With AI, as the report suggests, creating more complex and satisfying cognitive tasks offers a greater opportunity value for students to accomplish, and the report clearly identifies this as the first pillar. As expressed in the report, educators should design tasks that consider the use of AI, since AI can easily replicate fact-based or conceptual tasks devoid of critical thinking. Furthermore, the report encourages educators not just to consider the use of AI in assisting them to formulate lesson plans but also in designing simulations where students enact based on provided standards that aim to facilitate interdisciplinary learning.
Besides teachers, the report discusses how students can leverage AI to produce videos, presentations, and interactive stories, which help them engage with course content on a deeper level. The report notes the change in the learner role, stating, “Students need to be creators nowadays instead of consumers of knowledge. Students can be guided towards the ethics of these technologies in the creation and problem-solving processes, so during class time, they can focus on the polishing of their works.” The report outlines what AI can do but states, “AI should not be the final step in the creative process, but it can effectively serve as the initial stages.”
It is suggested that teachers dealing with AI technologies do so with great care, as the biases and limitations are well-versed. AI should provide the initial framework but requires critical consideration of context, appropriateness, and relevance relative to the audience. The report provides that the tools of AI should only be presented after learners are advanced enough with the concepts taught.
Enhancing Management Utility While Keeping Sensitive Information Confidential
The second pillar tackles the remaining issues regarding the incorporation of AI technology by teachers and its impact on their administrative burden. The report’s findings claim that AI has the potential to assist teachers with tasks such as grading multiple-choice tests, lesson preparation, and even translating assignments for English language learners. However, a striking limitation is placed: SREB recommends that educators restrain their reliance on AI for evaluating student work.
One of the key aspects discussed in this section is protecting students’ privacy. The report alleges that the companies owning the AI systems might harvest data during the usage of AI, data that has potential monetary value and could be sold to dubious advertisers. Because of this, school districts are warned to scrutinize the agreements concerning any AI applications being contemplated for adoption in instructional and administrative processes.
The report is unequivocal that schools and districts should, for no reason, implement AI systems that encompass personally identifiable information. As such, SREB advises that public educational institutions incur the responsibility of formulating checklists or criteria to evaluate the safety and privacy concerns of AI systems intended for student use.
Tailoring Individual Learning Experiences
The third pillar assesses the ways in which AI can customize and enhance learning for each individual student. The report mentions that AI is capable of analyzing real-time data pertaining to a student’s activity, participation, and learning behaviors. Such analysis makes it possible for systems to offer calculated aid by either providing struggling learners with additional materials or more sophisticated content to those who have already mastered the subject.
The report asserts that AI’s power of personalizing assistance to this extent can help relieve teachers and, in turn, allow them more time for meaningful engagement and relationship building with students.
Regardless of these findings, the report places emphasis on the effective application of these AI tools requiring students to have constant access to needed technology and the internet. It cautions that failing to meet these resource obligations for under-resourced students may inadvertently widen the divide in achievement gaps. Alongside this, the guidance reminds educators of the necessity to allow students to balance their reliance on technology and manage screen time.
Responsible Use and Media Literacy
Lastly, the four pillars emphasize the careful consideration media literacy receives along with AI technology’s rampant disinformation. It encourages teachers to tackle issues such as bias, cheating, deepfakes, and hallucinations with radical engagement. The report defines deepfakes as portrayals of images and videos that are true in context but not true in actuality, while hallucinations pertain to the generation of content that is presented as factual in description but in essence is generated by AI without any truth or reference. It ensures the reader has a basic understanding of how both phenomena add to misinformation.
To make dealing with these difficulties easier and promote the responsible use of AI, the creation of student-led AI ethics committees is suggested in the report. As outlined, these would function as creative venues in which students can continue debates and learn about the ramifications associated with the completion of AI projects and the employment of AI tools. The impacts of artificial intelligence and its subsequent effects undoubtedly remain critical topics for constant discourse.
From the report as well as the author Leslie Eaves, SREB’s program director for project-based learning, noted, “It is important to teach students the ethical use of AI as it shapes the future in which technology should be wielded in the best interest of humanity.” Along the lines of the rationale of the report, the authors stress even more, “As the use of AI technologies becomes increasingly commonplace, students are not only required to wield these tools, but ethically wield them.”
