Educators make room for AI in the classroom

SALISBURY — Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay, and educators are gingerly adapting.

That was the message from the Salisbury Forum’s panel at Salisbury School Friday, Sept. 27.

The panel included Ian Strever, Principal of Housatonic Valley Regional High School (HVRHS); Richard Davis, Dean of Academic Life at The Hotchkiss School; Sarah Mulrooney, Dean of Academic Life at Salisbury School; and Matt Mervis, Director of AI Strategy at EdAdvance.

Jonathan Costa, Executive Director at EdAdvance, moderated.

“AI is suddenly everywhere,” Costa began. “ChatGPT is the tip of the iceberg.”

Cotsa described generative AI as “giant synthesizing machines” that “crawl” through enormous amounts of data.

“It takes your prompt and is really good at predicting what you want to see.”

Costa said the advent of AI is “the final curtain for rote learning.” AI will reduce the time it takes to complete a task, combined with a “higher order of engagement.”

And AI works at incredible speeds.

“My fear is that schools won’t change fast enough.”

“The implications are endless,” Costa said, with “great benefits” and “dark corners.”

He asked the panelists how AI is being used in their schools. Salisbury School’s Mulrooney said she first heard “rumblings” about ChatGPT in November of 2022, and the immediate concern was cheating or plagiarism.

“We spent some time on prevention,” she said, and then moved into finding more about AI and how it was being used elsewhere.

For the 2023-24 school year, the attitude was one of “curiosity and discernment.”

In the current school year, Mulrooney asked teachers for their opinions and was immediately met with resistance. “‘ I don’t touch it, and I dont let my students touch it’ were the first responses.”

Davis, from The Hotchkiss School, said he started hearing about AI during the winter holiday break in 2022.

Hotchkiss has not banned AI. Davis said the emphasis has been one of exploration.

He noted one immediate consequence of the rise of AI.

“Evidence of learning changed overnight for the written word.”

“We’re trying to get people to use it to see what it can do,” he continued. “We’re still in that place.”

“It’s pretty exciting — and terrifying.”

Strever, from HVRHS, said, “I’m pretty sure it gave at least one English teacher a coronary” when the AI issue surfaced. “We have it as a brainstorming tool, an idea generator.”

The current attitude is that AI “is not the best thing, not the worst thing. We’re somewhere in the middle.”

Costa noted that New York City public schools tried a ban on the use of AI (since modified) and asked the educators if their schools have considered going that route.

Mulrooney said Salisbury School won’t ban AI, but will police it. “The onus is more on teachers on what the boundaries are.”

Davis said AI can be used by students to “bypass or enhance.”

“So it’s about clarity,” with teachers setting clear rules on AI use.

Strever agreed, and said that AI cannot replace passion.

“When a student is passionate about a topic, they will write reams about it.”

Costa said that many technologies act as “intensifiers,” and that AI will make good teachers better while alarming lazy teachers.

Mervis used the example of a regular newsletter put out by a teacher. Much of the work that goes into the newsletter is repetitive and time-consuming. A teacher using AI could get the tedious work done in a fraction of the time, and use that saved time “to do something useful.”

Jonathan Costa (at left) moderated a Salisbury Forum panel on artifical intelligence Friday, Sept. 27. The panelists were (from left) Ian Strever, Richard Davis, Matt Mervis and Sarah Mulrooney.Patrick L. Sullivan

Costa asked how AI can be used in instruction. Mulrooney gave an example. In a unit involving debate, the class could let AI have the actual debate, and then, using their own critical thinking skills, “analyze the arguments and discourse.”

Davis, who teaches ancient Greek, said he typically spends a lot of time coming up with sentences and paragraphs for his students to work on after they’ve exhausted the material in the textbook.

An initial attempt at using ChatGPT to come up with samples wasn’t successful, but a subsequent try with another program “worked pretty well.”

“It was the first time AI was a time-saver.”

Strever said he was interested to see how HVRHS photography students caught on to AI’s possibilities and began using it in production.

Costa asked the panel about their hopes and fears for AI.

“Neuralink,” said Strever, referring to Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company. “The possibility this ends up embedded in your head is terrifying.”

Davis said AI’s potential for personalized learning is “super-exciting.”

On the downside, he said he worries about “the human element,” particularly gullibility and a propensity to take short cuts.

Mulrooney said she is worried about the pace of change, but she is seeing the utility of AI in real-life situations.

Mervis said making dire comparisons to dystopian science fiction works is “a way to avoid talking about bias, energy consumption” and other AI issues.

Ultimately, he hopes AI “will free up teachers to do something meaningful.”