\n<\/p>\n
Generative artificial intelligence is here to stay, and K-12 schools need to find ways to use the technology for the benefit of teaching and learning. That\u2019s what many educators, technology companies, and AI advocates say.<\/p>\n
In response, more states and districts are releasing guidance and policies around AI use in the classroom. Educators are increasingly experimenting with the technology, with some saying that it has been a big time saver and has made the job more manageable.<\/p>\n
But not everyone agrees. There are educators who are concerned that districts are buying into the AI hype too quickly and without enough skepticism. <\/p>\n
A nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey of 559 K-12 educators conducted during the summer found that they are split on whether AI platforms will have a negative or positive impact on teaching and learning in the next five years: 47% say AI\u2019s impact will be negative, while 43% say it will be positive.<\/p>\n
Education Week talked to three veteran teachers who are not using generative AI regularly in their work and are concerned about the potential negative effects the technology will have on teaching and learning.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what they think about using generative AI in K-12.<\/p>\n
Dylan Kane, a middle school math teacher at Lake County High School in Leadville, Colo., isn\u2019t \u201ccategorically against AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He has experimented with the technology personally, using it to help him improve his Spanish-language skills. AI is a \u201chalf decent\u201d Spanish tutor, if you understand its limitations, he said. For his teaching job, Kane has experimented with AI tools to generate student materials like many other teachers, but it takes too many iterations of prompting to generate something he would actually put in front of his classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will do a better job just doing it myself and probably take less time to do so,\u201d said Kane, who is in his 14th year of teaching. Creating student materials himself means he can be \u201cmore intentional\u201d about the questions he asks, how they\u2019re sequenced, how they fit together, how they build on each other, and what students already know.<\/p>\n
His biggest concern is how generative AI will affect educators and students\u2019 critical-thinking skills. Too often, people are using these tools to take \u201cshortcuts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I want students to learn something, I need them to be thinking about it and not finding shortcuts to avoid thinking,\u201d Kane said.<\/p>\n
The best way to prepare students for an AI-powered future is to \u201cgive them a broad and deep collection of knowledge about the world and skills in literacy, math, history and civics, and science,\u201d so they\u2019ll have the knowledge they need to understand if an AI tool is providing them with a helpful answer, he said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s true for teachers, too, Kane said. The reason he can evaluate whether AI-generated material is accurate and helpful is because of his years of experience in education.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my hesitations about using large language models is that I won\u2019t be developing skills as a teacher and thinking really hard about what things I put in front of students and what I want them to be learning,\u201d Kane said. \u201cI worry that if I start leaning heavily on large language models, that it will stunt my growth as a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the fact that teachers have to use generative AI tools to create student materials \u201cpoints to larger issues in the teaching profession\u201d around the curricula and classroom resources teachers are given, Kane said. AI is not \u201can ideal solution. That\u2019s a Band-Aid for a larger problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kane\u2019s open to using AI tools. For instance, he said he finds generative AI technology helpful for writing word problems. But educators should \u201capproach these things with a ton of skepticism and really ask ourselves: \u2018Is this better than what we should be doing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Jed Williams, a high school math and science teacher in Belmont, Mass., said he hasn\u2019t heard any good justifications for why generative AI should be implemented in schools.<\/p>\n
The way AI is being presented to teachers tends to be \u201clargely uncritical,\u201d said Williams, who teaches computer science, physics, and robotics at Belmont High School. Often, professional development opportunities about AI don\u2019t provide a \u201ccritical analysis\u201d of the technology and just \u201ccheck the box\u201d by mentioning that AI tools have downsides, he said.<\/p>\n
For instance, one professional development session he attended only spent \u201ca few seconds\u201d on the downsides of AI tools, Williams said. The session covered the issue of overreliance on AI tools, but Williams criticized it for not talking about \u201clabor exploitation, overuse of resources, sacrificing the privacy of students and faculty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a responsibility to be skeptical about technologies that we bring into the classroom,\u201d Williams said, especially because there\u2019s a long history of ed-tech adoption failures.<\/p>\n
Williams, who has been teaching since 2006, is also concerned that AI tools could decrease students\u2019 cognitive abilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of learning is being put into a situation that is cognitively challenging,\u201d he said. \u201cThese tools, fundamentally, are built on relieving the burden of cognitive challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially in introductory courses, where students aren\u2019t familiar with programming and you want them to try new things and experiment and explore, why would you give them this tool that completely removes those aspects that are fundamental to learning?\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Williams is also worried that a rushed implementation of AI tools would sacrifice students and teachers\u2019 privacy and use them as \u201cexperimental subjects in developing technologies for tech companies.\u201d <\/p>\n
Education leaders \u201chave a tough job,\u201d Williams said. He understands the pressure they feel around implementing AI, but he hopes they give it \u201ccritical thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decisionmakers need to be clear about what technology is being proposed, how they anticipate teachers and students using it, what the goal of its use is, and why they think it\u2019s a good technology to teach students how to use, Williams said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody has a good answer for that, I\u2019m very happy to hear proposals on how to incorporate these things in a healthy, safe way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Bacon, a middle school computer science teacher in California, hasn\u2019t found any use cases with generative AI tools that she feels will be beneficial for her work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would rather do my own lesson plan,\u201d said Bacon, who has been teaching for more than 20 years. \u201cI have an idea of what I want the students to learn, of what\u2019s interesting to them, and where they are and the entry points for them to engage in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teachers have a lot of pressure to do more with less. That\u2019s why Bacon said she doesn\u2019t judge other teachers who want to use AI to get the job done. It\u2019s \u201ca systemic problem,\u201d but teaching and learning shouldn\u2019t be replaced by machines, she said.<\/p>\n
Bacon believes it\u2019s \u201cparticularly dangerous\u201d for middle school students to be using \u201ca machine emulating a person.\u201d Students are still developing their character, their empathy, their ability to socialize with peers and work collectively toward a goal, she said, and a chatbot would undermine that.<\/p>\n
She can foresee using generative AI tools to explain to her students what large language models are. It\u2019s important for them to learn about generative AI, that it\u2019s a statistical model predicting the next likely word based on data it\u2019s been trained on, that there\u2019s no meaning [or feelings] behind it, Bacon said.<\/p>\n
Last school year, she asked her high school students what they wanted to know about AI. Their answers: the technology\u2019s social and environmental impacts.<\/p>\n
Bacon doesn\u2019t think educators should fall for the \u201cfallacy\u201d that AI is the inevitable future because technology companies are the ones saying that and they have an incentive to say that, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducators have basically been told, in a lot of ways, \u2018don\u2019t trust your own instincts about what\u2019s right for your students, because [technology companies are] going to come in and tell you what\u2019s going to be good for your students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s discouraging to see that a lot of the AI-related professional development events she\u2019s attended have \u201cessentially been AI evangelism\u201d and \u201cproduct marketing,\u201d she said. There should be more thought about why this technology is necessary in K-12, she said.<\/p>\n
Technology experts have talked up AI\u2019s potential to increase productivity and efficiency. But as an educator, \u201cefficiency is not one of my values,\u201d Bacon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy value is supporting students, meeting them where they are, taking the time it takes to connect with these students, taking the time that it takes to understand their needs,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a society, we have to take a hard look: Do we value education? Do we value doing our own thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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