In November of 2022, generative Artificial Intelligence made its debut to the world with the advent of ChatGPT. Three months later, the St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School administration held a meeting led by the Johnsons to begin discussing how the school would approach AI.
Since then, generative AI has been playing a greater role in classes at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School. Ms. McGuire, dean of students, stated her view that “there’s a potential for so many benefits.”
According to Mr. Mallett, director of the SSSAS upper school, the school first began incorporating AI applications into the classroom in February 2023, when they had a professional development day called Exploring AI and possible uses in teaching and learning.
Voicing her struggle to balance the usage of AI among students, Ms. McGuire explained that “I have been really busy since AI came about and it’s a little frustrating for me because I do think AI is fantastic and there’s so much we can do with it, and I feel like I am so transparent and tell students, these are the ways we’re using to detect it, and then I detect it and they’re shocked.”
Mr. Mallett echoed this sentiment, saying that “AI has an increasingly important influence on our society and on the lives of our students, and it has legitimate applications to amplify student learning.”
Ms. McGuire emphasized that AI applications in the workforce will only continue to grow, and that she considers it important for the school to ensure that graduates enter college and then the job market well prepared to use and be surrounded by AI applications.
Speaking to the contours of science department curriculum, Ms. Fusina, chemistry teacher and science department chair, explained how AI applications can have a role in the classroom: “It can be really useful for those things, for extra practice problems, preparing for a test, or practicing giving definitions like complex terms or similar terms, and once we get there, I can see it will be really helpful with the tool and practice tool to go alongside with what’s being done in the classroom, not necessarily instead of what’s currently happening in the classroom.”
Ms. Fusina also noted that there are limitations to using AI in the classroom, explaining how “some of the AI is still getting some of the science complexity wrong, or giving problems that are unsolvable when students ask for extra practice problems, or solving things incorrectly.”
Discussing the ways that the science department differs from other subjects when it comes to AI usage, Ms. Fusina stated: “I think that’s why we’re not using it as much right now in science as some of the other classes, because we want to make sure that we’re not just using it to use it and that it’s pedagogically sound to use it.”
In the math department, Mrs. Geiger has been experimenting with different uses of AI platforms for her students since the second semester of last school year. She said, “one tool we use is Flint, which gives students extra practice problems and instant feedback so they can see where they’re solid and where they might need more work. I also use Snorkl, which is great for helping students explain their thinking and communicate their reasoning clearly. Both tools are less about giving answers and more about helping students build stronger problem-solving and reasoning skills.”
In the English department, AI has largely become a tool for revision and editing. Ms. Cranford, English teacher and English department chair, explained that its most common current usages are for grammar work, vocab practice, and revision.
“One of my concerns, though, with AI is that it kind of flattens voice and it erases voice, and so if you don’t start with your words, then when you feed something into AI to fine-tune it, the way that most people will when they are out of school, then you run the risk of not having it sound like you. That is a good way to make it not memorable. That may be useful in grant writing or more technical writing, but most of what we’re trying to do when we write is express something of who we are and what we think,” said Ms. Cranford. “You have to be able to evaluate the work it’s doing, and that is hard to do if you don’t have the skill set at first.”
Faculty agreed that many more changes to AI at SSSAS will take place, with further usage appearing likely across classes. Ms. McGuire noted that the administration is developing a student AI usage handbook that they are hoping to release in the winter and update annually.
Additionally, Mr. Mallett shared that he wants to clarify with students the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI. He explained that one way to do this may be to create a color coded AI guide where red means no AI, yellow means some AI with parameters, and green means you can use AI wherever on this assignment.
Ms. Fusina discussed the ways she continues to seek new ways to utilize generative AI in chemistry classes. She is working on compiling course-specific information to provide to the chatbot to ensure that its answers are accurate and grounded in the provided curriculum.
As increasingly sophisticated AI models continue to be released, their potency in the classroom is likely to rise. Balancing the need to adapt to a world with AI whilst ensuring that students can think for themselves has proven increasingly important for educators nationwide, in high schools as well as universities.
As originally reported by the Associated Press, Duke University educators have “scrambled to create new guidelines to prevent academic dishonesty.”
According to AP, “although some professors are embracing AI as a learning aid, others have implemented blanket bans and expressed caution regarding the implications of AI on problem solving and critical thinking.”
Thomas Pfau, a professor of English at Duke University, said “If you want to be a good athlete, you would surely not try to have someone else do the working out for you.”
Professor Pfau said that he “is less optimistic about generative AI’s development” and he raised his “concerns that the next generation of high school graduates will be too accustomed to chatbots coming into the college classroom.”
Mrs. Geiger concluded by saying, “I think it’s really important to draw a distinction between using AI as a learning tool and using it as a shortcut. If you’re just using it to get an answer, you’re not actually learning. But if you’re using it to explore a concept, to get feedback, or to check your reasoning, that’s when it becomes really helpful. AI can be a great support, but it shouldn’t replace the thinking process that real learning requires.”
