Gateway Regional School District of New Jersey also developed a generative AI policy, after staff realized it can help students in the classroom, explained Amy Mount, director of curriculum and instruction. For instance, she said one of their approved generative AI tools can change a reading assignment into different languages or a different reading level, freeing up a teacher for more one-on-one time with students.
“The hardest thing for a teacher is having the bandwidth to personalize for every kid in the classroom,” Mount said.
French teacher Kim Karwoski sometimes has her students practice speaking French with one of the district’s approved AI chatbots, because some students feel less pressure when talking to a bot, versus another person.
She said the chatbot does not replace her as a teacher, but makes her think more deeply about what students should be learning.
“AI is … going to push us to make these big changes in education that I think … have been coming to a boil anyway.”
For example, she said that in the past, she might have assigned students to write a paragraph in French about what they did over the weekend, to practice different forms of the past tense. But now, if students want to, they could just use generative AI to create a paragraph like that. So now, she may ask her students to practice on paper and pencil, or with a bot, or with another student, and then have a live conversation using all that they learned.
“That’s a more authentic task because … you’re now having the students speak and practice something that they might actually do if they were to go to France or a French-speaking country.”
However, there are still many other teachers who, like Conroy, refuse to use generative AI in their classes. That worries Lakishia Powell, instructional technology coach for Delsea Regional School District in New Jersey.
“If you think about any kids that are born now, they’re not going to know a world without AI. So why wouldn’t we as educators want to prepare them with a good skill set, a nice base or understanding of it and showing them the right way to use it?”
She said generative AI is like Wikipedia and calculators: students can still learn while using these tools, and there will always be people who disagree.
In fact, students almost have to use AI in the modern job market, said Kathleen Bially, media specialist at Gateway Regional High School. She pointed out that many large companies use AI to screen candidates, so “you sort of have to play the game in a way by allowing a computer to help another computer to see you. And if we’re not doing that, we’re going to be left out.”
