Take this leader’s advice on bringing AI to the classroom
In this future-forward district, artificial intelligence is far from a feared technology. It’s a tool educators at Greenville County Schools embrace to enhance learning and streamline administrative tasks. Here’s how this leader inspired such innovation.
One of the keys to impactful learning is keeping students engaged, says Jeff McCoy, associate superintendent for academics for South Carolina’s largest district. Technology has played a critical role in engaging students as they experimented with tools like virtual reality and generative AI.
“We felt like we needed to dive into the world of AI, so to speak, because that’s something that they’re [students] going to have to use in our AI-powered world,” says McCoy. Soon after ChatGPT was made public, McCoy trained his senior leadership staff to help them understand its full potential. From there, they agreed that leaning into the technology was their next step toward innovation.
“The gist of it was, we expect staff and students to embrace it, we expect you to use it morally, ethically responsibly, those kinds of things,” says McCoy. “We want you to use this, we just need to be safe about it, ultimately.”
The district then started training its 6,000 teachers on ChatGPT and Magic School, which he says saves teachers hours each week. McCoy says Greenville County is still in the training phase, helping teachers become as comfortable with the technology as they are with other edtech.
As for students, they’ve implemented Amira Learning, an AI reading program that targets learning gaps. The real challenge, however, is learning how to assess academic integrity in this new era of AI.
“What is cheating? What does plagiarism look like in this era? Those are the kinds of problems we’re starting to delve into and tackle to redefine what it looks like in an AI world,” says McCoy.
Recommendations for administrators
Other leaders can mirror Greenville’s stance on generative AI by developing a position statement rather than a traditional AI policy. “Most of our policies already cover AI,” says McCoy. “Do you need another policy specifically for AI or do your existing policies already cover that?”
Then, start training from the top down—an approach McCoy finds unique. Not every superintendent and senior leader needs to learn how to use virtual reality, but everyone can utilize AI.
“I think we all have to be ready,” says McCoy. “When a parent says, ‘I just don’t know about this… I think it’s a bad thing,’ we all have to be able to go and talk about it and defend it and say, ‘No, let me tell you why this is a good thing and why your kid needs to know how to use AI and prompt engineering.”
Source: https://districtadministration.com/take-this-leaders-advice-on-bringing-ai-to-the-classroom/
