Episcopal School of Jacksonville’s (ESJ) division heads and Student Life office recently worked to develop a new policy for grades six through 12 regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, balancing its frequent misuse with the need for graduates to work within technological advancements such as AI.
ESJ’s new policy reads: “Our approach and philosophy regarding this type of content is authentic to the future our students will live and work in, but more importantly is rooted in our mission and our learner-centered approach to education. Episcopal will teach students to utilize machine intelligence ethically and efficiently, ensuring that our programs and pedagogy continue to emphasize the irreplaceable value of that which makes us human.”
“The most important word in our policy is ‘human,’” said Natalie Herford, ESJ Head of Upper School. “We are and our students are, first and foremost, human beings. No machine can take the place of our creativity, our joy for learning, our Harkness classroom discussions or our imagination. But we can use AI for learning with parameters placed around it.”
In the past, much of grading has depended on the final product a student submits. With the development of AI, the process the student goes through to create that final product now becomes exponentially weightier. Learning now has become the process, instead of learning being the final product.
With AI, it is easy to turn in a polished product and learn nothing in the process,” said Herford.
While AI can be useful in the classroom for problem set generation, brainstorming idea generation, and even as a tutor in certain circumstances, faculty is also using the misinformation AI produces as a learning tool, having students correct and edit AI responses. Methods to further protect the learning process include the increased use of Google docs and assignment checks throughout the project.
