out.

Speaker 1 15:09

Have you noticed that at all?

Speaker 4 15:11

I've seen a few that I go. I don't think you know how to spell that word, so that's probably not you.

Speaker 3 15:16

Okay, and what we've had to do.

Speaker 3 15:19

You know, there are things like you can feed the AI back the material and I don't think teachers realize that, that you can feed the generated content back and just say, hey, did you generate this? And then there's apps like GPT-0, which, like you know, you were talking about when you guys walked around and were like is this AI? Is this human? It's trained to know sort of, to be able to detect AI within almost 100% accuracy. Yes, there have been challenges, right, obviously the biggest one, I think, being our students doing their own work but, it's out there.

Speaker 3 15:53

So it's, I think, you know, and students tend to be ahead of the curve with technology over us teachers in the classroom, even some of us tech guys. So I think the biggest thing is that we need to start using it as teachers and talking about it and letting kids know like hey, we know it's here, so that we know, like, kind of what tools are available to us to kind of skirt some of those challenges.

Speaker 4 16:14

I do think that you got to stay ahead of the curve on it and I feel like that's where I've been trying to stay because they do. They'll try to like turn in something and I'm like I know you didn't write that, but there's a way to like that, we know. One of the things I'm hoping to integrate is grammar instruction is like every English teacher's least favorite thing to do. We don't. It's hard to like go back into high school and be like hey, this is where a comma goes. If you can give Gemini a paragraph, like write this paragraph, and then show the students how they can rewrite that paragraph and make it better, they might start seeing how, yeah, there are pitfalls to it, but we can be better. We are better than chat GPT still, so they can see those advantages.

Speaker 1 17:00

You were saying, maria, that your seniors haven't dabbled as much that you've seen with AI, but I think the future jobs are going to gear to that. So what sort of lasting effects do you think AI will have, maybe on their future career paths?

Speaker 4 17:16

That's actually why I went okay, we've really got to do this, because the students are so afraid to write because they're worried about what they sound like with their writing. And so I thought well, if you're going to go out into the world and you're going to have AI available to you, let's learn how to use it so that when you want to write an email to your boss and you're not sure how to phrase it, maybe you use AI and then translate it into your voice. But knowing that balance, so I do have them do a lot of independent writing. We have journals that we write every day and we have journals that we do. Questions like that will be job interview questions or college application essays. But then, when we're looking at how to use AI, I try to think about how are we going to be able to train them to think about AI as a tool to be used rather than a tool to be trusted implicitly?

Speaker 3 18:10

You know, I think the first thing I want to say, and it's kind of a sidebar, but I want to make sure I say it in this podcast is people keep saying AI is coming.

Speaker 3 18:19

No, it's here and it has been. So we're almost behind the curve if we're not using it yet. And again, to reiterate you have been using it. If you've used Grammarly, that's powered by AI. If you've got predictive text on your phone, that's powered by AI. Part of what I want to say is to put down some of the fear, because it's more familiar than you think, and it is a tool.

Speaker 3 18:41

We're living in a space where jobs are completely being redefined by what computers are able to do. I think that, 100%. I agree. We have to know how to use it to be the most successful. I'm using it as a doctoral student, using it for research, creating tools with it, like there are so many things that AI can do to make you better at what you already do.

Speaker 1 19:06

If y'all had to share anything with the parents and the community, specifically the parents, about AI and AI in the classroom, what would you tell them?

Speaker 4 19:15

Don't be scared of it. The more we try to hide from what's happening, the more the students are going to be like oh, what is this new shiny thing that I can play with? We as a community in general, it's great for us to model how to use this technology in a safe way and model the kinds of skills that AI can't do Empathy, communication, interpersonal skills that are not available via AI. Maybe those are the skills we should really be showing our students how to to do so that when the AI as it is continues to grow, we know how to use it safely, we know how to use it ethically and we have the skills that will set us apart from AI. So the hope I would say is don't be afraid of it. Show your students how to use it ethically and when to set it aside and when to use it.

Speaker 3 20:14

Yeah, speaking about humanity and speaking about the future of AI and how that looks in the job world, I think 100% what we have to contribute as people, as parents, as teachers, is the humanity behind the use of AI Kids knowing like I think, kids do generally want to do the right thing and so teaching them what is the right use of AI. You know you're talking about it being a starting point, or you know it being something to generate a background, or you know like, use it as a starting point, use it as a tool. It's our 2024 version of a calculator or whatever the case may be, but that's really.

Speaker 3 20:54

I'm not going to say that's all it is because it's, it's amazing, but that's really all it has to be in the grand scheme of things. This is another way to sort of make us more effective at what we already do.

Integrating AI in Classroom Education

Speaker 4 21:04

I really look forward to seeing how my Frankenstein unit goes and how much they love it or don't love it and how we can fix it for the next time around, because I know other teachers are interested in how we can use AI and just don't really want to put their foot in the door yet. I think us trying it and TICs coming in and telling us it's okay makes it a better tool to use.

Speaker 3 21:30

I just want to say your unit is crazy cool for one, and as someone who taught and then works with teachers, I would say that's a great maybe foot in the door for other teachers, even, just like you said, having the conversation.

Speaker 1 21:45

Well, thank you all so much for coming in today and sharing your perspective and also share how you're starting to incorporate AI in the classroom. I think it's very informative for our community to hear how we are starting to navigate the use of AI in the classroom.

Speaker 4 22:01

Yay, thank you.

Speaker 1 22:06

We hope you enjoyed the stories behind our story on this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Feel free to visit us at cpschoolscom. Forward slash Amplified for any questions or comments and make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.