The overview
School districts, such as FISD, are taking notice of the development within AI, which refers broadly to a computer’s ability to carry out human tasks. As part of that, the district is looking at ways to use it in curriculum.
FISD established an AI committee, made up of teachers and administrators, in January with a purpose to explore and implement AI, Chief Communications Officer Dayna Owen said.
Owen said the committee will conduct research, facilitate discussions, address challenges and set goals aimed at enhancing teaching and learning outcomes using AI within FISD.
The committee was created by FISD Superintendent Thad Roher and came from him working with other superintendents as part of the Future-Ready Superintendents Leadership Network, Owen said.
Roher wanted to explore how AI could be resourceful for teachers, Owen said. So far, FISD’s AI Committee has found AI has created time-saving opportunities, personalized learning experiences for students and offered more resources for teachers.
While FISD has been hands-on with AI, surrounding districts, such as Pearland ISD and Alvin ISD currently have not implemented the use of AI.
Although FISD is becoming hands-on with AI, the district conducted multiple surveys and discussions to point out the challenges or concerns seen among AI, including plagiarism, inaccurate data and privacy, Owen said.
“High school teachers have had issues this year with plagiarizing and kids just using it to write their essays for them, but we as a committee have talked about how now, with the generation we're in, it’s time that we have to teach the students how to use AI effectively—using it more as a tool, not just a cheat code,” said Katya Silveira, an FISD fifth grade social studies and language arts teacher.
Zooming in
Many educators across all grade levels in the U.S. are actively exploring AI tools as they become available, according to a 2023 report from the Office of Educational Technology.
The University of Houston has a group of about 100 faculty and staff contributing to findings and adjustments they have made while using AI in their coursework. They have found similar benefits to AI as FISD.
Jeffrey Morgan, a mathematics professor and associate provost for education innovation and technology at UH, is a part of the group discussing AI at the university.
As part of his work, he has his students ask a question of ChatGPT, which is an AI technology language processing tool that answers questions and assists with tasks, such as composing emails, essays and code.
He then has his students evaluate ChatGPT’s responses by looking at what was correct and what wasn’t.
Morgan said he does this to test the software and determine how capable AI systems, such as ChatGPT, can be for future course lessons.
Silveira uses AI to help with many daily activities, including communicating with parents, making classroom newsletters, and creating lesson plans and class assignments. This has allowed her workload to lessen, she said.
“AI is really good for saving you time on the little things that really add up when you have a bunch of little things to do,” Silveira said. “It’s not like [the daily announcements are] hard to make; they're just time consuming. You want to word it correctly and make sure you don’t leave anything out. If it makes it for me, that saves me probably 10, 15 minutes, and I can spend that time on grading or something else.”
The other side
While some educators are using AI as an advantage, others, as well as some education agencies, see problems with AI, such as it not being fully developed, causing it to be inaccurate and unreliable at times. It also can create privacy risks among students.
When creating class assignments, such as developing questionnaires from a reading she assigns, Silveira has noticed the AI tools she uses creates questions that are irrelevant or don’t apply to the reading.
AI also invites a risk of giving too much personal information to an unknown program, said Kate Johanns, the marketing and communications director for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, which is a resource for educators for professional liability insurance, legal assistance, advocacy and professional learning opportunities.
What they said
Johanns believes teachers should be cautious of the tools they use and only utilize AI tools the district approves of to prevent breaking student confidentiality laws.
“I think what we want all Texas educators to be aware of is that you don’t want to rush into using a tool before you know what is happening with the data that you’re uploading, the questions that you’re asking,” Johann said. “You need to be consistently protective of student data. It may make grading things easier, for instance, but if you’re uploading students’ personal identifying information you could be breaking student confidentiality laws.”
Although some educators have uncertainties, many are exploring how AI can be utilized for improving lessons, according to the Office of Educational Technology's report.
FISD, for example, already allows the use of several AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Magic School, the latter of which is a tool for educators with lesson plan generators, newsletter generators for parents, assignment direction generators and more, according to its website.
For Silveira, she said using AI helps save her time in editing papers. Instead of taking “hours to grade,” she’s able to speed up the process and get strong feedback to take back to her students.
“As a language arts teacher, every time [students] write an essay or any kind of a paper, that’s 51 essays that I have to read. And some of my kids write two to three pages because they love writing,” Silveira said.
What’s next
With AI making its presence felt, educators across Texas are adjusting, getting prepared to navigate through the challenges of AI and prepare for the uncertainties that it may bring, officials said.
For Morgan, he believes it will force people to think in ways they didn’t before and give people access to information they might not have had before.
“I think [AI] will be tremendously beneficial; I just don’t know how,” Morgan said. “We don’t know where AI is heading. ... It’s going to change everything—we just don’t know exactly how it’s going to do it.”
