Instead of worrying about student’s copying off of each other’s work, school administrators and teachers must now consider what sort of entity is doing the work: a living person or AI generative technology. With responsive AI recently becoming more accessible and popular with teenagers, more and more students are using it for dishonest purposes.
CESJDS is providing information to teachers to ensure the school is well prepared to deal with AI in the classroom. Over the summer, four members of the faculty, including High School Assistant Principal Aileen Goldstein, attended a summit sponsored by the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) about addressing artificial intelligence in high schools.
The procedure for consequences when a student is caught using AI without permission is the same as a student using any resource they aren’t allowed to use, such as working with a friend or using a calculator when they aren’t allowed to.
“Last year we handled [AI usage] on a case-by-case basis of what the assignment was and how the student used AI,.” History Department Chair Carl Atwood said.
This year, the school also added a section to the Family Handbook about AI usage under the Academic Integrity section. This section states that AI may only be used if the teacher allows it, and must be pointed out through a citation. This new universal rule regarding AI is emblematic of its increasing prevalence since last year.
Although AI is new, the circumstances are not. Classrooms are constantly having to adapt to new circumstances in the world, like frequent advancements in technology.
“Just like how when the internet came out it was a scramble; how do we use this thing? What is this thing?” Goldstein said. “And I think AI is a similar process for educators of having to rethink, adjust, focus in different ways and gain new skill sets because although you’re trained, it changes.”
Many assignments at JDS now allow for AI usage, as long as it is properly cited. Depending on the assignment, teachers may view it as either an aid or a barrier to learning.
“It depends on what the learning goals of the assignment are; if the learning goals are to develop an argument and use course content to support it, then AI should not be doing those goals,” Atwood said. “If it’s an English class where the goals are sentence construction and using complex nouns, AI should not be doing that for you… In a history assignment, the skill being focused on might be argument development, and then the grunt work that AI might be able to help out with is grammar,”
JDS administration acknowledges the negatives and positives that come with AI tools like ChatGPT, and JDS teachers and administrators are doing their best to adapt and continue teaching regardless.
“AI can support your learning, but we don’t want it to replace students’ ability to demonstrate their own skills,” Atwood said.
