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Image by Gerd Altman from Pixabay (modified).
By Darcie Fisher for Westwood Public Schools
A group of Westwood Public Schools administrators, teachers, and staff spent part of last summer in a working group dedicated to Artificial Intelligence – or AI. That group was tasked with looking at the branch of computer science which has become more than a buzzword. AI has made its way into the classroom and the workplace.
Recently the group held a forum at Westwood High School for members of the public who were interested in learning more about this technology and its impact in schools. The forum was moderated by Westwood Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Allison Borchers.
“My goals were to define generative AI,” said Steve Ouellette, Director of Technology, Learning, and Innovation at Westwood Public Schools. “That’s the one that has caused all the buzz. We defined what it is and talked about some of the tools that have emerged – primarily ChatGPT.”
ChatGPT is perhaps the most well-known AI program available to date. Launched in November 2022, it was trained on a large database of text to generate human-like responses when given a prompt. Ouellette demonstrated ChatGPT to give the audience a general understanding of the technology.
“I paid particular attention to what it’s good at doing and what it’s not good at doing,” Ouellette said. “I wanted to be clear that it's not a magical human. It gives the illusion of possessing human intelligence which is not true. It also is skewed towards Western culture and can perpetuate stereotypes.”
Jacob Kaplan, a junior at Westwood High School, sat on the forum panel and says he has used AI both in class and with homework on occasion.
“I find AI super interesting,” said Kaplan. “It’s a cool, new technology we should be embracing and I’m hoping we train students how to use it. I’ve used it mostly in science class. For example, our teacher had us look at endemic island species using ChatGPT, but he cautioned us to double and triple check our work.”
The panel also included Bradley Fay, a Westwood parent who is the director of Data Science and Machine Learning for DraftKings. Fay stressed to the audience that AI has made its way to the workplace and that today’s students will be expected to be AI proficient in many jobs they apply for after high school or college.
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Attendees learned how AI is prone to what are known as “hallucinations,” where the answer the technology produces is seemingly unrelated to the question asked or partially false. There was also a demonstration led by Kate Moore, a research scientist who studies how to teach middle and high school students about systems and ethics of AI and machine learning. She was able to show attendees how translating a response into another language using AI can generate an answer which changes pronouns and favors gender stereotypes.
“We also had a really good conversation about what we value in terms of teaching kids, and a lot of that centered around what we’re trying to do in high school English,” said Ouellette.
The state has yet to set any guidelines for schools surrounding AI, which is one reason why Westwood Public Schools put together a working group last summer.
“We’re batting around these issues and ethics and the reality is that there hasn’t been a lot of guidance for K-12 schools about how to address AI in school districts,” said Ouellette. “So, we are addressing it ourselves.”
Westwood Public Schools already has guidelines for academic integrity in place. One of this year’s strategic priorities for the district is addressing Artificial Intelligence, so the working group will likely morph into an Artificial Intelligence Task Force.
“One of the changes might be to think about AI literacy and what we want to teach students at different levels,” said Ouellette. “We need to start thinking about age-appropriate content so we can start building these skills in kids.”
Other members of the panel were Westwood High School English Department Chairperson Kate Holmes and senior class member Ella Mansour.
Thanks to Darcie Fisher and Westwood Public Schools for contributing this news to Westwood Minute.
