NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - Generative AI, aka Artificial Intelligence -- and its potential for use, or misuse, in the classroom -- has been very much on the minds of North Salem educators lately.
The rapidly evolving, relatively new technology gained mainstream public adoption with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.
In the years since, folks have been struggling to get their heads wrapped around what some consider a major, transformative disruption to traditional learning models. Others embrace it as a powerful, personalized teaching tool.
Just like when the internet exploded – and later social media – there has been much fretting about cognitive decline, academic integrity, emotional wellness issues, and the erosion of the student-teacher connection.
Critical thinking is a key skill that can be applied to everything in life. It’s essential for analyzing information objectively, making better decisions, and effectively solving problems, experts say.
And, just as importantly, it helps us humans distinguish truth from misinformation.
With AI’s seemingly magical ability to mine internet data and repurpose it as convincingly realistic text and images, how will users always be able to believe their own “eyes and ears?” astutely asked one young participant at the North Salem Board of Education’s Feb. 4 workshop.
Students, teachers, administrators, librarians, and a parent who happens to work in the IT field gathered together that evening to tackle the intriguing topic.
Moderating the discussion was board Trustee Frances Havard. Representing faculty and staff were David Popken, chair of the English Department; chemistry teacher Stephen Mulick, and library media specialist Cynthia Sandler.
Speaking up for the administrative side were Meredith Dutra, director of technology and innovation, and Dr. Julio Vazquez, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Parent and community member Neil Hoffman also weighed in.
Last but not least, students had their say. They were 11th-grader Sadie Matt and 12th-graders Cailin Maloney, Isabella LeClair, and Sean Canellos – who were all candidly honest about how they currently use – or don’t use – generative AI.
Some focused on its time-saving functions, which they said cuts down on “grunt work” such as coming up with practice questions for tests, identifying paths for research, or whipping up quick images for a slide show. Others pointed to the benefits of using AI as a virtual study buddy off whom they could bounce ideas.
They all agreed, however, that the tool shouldn’t be used for actual assigned tasks such as writing essays, solving math problems, or creating real art.
Opening up the program with a “magic show” intended to demonstrate – and put into perspective -- various aspects of the technology was an intrepid troupe of learners from Sandler’s 7th-grade media literacy class.
Besides being amusing, the “tricks” were quite educational for clueless folks such as this writer. Performing them required lots of critical thinking skills.
Two of their conclusions?
“Generative AI responses and predictions mimic humans. It’s not actually thinking or intelligent the way we humans are.”
“The chatbots don’t think. They don’t care about us. And they cannot give good advice because they do not know us.”
Sandler quoted science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s “third law,” which states that any “sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
In other words, unfamiliar, complex, or highly advanced mechanisms appear miraculous to those who don’t understand their inner workings.
Sandler said the “magic show” exercise was her attempt to “demystify” AI for her young students.
DISRUPTION DISSECTED
A new study by the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education warns that the risks of AI -- such as cognitive atrophy from overreliance, data privacy concerns, and social-emotional development impacts -- currently outweigh the potential benefits in K-12 education.
While acknowledging that AI can help teachers and personalize learning, Brookings experts were pushing for a cautious “human-in-the-loop” approach.
Dutra kicked off the discussion by explaining why educators use words such as “disruptive” when referring to new technology like generative AI.
This isn’t everyone’s first rodeo, she said, recalling the scrambling that went on after social media emerged on the scene.
It’s not that educators aren’t used to – or are recklessly resisting -- adapting new technology to teaching.
“We explore it. Test it. We kick the tires. We decide if we want this tool or not in our schools. This is something that has just shown up,” Dutra said.
However, since AI seems to have been “thrust” upon it, the school community shouldn’t miss the “opportunity” to confront the technology head on and “mold it,” she advised, adding: “We’ve learned from others and we can look to the future.”
Dutra’s “biggest takeaway” is that the district needs to take a “slow and steady” approach.
“There are things we know, and things we don’t know,” she said.
Given that generative AI is only a few years old, the fact that there’s this “intense” kind of conversation shows the need, she said, to involve all stakeholders in the process.
