Upper St. Clair School District teaching students about dangers and uses of AI
In the education world, many teachers have been against artificial intelligence because of the implications of students cheating. But the Upper St. Clair School District is taking a different approach.
Is AI making our kids smarter or eroding their math and verbal skills — even their ability to think? It can spit out a term paper on "Moby Dick" in seconds without the student having gotten beyond the first words of "Call me Ishmael." And that's concerning, even in the Upper St. Clair School District, whose students consistently rank among the highest in the state.
"A lot of that goes away with AI, doesn't it?" KDKA's Andy Sheehan asked.
"I think that's the risk, right? This risk is it could if we're not intelligent about it," said Brad Wilson, the district's director of strategic initiatives.
Upper St. Clair is taking AI head-on, teaching the students about the dangers and hopefully maximizing the benefit of these amazing language models in furthering their education.
"That is the strength of this district, is that we are embracing it and we have a mindset that we're going to do it and we're going to do it together," said assistant principal Dan Beck.
To that end, the district has devoted a whole day of instruction to the dangers of and proper use of AI. Teachers have been addressing the issue of plagiarism with AI detection tools and emphasizing the need to do their own critical analysis.
"Not to just take what it has, turn it around with no human critical thinking," said English teacher Christina Guarnaccio.
And not to trust those results, showing examples of deepfakes, bias and rampant mistakes that will come back to bite if the students rely on the information.
"You think that it knows everything and it can answer any question," said social studies teacher Ben Edwards. "That is why when we use it, we have to use it responsibly."
While stressing the pitfalls, Edwards is incorporating AI into his lesson plans and encouraging his students to use it to deepen their knowledge. Dante Courey says the language model has become a personal tutor.
"I'll tell what class I'm in, what I'm struggling with, what I need help with. I'll give it questions and it'll break things down for me, it's able to explain things over and over again if I need it," Courey said.
And Edwards says teaching students those kinds of skills will be essential for them to navigate the brave new world of AI.
"As Americans, we want to be on the cutting edge of being able to use it. It's not something we should hide from because it's going to be a huge part of the future, whether we want it to be or not," Edwards explained.
This will all be a work in progress, but the Upper St. Clair District recognizes that AI is here to stay. And while teaching its dangers, it will also try to reap its benefits.
