Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology with implications in every field, and its role in schools remains in question. What happens when your computer is talking back to you, can write your essays and also offers you feedback on tone and perspective? Unlike previous changes to technological tools, this introduction of accessible AI directly challenges the current process of learning.
Teachers are exploring ways to address the technology and provide the same standards of education while encouraging growth and development.
English teacher Evan Mousseau received a grant from the Innovation Fund to develop a professional development course focusing on AI in education, called “Centering the Humans of Humanities in the Age of AI.” Mousseau also teaches a course for English teachers in training at Boston University.
“[My multiple teaching roles] led me to think about how I could impact the community beyond my own classroom,” Mousseau said. “Those of us in the humanities were faced with this big, new, challenging thing in the form of large language models and generative AI. I saw myself struggling with that. I saw my colleagues struggling with it.”
Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Jen Martin said she sees the introduction of AI as similar to technological developments of the past, such as smartphones and email. Martin said each such development has stirred controversy and brought both negative and positive effects.
“I think [AI] is as revolutionary as the internet. I don’t know exactly what things will look like in five years, but I know it won’t look like what we’re doing right now and that some skills will absolutely continue to matter,” Martin said.
Career and Technology Education teacher Bryan O’Mahony, who teaches classes in business, engineering and architectural design, said that he has used a chatbot called Flint in his classroom. This has helped increase efficiency, yet he doesn’t believe AI holds value in all subjects.
“I understand that in a workplace [AI is] called a productivity tool, not cheating, but I think students should be taught how to write without AI first, and then they can use it for workplace productivity later,” O’Mahony said. “It’s not going away, so we have to work with it, but I don’t think we need to teach students how to use AI.”
Mousseau said that AI’s emphasis on efficiency poses a challenge to the educational system and to the development of both teachers and students.
“I think there are potential pathways there, but one of the core challenges is that we have a tool that really prides itself on efficiency,” Mousseau said. “The tricky fact of the matter is that learning is inefficient: we grow through the friction that comes when we have to grapple with something over an extended period of time. If we shorten that time, we can lose out on the exposure and the learning that comes with it.”
In his efforts to build a curriculum that supports students in their learning process, while addressing the potential pitfalls of AI overuse, Mousseau presented a theory of layering several mitigations similar to Federal Aviation Administration’s Swiss Cheese Model. Martin said the Swiss Cheese Model asserts the inability to create foolproof safety procedures and opts for a combination of several overlapping rules to prevent accidents.
“The idea is that you need multiple strategies working together to make assignments more engaging: doing some parts in class, some at home, thinking carefully about every step you take to make work compelling for students and less likely to invite AI use, while also identifying where AI could actually be a useful tool,” Martin said.
O’Mahony said the idea of including AI in curricula is not compatible with all programs and should not be used simply for the sake of doing so. However, O’Mahony said it does allow for new opportunities that were not possible in the past.
“Previously, I always wanted to do a verbal interview-style assessment at the end of the [World of Money] course, but talking to each student for half an hour would take about two weeks of class time,” O’Mahony said. “The Flint chatbot let me essentially replicate that experience.”
Martin said that despite these developments, a teacher’s role should remain centered on education, whether that includes applications of AI or explaining the boundaries for students’ use of the technology in the upcoming years.
“The first step is adults understanding the technology better themselves. The next step is figuring out what role the teacher plays in that, because parents, students, legislators and society as a whole all have a role too,” Martin said. “We’re just one part of a larger puzzle.”
Mousseau said he is creating a collection of resources for teachers to draw from in the continued development of AI, using advances in the technology as an opportunity to reinforce the fundamentals of learning.
“The big takeaway for me has been less about leaning into technology and more about leaning into the values of education,” Mousseau said. “What do we care about? Where might technology complement those values? Where does it force us to reconcile and adapt in order to preserve them? That’s really been the heart of it.”
