As artificial intelligence, or AI, tools like ChatGPT become more prevalent, the topic of whether to incorporate the technology into schools — and how to do so ethically and responsibly — has been top of mind for many educators, parents, and students.
In Northern Virginia, many independent K-12 schools are taking steps to progress in this area, forming policies and educational standards that aim to utilize AI’s potential benefits without compromising the quality of instruction students receive. Here’s how some members of NoVA’s private-school community are addressing AI now and for the future.
Teaching AI
To give students experience with machine learning, schools such as Flint Hill School in Oakton and Ideaventions Academy in Reston have begun incorporating classes about artificial intelligence into their curricula. That way, students can not only learn how to use AI tools, but they can also gain an in-depth understanding of how the tools function.
At Flint Hill School, a new Intro to AI course covers the fundamentals of AI: “machine learning, algorithms, deep learning, focusing on practical implementation, project-based learning,” says director of academics Aaron Proctor. But it also delves into the ethics of AI, ensuring that students can identify when it’s appropriate to use AI and when it’s not.
“These tools exist in the world,” Proctor says. “We need to incorporate them into our modern curriculum. That’s just us being nimble as an educational institution.”
Similarly, Ideaventions Academy has been embracing the concepts of AI and machine learning into its curriculum since 2018, introducing computer science in first grade and the programming language Python in sixth. Head of school and co-founder Ryan Heitz says that an important aspect in the curriculum is to understand the ways that AI can be flawed and biased.
“AIs are built on and trained against data sets, and depending on those data sets, you can introduce bias. It can work as you don’t intend it to,” he says. “I think training and teaching the students on how AIs work, how you can mistrain them, is very helpful for them to be more wary about what they do see or get out of an AI when they use it.”
These tactics help imbue students with a sense of the power AI could have to make positive change in the world, while ensuring that they understand the risks it poses when used improperly.
Those courses are enhanced by visits from AI leaders such as George Mason University professors and Carnegie Mellon’s Po-Shen Loh, which help further the understanding of AI’s potential applications for students and staff, and Ideaventions often presents its curriculum at conferences.
“Even if they don’t end up in the field of AI, knowing what it can do and how it works will help anybody, whether they end up being a biologist, an engineer, or a journalist or author, sociologist, whatever,” Heitz says. “I think understanding it and how it could be applied in their field or other fields is helpful.”
A Classroom Tool
In addition to teaching students about AI, schools are beginning to explore the idea of allowing it to be used as a learning tool for teachers or students.
Flint Hill is in the early stages of piloting some initiatives and policies that allow teachers to use AI for some of their basic tasks. The school started using a program called SchoolAI recently, and teachers are offered training throughout the year that shows them some of the potential uses.
The goal, Proctor says, is to free up more of the teachers’ time by eliminating tasks that don’t need much thought — that way teachers can dedicate more time and attention to students. One example is that teachers can use AI to craft a rubric to aid them in grading.
“There’s always going to be this need for human connection in education. I believe that. It’s never going to replace this,” he says. “In its best iteration, it’s going to replace the menial labor, like the writing of the rubrics, to enable us to have conversations with the kids about the rubrics.”
And Flint Hill is “proceeding cautiously” to explore the ways students can use AI as a tool for their learning in class, with guidance from their teachers, Proctor says.
“If we can utilize the technology to streamline the processes that we just don’t need to devote as much of our human brain capital to … it frees our kids, our brains, our cognitive load up to tangle with much more challenging kinds of thinking tasks,” Proctor says, likening it to the use of calculators in math class.
Student Kasim Khapra, the student body president and a senior at the Potomac School in McLean, is among those inspired by the possibilities of AI’s classroom applications. Last year, he helped form the school’s Upper School AI Student Committee, which advocates for AI and increases knowledge about the topic among students and staff. The committee helped pilot a few new ways for the school to begin using AI, including in a math class, where students prompted an AI tool to generate practice questions that helped them study for tests. In another application, students used AI in a history class to find sources, then later reviewed them for reliability and accuracy.
“I think if people can learn these skills now, they’re going to be so poised for success in the workplace five years down the road,” Khapra says.
Communication and Guidance
Establishing guidelines on this topic will be a long, careful process for many schools — and it’s one that will require a lot of communication among students, administration, and parents.
Proctor says that, as Flint Hill navigates the creation of new AI policies, he looks to the recent statewide AI guidance and other schools that have had success incorporating AI, and he collaborates with stakeholders within the school community to guide those decisions. The school also has a dedicated Innovation Department that helps pilot and oversee the implementation of programs like this.
Katrina Holliday, president of Parents Council of Washington, an organization that coordinates communication among students, leadership, and parents at nearly 60 DMV-area private schools, says that AI has recently emerged as a frequent topic of discussion among parents and students as they work to stay informed.
In October, Parents Council held a seminar with nonprofit AI for Education, which Holliday hoped would give parents more knowledge and equip them to ask the right questions of their children’s schools. Holliday says the goals included giving the community a baseline understanding of how AI might be used and for “parents to understand that there are disadvantages and there are possibilities with this technology and to be able to see both sides.”
Mitigating Risks
In any context, AI comes with challenges that are impossible to ignore, and not every school wants to see it put to work in the classroom. At Ideaventions, although machine learning is a key part of the curriculum, there’s a strict policy against students using it to help them with assignments. Heitz says that this is to ensure students don’t lose any essential skills by over-relying on technology.
“We see it’s working against a lot of the skill development that we’re hoping for. For example, researching: the ability to read something and synthesize it and create notes on what you just read and pull out, ‘What are the most important points?’ or … ‘What are some facts you learned or evidence you gained [to] support your argument?’” Heitz says. “We find AI can be counterproductive for students learning those skills.”
And even when schools allow AI in the classroom in certain iterations, there is still the concern that students will use it to cut corners or cheat.
As a safeguard against AI cheating, Ideaventions has students show their work when turning in assignments. On written assignments, teachers may look at the version history on the file.
At Flint Hill, Proctor says the policy only allows students to use AI with a teacher’s approval, and the school makes sure to clearly communicate with students when it’s OK to use AI and when it’s not. “Our generic policy is you’re not allowed to use it unless the teacher says so,” he says. “The teacher gives you the guidelines.”
Feature image Xavier Lorenzo/stock.adobe.com
This story originally ran in our November issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
