According to a report from Pew Research Center, people who say they have heard “a lot” about AI has jumped to 47% from 26% in the last four years.
One place generative AI is being discussed more is in schools.
Some grade-school teachers are adapting the technology in their classroom.
What You Need To Know
Some grade school teachers are using generative AI to create lesson plans for their classes
Generative AI can also be used by English teachers to help illustrate scenes in a book
One school district in the Southern Tier is developing an AI policy for next school year
Sierra Pilat is teaching seventh-grade English. They’re reading “Chains” by Laurie Halse Anderson.
“It’s set in the 18th century, right at the beginning of America, and the kids have a really hard time picturing what’s going on. So I’ve used generative AI to create images of the scenes that are happening in the book, so that they’re able to picture what exactly it is we’re reading,” said Pilat.
She also uses AI to analyze students’ reading ability, or to change the difficulty level of a reading passage. While these platforms help her teach, it means turning back the clock on testing methods.
“Now that we’ve seen them using AI so much, now that we’ve seen them actually not doing as well when they take a computer-based test; we’ve started to shift back more to paper things or like those spoken exams,” said Pilat.
Kortnee Matzura teaches high school social studies. She also uses AI for lesson planning and says that alone could help retain educators.
“Leverage it to kind of ease the teacher burnout that we’re seeing. We see this education system bleeding new teachers because of the expectations of the administrative duties on top of curriculum development,” said Matzura.
She also sees generative AI as a tool for student success.
“Sometimes, I will direct them to use generative AI to kind of work through a creative block, or to give them a plethora of ideas that they could then choose from and dive into with their own thinking,” said Matzura.
“Students are using it, and it feels like it’s a little bit of the Wild West right now regarding the guardrails,” said Maine-Endwell Superintendent Jason Van Fossen.
The Maine-Endwell school district has a group creating an AI policy, which will be implemented next school year.
“I don’t think any school district in ‘26-‘27 is not going to have this at the top, or one of the top, of their priorities,” said Van Fossen. “We taught kids how to use the internet. We’re going to teach kids how to use AI.”
Spectrum News 1 reached out to the New York State Department of Education to learn if there are any state guidelines for AI use in schools. It said, in part: “The Department’s focus is not on any single tool, but on ensuring that innovation is guided by purpose and strengthens teaching, expands opportunity, and prepares every student to succeed in a rapidly evolving world.”