Carroll school board discusses generative AI for teachers and students

Members of the Carroll County Board of Education discussed last week the school system’s policy regarding use of artificial intelligence in classrooms.

School system staff members have been working to create instructional guidelines for the use of generative AI in schools since an initial discussion was held in July 2023. In October, the school system formed an AI Guidelines Committee, which worked through January to develop a set of guidelines for the school system.

Board of Education Vice President Tara Battaglia said during the school board’s June 12 meeting that AI will never replace teachers, but learning to use the technology is becoming increasing relevant to real-world careers.

“It does have a lot of good to it,” Battaglia said, “we just have to make sure we’re using it correctly.”

AI technologies have been slowly progressing since the dawn of digital computers, but the recent advancement of neural networks represents a large stride in machine learning. Popular generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, absorb a massive amount of text, using a neural network to store data in a way that is similar to a human brain, then using its understanding of common word and sentence pairings to generate new text. When generating text, an AI is essentially guessing the most likely next word of its own sentence, with help from a dataset so vast it can attempt to mimic a style or tone found in the training data.

ChatGPT’s engine is called Large Language Modeling, but other AI technologies can use a similar process to generate charts, images, audio, video, and more.

Carroll’s public school students may use generative AI to assist with planning or outlining an assignment, suggest revisions, draft an email or letter, and personalize learning. However, the new technology still has limitations for classroom use, according to the presentation. AI-generated text is often less vibrant, more repetitive, and less intentional about use of tone, than human-written text. AI may also produce text that is inaccurate, offensive or insensitive.

“We know that colleges are using it, and the workforce is using it,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Steve Wernick told the school board. “It’s really about ensuring that students understand how to use it, how to use it correctly, and then how to make their own work.”

A syllabus statement provided in the Carroll schools presentation posted online clarifies that students may not use AI tools to help with assignments unless their teacher grants permission to do so.

A tool within Schoology, the school system’s online learning portal, helps teachers to detect when students have misused AI instead of writing an assignment themselves, according to the presentation. Schoology is used by the system to allow for the online submission of assignments, among other things.

The tool provides the percentage of text likely generated by AI and highlights that text within the document for teachers to view. Middle and high school teachers are encouraged to use the AI detection tool, then carefully consider the results before initiating a conversation with the student.

School board member Steve Whisler said he appreciates that there are guardrails in place for student use of AI and would like to ensure that educators’ use of AI in instruction is also regulated.

“I really hope this tool helps our teachers develop great lessons and great exercises,” Whisler said, “but I want to make sure that they fall in line with our curriculum, our standard, and our way of thinking in Carroll County.”

Wernick said professional learning exercises for all middle and high school teachers set to occur in August will address proper use of AI for educators.

School board meetings are open to the public and livestreamed on the Carroll County Public Schools YouTube channel and viewable on the right side of the Board of Education’s website at carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information, under CETV Livestream. Meetings are also broadcast throughout the month on Carroll Educational Television, Channel 21.

Anyone who wishes to participate during the public participation portion of school board meetings must fill out an online sign-up form at https://www.carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information or call the communications office at 410-751-3020 by 9 p.m., on the Tuesday before a meeting.