(TNS) — As AI-powered tools become a more common feature in Texas classrooms, school leaders are scrambling to figure out what role that technology should play in learning. Some districts are moving aggressively, and others more deliberately.

In all cases, school leaders say they want to make sure artificial intelligence enhances students’ thinking and learning rather than replacing it. But what does that mean in practice?

The question, said Aroutis Foster, dean of the Baker School of Education at American University, comes down to whether schools are teaching students to develop skills and knowledge, or whether the focus is only on how students perform on tests and assignments.

“Are they getting better at the skill, or are they getting a better finished product?” he asked. “Because getting a better finished product doesn’t mean that there’s learning happening.”MOST STUDENTS USE AI IN SCHOOL, RESEARCH SUGGESTS
Almost four years after the launch of the generative AI tool ChatGPT, most students use AI to some extent, research suggests. In a survey released in July by the education technology company Instructure, nearly three-quarters of parents said their children use AI “at least occasionally.” Most parents said they were concerned about issues such as academic integrity and the loss of critical thinking skills. But nearly nine in 10 parents could find reasons to be optimistic about AI’s role in education.Nationwide, some districts, including New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District, have restricted all students from using generative AI while school leaders study its potential impact. Others, including Dallas ISD, are moving forward with AI, albeit cautiously. The district hosted its first-ever AI summit earlier this year, giving teachers a chance to learn how AI-powered tools can support what they do in the classroom.

Dallas ISD bars elementary and middle school students from using AI tools. In high school, the district has embedded AI into its curriculum to foster digital literacy and prepare students for life after graduation. High school students are allowed to use AI for deep research or as a study aid, but they may not use it to complete tests or assignments for them.

But other districts have launched full-bore AI efforts. In Houston ISD, the largest district in Texas, state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles plans to expand his AI-powered “Future 2” model to 25 additional campuses next year, including a Foundations of AI course for high school students, the Houston Chronicle reported Oct. 22. The district launched the program, which is intended to prepare students to work in an “AI-enabled world,” at nine campuses during the current school year.

The advent of AI came about as districts were still trying to make up academic ground students lost during the pandemic, Foster said. That timing left districts scrambling to catch up as AI’s capability, and its educational implications, grew almost by the day, he said.

An AI program can help students develop those skills and practice using them in new ways, he said, or it can be a way for students to outsource the intellectual work they should be doing in class and give them a quick, correct answer.

Foster used the example of a student using an AI program in a math class. If a student works through a problem on their own but gets the wrong answer, they could use an AI tool to show them where their reasoning went wrong or give them a hint about how to approach the problem, he said. That way, the AI program would help the student learn to do the problem on their own. But if the program simply generates a solution, the student would still be able to turn in a correct answer, he said, but they would learn nothing in the process.

FRISCO ISD PARENT DEVELOPS AI-POWERED STUDY AID
It’s a concern shared by many parents, including Atheeth Sishtla, father of two students in Frisco ISD. As AI tools entered widespread use, Sishtla began to worry about whether students were truly learning the concepts they covered in class, or if they were using AI tools to get easy answers so they could get their homework done more quickly.

So Sishtla, who works as a technical leader for a software company, developed LemonSugar Ai, an AI-powered study companion that’s designed to encourage students to engage deeply with the class material instead of looking for quick solutions. Instead of giving students an answer, it breaks the concept down into pieces and offers help as they work through it on their own. It also includes an option to generate a quiz to help reinforce the concepts students have learned.

For example, in response to a question about the principle of checks and balances, LemonSugar Ai replied that it was a concept enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and asked the user to name the three branches of government that share power coequally.

Sishtla said he thinks it’s unreasonable to expect students not to use AI tools at all. Adults use those tools daily in their workplaces, he said, so it’s difficult to prevent middle and high schoolers from using them, as well. His oldest daughter is 11, and while he may be able to control which tools she has access to now, he knows that won’t always be the case.

That means schools must find a balance between allowing AI as a learning tool and letting students use it for quick answers. Sishtla worries about the implications for those students’ futures if schools don’t get that balance right. If students want to be doctors, engineers or scientists, they need deep knowledge of the subjects they’re pursuing, he said. So schools must have guidelines in place that allow students to use AI, but don’t let it undercut their learning, he said.

“If we don’t enable or keep those guardrails in place,” he said, “we will go back into a generation where we just have surface-level knowledge, and that’s about it.”

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