Of Note: A 2024-25 Center for Democracy and Technology survey found that Google has already invested $40 million in AI literacy for teachers and students.
Of Note: OpenAI recently rolled out ChatGPT for K-12 teachers and school districts, initially at no cost to 150,000 educators. It enables them to “securely work with student information, get personalized teaching support, and collaborate with fellow colleagues.”
Of Note: Finds a recent RAND Corporation survey:
- Just 34% of teachers said their district had consistent AI and cheating-related policies.
- 80% of students said that their teachers have not provided them with guidance on using AI for schoolwork.
Of Note: Writes Chalkbeat.com’s Wellington Soares: “Without guidance from their districts or elsewhere, teachers who experiment with AI could lack crucial understanding of these platforms’ privacy risks and expose personal student information in ways that could have repercussions for years.” Ditto when inputting such information as parents’ social security numbers, thus opening the door to identity theft.
Plus:
- 70% of surveyed teachers are concerned that, because of AI, student work is not their own, so they now have to spend time figuring out if their writings are plagiarized or not.
- 75% worry that, because of AI, students are not learning such skills as writing, research, and reading comprehension.
And yet:
*** A recent Common Sense Media survey found that 29% of parents with children 8 or younger said their child used AI for school-related learning.
*** Writes Education Week’s Sarah Schwartz: “It’s not uncommon for young elementary students to do a substantial chunk of their reading practice in class with virtual tutors.” Powered by AI, these programs “listen to 5-and-6-year-olds, offer feedback…and engage students in a verbal back-and-forth…similar to how they would with a live tutor.”
*** According to recent EdWeek Research Center data:
- 61% of teachers use AI in some way, up from 34% in 2023, seeing it as “a high-value tool for planning, differentiation, and feedback.”
- Just 29% are NOT planning on using AI at all.
*** According to a 2024-25 Center for Democracy and Technology survey:
- 57% of special education teachers used AI to help them identify “student progress trends, summarize the content of IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) or 504s, specific accommodations, write the narrative portions, and even the entire report.”
*** As the Associated Press reported back in June, 60% of teachers use AI to:
- Create worksheets
- Generate quizzes & tests
- Grade papers
- Craft lesson plans
- Communicate with parents
- Reduce paperwork
- Save themselves about 6 hours of work each week
Crows high school social studies teacher Mary McCarthy: “It has transformed how I teach. It’s transformed my weekends and given me a better work-life experience.”
But not so fast.
Warns University of Mississippi educator and researcher Marc Watkins, “We cannot ignore teachers and professors using AI to grade and provide student feedback. It’s here. It’s happening. And the risks to automating a process as intrinsically human as reading and responding to another person’s words will have a profound and lasting impact on faculty labor, teacher and student relationships and could further dehumanize the entire caring profession of teaching.”
~ With thanks, Carol
