A.I. in Education: What K-12 Leaders Need to Know

As school and district leaders, you’re no strangers to charting a path forward through unknown educational terrain and making decisions as best you can based on the knowledge you acquire. And, “unknown educational terrain” is the perfect way to describe what we’re seeing when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and its use in schools. 

If you’re unsure of how you feel about AI, you’re not alone—and there’s certainly no shortage of opinions on the topic. Skeptics argue that AI is too impersonal, too invasive, and can perpetuate the biases and inequities that schools and districts are trying hard to put a stop to. Others are excited by AI’s potential and believe it can be a positive force in schools, not only for helping students learn, but also enabling teachers and school leaders to streamline their work and get back to what they do best: teaching and leading.

Both can be—and are—true. AI can both help and hinder education, which is why it's critical for education leaders to understand what it is, how it can be applied, and what to consider as you’re moving forward on your school or district’s AI journey. 

AI can both help and hinder education, which is why it's critical for education leaders to understand what it is, how it can be applied, and what to consider as you’re moving forward on your school or district’s AI journey. 

First, what is artificial intelligence (AI)?

AI is technology that simulates human intelligence. AI creators aim to build technologies that communicate and recognize just as a human would, but faster and more efficiently. 

While it might feel like AI is a new science—especially with the increased popularity of apps like ChatGPT and DALL-E over the past year—it’s important to remember that many of the technology platforms and apps that we use on a daily basis are powered by AI. Map and wayfinding apps like Google Maps and Waze, media streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, and ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft all use AI to personalize your experiences. 

While it might feel like AI is a new science—especially with the increased popularity of apps like ChatGPT and DALL-E over the past year, it’s important to remember that many of the technology platforms and apps we use on a daily basis are powered by AI.

Right now, the only type of AI that exists today is what’s called “narrow AI.” This means that the AI can only be trained to perform a single or narrow task, targeting a single subset of cognitive abilities and perfecting them. ChatGPT and DALL-E are considered to be narrow AI—and they’re also referred to as “generative AI.” Generative AI tools are those that can generate high-quality text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on.  

What are some of the ways AI is being applied in education?

Even though AI technology is referred to as narrow, the number of ways it’s being used in classrooms, schools, and districts is quickly widening. Here are just a few of the ways teachers and education leaders are utilizing AI:

• For classroom work: When creating engaging class materials became time-consuming, this Los Angeles-based teacher started experimenting with generative AI tools. Using MagicSchool, a tool for K-12 educators, he was able to use AI to create engaging math word problems that matched his students’ interests.
• For planning: This Texas educator uses AI to create lesson plans, presentations, emails, and checklists. She specifically used Magic Write, the embedded AI assistant in the graphic design tool Canva, to create a sixth-grade lesson on dinosaurs. It gave her an entire lesson plan broken down by time dedicated to each topic. 
• For educational resources: A prototype of a chatbot called Stretch—the brainchild of the newly-combined professional development organizations the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) will soon be able to help teachers and school leaders find vetted education research and articles quickly and efficiently. The tool is only being trained to find materials that have been developed by the two organizations to cut down on misinformation that often plagues AI-developed content. 

Of course, we can’t talk about implementing AI in education without addressing the recent conversation around AI and cheating. After all, with the right prompts, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have the ability to fabricate human-sounding essays and emails—and a fear of widespread cheating and amplified misinformation has followed that realization. While there’s certainly a cause for concern, recent research from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education that says the use of AI chatbots has not boosted overall cheating rates in schools. 

There’s also evidence that teachers are actually embracing AI more than students. In a Walton Family Foundation poll from July 2023, only a quarter of students between the ages of 12-18 say they use ChatGPT once a week, compared with 40% of teachers. 

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Three AI best practices for school leaders 

Make a shift towards increased application-based learning

In a world where generative AI can spit out an essay based on a word prompt within seconds, one thought is for teachers and education leaders to embrace more application-based learning in the classroom. Rather than assignments where the goal is to acquire and present information, the idea here is to create more opportunities within your curriculum and instruction for critical thinking and problem solving. 

In a world where generative AI can spit out an essay based on a word prompt within seconds, one thought is for teachers and education leaders to embrace more application-based learning in the classroom.

We know students learn best when there are hands-on experiences and real-world connections to the learning—like this school district that invites high school students to solve case challenges for Fortune 500 companies. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that the use of AI gets eliminated from this type of learning experience entirely, it does prioritize helping students learn to solve challenges in real-time, rather than write an essay or a report about the experience.

Encourage exploration of AI tools among your teachers and staff

The best way to become more familiar with uncharted territory? Test it. Encourage your team to experiment with AI tools to understand what’s out there, how the tools can be integrated into their work, and share their learnings with their peers (and you, too).

It’s also critical to give your teachers and staff the time and space to dedicate to exploring these tools during the school day. Consider repurposing a staff meeting into an “AI Exploration Meeting” to give your team uninterrupted learning time. 

By taking a proactive stance, you’re sending a signal to students, teachers, and your greater school community: even if you don’t know all the answers about education technology or its applications, you’re committed to beginning the conversation. 

Better yet, offer a live or self-paced workshop or professional development course on AI to help educators understand the AI applications and tools as well as the pedagogical content knowledge behind them, like key terms, ethical considerations, and other implications. Education technology organizations like ISTE, AI for K-12, CS for All, and Code.org all have resources for educators who want to learn about AI and how it can be used in the classroom.

Focus on developing AI guidelines rather than policies

Even though AI isn’t new, the popularity of generative AI tools like ChatGPT has accelerated the pace of change around the science. AI is developing so rapidly that many educators fear any school policies created around AI to ensure academic integrity or protect data privacy will be obsolete the moment they’re adopted.

In a recent Education Week webinar on AI, the advice around AI policy making was this: keep it simple as possible, and think guidelines over heavy-handed policies. For example, this school district in Washington state chose to develop “principles and beliefs” around AI—the main principle being that educators remain the key decision-makers even if AI informs their teaching choices. “We don’t want AI to be making decisions about student learning,” said Kris Hagel, the district’s executive director of digital learning. “We don’t want students just completely utilizing AI to turn in homework. We grounded it in ‘we want a human in the middle.’” 

Move forward with curiosity and proactiveness

AI is likely here to stay, and will continue to be an ongoing part of the conversation in our classrooms, schools, and districts. 

By taking a proactive stance and addressing the topic of AI in your school or district, you’re sending a signal to students, teachers, and your greater school community: even if you don’t know all the answers about education technology or its applications, you’re committed to beginning the conversation. 

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