Students in particular must be kept “at the center with the skills, positions, and values that we want to maintain in our schools,” Dutra said, asserting that that will help decide how “we want to utilize AI, or if we want to utilize it at all, here in North Salem.”
TO AI OR NOT TO AI
Popken, who teaches AP Literature, appeared firmly on the skeptics’ side of the AI argument.
“One of the most important things that students do in my class is take the ideas that are all jumbled up in their brains and figure out how to organize and articulate them,” he said.
The mere act of building an argument -- whether diving into an 18th-century poem or a Shakespearean play -- is “the critical ingredient in creative thinking,” Popken explained.
“That’s ultimately my charge. It’s not to produce Hamlet experts. Most won’t be English majors,” but he said, the skills his students pick up in class “are going to help them with whatever they decide to do with their lives.”
That simply can’t happen if they let an algorithm do all the intellectual work for them.
He calls that “cognitive offloading” or using tools such as computers, smartphones, and calculators to reduce the mental demand of a task, such as information processing.
“That’s such a dangerous step for our kids because they’re not developing the critical thinking skills,” Popken said.
(He admits that, back in his college days, he wasn’t above using Cliff Notes, those yellow-and-black, pocket-sized study guides that summarized, analyzed, and provided commentary on popular literary works.)
As the faculty advisor for The Tiger Times, North Salem’s official student newspaper, he “encourages” the kids not to use AI to write their articles.
However, if they’re doing something they’ve never done before – say, produce a movie or book review – Popken feels it’s okay to ask AI how such pieces should be “structured.”
SKILLS SHIFT
Mulick once spied a good moment to use AI when his chemistry students were preparing for a test.
He uploaded a practice one onto a “mini ChatGPT” tool that’s built into Google Classroom and directed students to tell it that they’d gotten certain answers wrong and needed suggestions for where they could re-focus their studying.
While AI can be useful when it acts “a little bit like a tutor or a colleague,” it shouldn’t be used as a crutch, insisted Mulick.
“Our brains are data aggregators, pattern recognitionists. We are letting a machine think for us and our children will not develop that crucial skill. Things will be too easy,” he said, adding: “It’s by making mistakes that we learn.”
Mulick distinctly remembers when folks feared that pocket calculators, particularly in the 1970s and ‘80s, were eroding basic arithmetic skills and encouraging laziness in students.
Now everyone has them “so it’s less valuable being able to remember what four times 82 is than being able to analyze stuff and problem solve.”
“The skill shifted. The internet came up. The skill shifted. I think the same thing is true here” with AI, Mulick said.
Nevertheless, in order to learn, students have to use their own brains, be the experts, and not lean on regurgitated and possibly inaccurate data.
“If you’re going to trust it (AI) pointblank, then you shouldn’t be using it,” he said, concluding: “And that’s our burden as teachers.”
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT
Hoffman, the parent of two students and an IT professional, offered teachers and students some practical advice.
Because AI isn’t going away, it’s wise to learn how to use it to their advantage – purposefully and ethically of course, he said.
For instance, kids should first be taught “prompt engineering.”
They need to grasp computer science’s foundational principle: “Garbage in, garbage out,” Hoffman said.
He also warned students to protect themselves and classmates by never entering “personal identifiable information” such as their full names, addresses, Social Security numbers, or dates of birth.
“The largest problem that executives like myself are trying to wrangle is data governance,” he explained.
While they “certainly can ask” ChatGPT personal questions, they have to understand that they’re “speaking to a computer,” Hoffman said.
EYES ON THE PRIZE
It’s important for educators to accept that generative AI has “turned information seeking and retrieval on its head” and that it has to be addressed “from a media literacy perspective,” advised Sandler.
No one at this point can claim to “intuitively” know exactly what the technology means for education, however this brave new and evolving world can’t be ignored, she said, predicting: “It will be a journey."
Vazquez agreed, saying a next "good step" would be for the district to "broaden the conversation with the rest of its administrative team and teachers."
Understanding AI’s “benefits and limitations” is key to uniting all stakeholders, Vazquez said, by keeping them focused on the district’s stated mission, which is to “engage students to continuously learn, question, define, and solve problems through critical and creative thinking.”
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