AI in the classroom: Can it enhance learning without replacing it?

Heads up, everyone: AI has arrived and it’s everywhere, including classrooms. 

How can students responsibly use artificial intelligence tools to help them learn, not do their learning for them? How can teachers employ AI to amplify their lessons and keep cheating in check? We talk with two educators on the leading edge of AI-augmented instruction, Aaron Romoslawski in Forest Hills and Michael Kennedy in Grandville, about how teachers are creatively preparing students for a world that will be filled with AI.     

For more great stories about the changes and challenges of school districts in West Michigan, check out our website, School News Network.org. And if you have ideas for future programs, feel free to send them to us at SNN@kentisd.org. Thanks for listening, and happy studying! 

Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to Study Hall from School News Network, your window into the public schools of Kent County, Michigan. Special welcome to our listeners at WGVU. We're here today to talk about AI, artificial intelligence, its positive uses, and possible abuses in our schools. Most experts agree it offers powerful potential for teaching and learning, as well as problematic pitfalls. Here to provide some perspective, our two Kent County educators on the leading edge of integrating AI into our classrooms. Aaron Romoslowski is Director of AI Strategy and Instructional Innovation for Forest Hills Public Schools, and has been in the forefront of helping his district incorporate AI into classrooms. Michael Kennedy is assistant principal at Grandville High School and has played a key role in Grandville Public Schools' recent implementation of AI for all students and staff. Erin and Michael, welcome to you both.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I'm interested, uh, Aaron, uh, first of all, in why uh and how Forest Hills has incorporated into your classrooms. Uh, what did you see as the need uh to do this?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Uh the need was presented to us when ChatGPT was released and the fact that it's going to transform society. The need has been uh sustained and reinforced through uh activities that our students were seeing at colleges as early as in the spring semester of 2023, that there were certain collegiate classes that were requiring students to use this and creating, you know, before completely unthinkable projects that students wouldn't have ever been able to achieve, that now they were ex expecting them to be able to achieve, and then the workforce changes that are happening. Maintaining that education, that AI and literacy is something that is essential now for hires. And there's even research that suggests businesses are more likely to hire someone who is AI and literate and fluent over someone who has more experience at the position. And so if we're not teaching our students about this, we're setting them up to be a pretty big strategic disadvantage, not only in their college, but then in their workplace as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So it was really uh students cannot really afford to graduate without these skills at this point.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

At this point, it's becoming essential that students have an awareness of the appropriate uses of AI.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Michael, is that pretty uh resonate with what you're seeing in Grandville?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, I think it's right on, hits the nail on the head.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

So uh I think people are probably a little mystified, unless they're in education, as to how AI works in a classroom situation, uh, and situations where it might work well in a particular class or subject area. Uh Mike at Grandville High School there, can you give me a couple ideas, a couple examples of uh where you see this working well?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, I can I can think of an English class in particular. Um, this this particular classroom has a number of multilanguage learner students in it. And so when they are working on various assignments projects, they use an AI uh translator to help them with some of the more nuanced uh words or parts of language. Uh there was there's one student I'm uh I'm blanking on where, but it was a fairly uh you know lesser known language than maybe Spanish or Swahili or Bosnian, which we have a lot of uh speakers, and um was able to use that AI bot to kind of help navigate through and found themselves not falling behind, but able to keep up with you know people who'd spoken English their whole lives. So really cool example to sort of bridge that gap for that student. Um I'm seeing it in other places where uh teachers are using the AI bots to help uh foster feedback for students on their work, whether it's writing or various other parts of their project. Because what it does then is it allows the teacher to take time with those students who most desperately need that one-on-one teacher experience versus the student who would maybe take up the teacher's time, but can now actually get that same quick feedback from the AI bot instead of the teacher themselves. So it allows the teacher to go deeper with the students who have the greatest needs.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So do many of your teachers say this is uh kind of like having an assistant, that it does free them up in many ways from uh to to do other things that uh they need to do as a teacher?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Aaron Powell Yeah, I I don't think they're quite ready to say that yet. I think they're starting to see, though, that this is exactly how AI can function best in schools as an assistant, whether it's helping craft a difficult email to a parent, uh, whether it's designing a lesson where you've just kind of hit your creative wall and I can't think of a thing that's gonna help move the needle for students. Uh, I think they're starting to see that through their own experiences. They have yet to use that term with me or amongst each other, but I think we're getting there.

AI As Assistant For Teachers

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah. So um I think uh in public perception and uh probably um in in uh maybe among many of your teachers and parents, the the the possibility of using AI to cheat, uh to let AI do the learning for you, uh, I think is is a widespread concern. So how what policies do you have in place to control this cheating factor uh uh and and how do the students themselves uh feel about it, uh Michael?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So we wrote into our AI policy some very clear directives about what it is allowed for and what it is not allowed for. And one of the big not allows is it should not replace your thinking and learning. It is to come alongside. It can be a research assistant, it could be you know something you're using to get feedback on something, but it is not to replace your learning. Um, so it we treat it just like any other academic dishonesty experience, right? Our our student handbook has a very clear policy about that. We've actually doubled down. We have not only an academic integrity policy, but we also have an AI policy built into the student handbook that reiterates if you're using this to think, there could be consequences for it, whether that's at the classroom level or at the building level, that could result in, you know, you have to redo the assignment. It could be, you know, all the way up to some some level of suspension, maybe even losing credit for a course if you continue to allow this to think for you instead of you thinking.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah, sort of like uh plagiarism, right? Back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And I think that's that's mostly where we see it is in terms of plagiarism.

Guardrails And Academic Integrity

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Uh Aaron, in Forest Hills, um, do you see any evidence of increased cheating because of AI?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

I think we're seeing more of what was already happening in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Um, we've really encouraged staff to approach it as a citation issue. So if you use it in your paper and it's not cited the same way that you would have talked to a student about citing mice and men, um, that you wouldn't take all of that essay or all that novel and plugged it into your essay before, and you wouldn't have taken an essay from somebody's website and plugged it in as your own. You're not to do that with AI. And by approaching it as a citation issue, that further reinforces that there's times and places that it is appropriate and there's ways that it's not appropriate. And then it creates a conversation with the student about what are we actually dealing with here and how can we move on from it. So when you know Charlie comes up to Aaron and says, Aaron, can you tell me about paragraph three? And Aaron's eyes get really big and he can't tell you anything about paragraph three, then there's a quick opportunity there to say, All right, Aaron, how about you grab a seat out in the hall for a couple minutes? I want you to rewrite this essay really quick, or give me an outline, or do X, Y, or Z that will show me that you have some mastery of this. And if you don't, it's a reteaching opportunity. And so, yes, uh, much like Granville, we have an academic dishonesty policy. There's all sorts of steps and processes to that. We've woven in AI into that academic dishonesty policy by talking about it as citation. But the biggest piece that matters with each and every one of those instances is how are we teaching on the back?

Citation Approach And Reteaching

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Well, it sounds like in both districts you're using AI as an enhancement of teaching and learning. Uh, certainly not a replacement for, and it's a fast-moving technology, and uh it's good to see that you're on top of it in in your respective districts. Thanks to you both for talking with us about this really important uh subject. Thanks to our listeners for joining us at WGVU. To hear the full version of this podcast, go to schoolnewsnetwork.org and click on podcasts, or you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again, and until next time, happy studying.