Artificial intelligence is developing so rapidly that many educators fear school district policies to handle issues like cheating or protecting data privacy will be outdated almost the minute they are released.
To keep up with the technology鈥檚 quick evolution, districts should keep their AI policies as simple as possible, experts said during an Education Week webinar entitled Ready or Not, AI Is Here: How K-12 69传媒 Should Respond.
鈥淚 think if we have complex policies, then it becomes a web that we can鈥檛 untangle as things change,鈥� said Tammi Sisk, an educational specialist with the Fairfax County schools in northern Virginia. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want to go too heavy-handed on policy and then have to backtrack. So, keep it simple.鈥�
Districts should aim for 鈥済ood, strong, basic guidance鈥� and 鈥渂ring teachers into the conversation鈥� to help inform it, since they are likely to bring up issues that district leaders may have never thought of, said Sisk, who is helping to develop Fairfax鈥檚 AI policies.
Two major issues to address: ensuring teachers understand AI鈥檚 strengths and weaknesses and keeping student data safe, Sisk said.
The Peninsula school district in Washington state has chosen to develop 鈥減rinciples and beliefs鈥� around AI as opposed to hard-and-fast policy for now, Kris Hagel, the district鈥檚 executive director of digital learning, said on the webinar.
鈥淲e looked at it last spring and said, 鈥楤oy, it is moving so fast,鈥欌�� Hagel said. 鈥淎nd when you think of policy and a lot of education settings, you think of these very rigid, school board-approved policies.鈥� The district decided it didn鈥檛 鈥渨ant to do that because we don鈥檛 know where this is gonna land yet,鈥� Hagel said.
Instead, Peninsula is working off a principle of ensuring educators remain the key decisionmakers, even if their choices are informed by AI.
鈥淲e want humans to be involved in the conversation,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want AI making decisions about student learning. We don鈥檛 want students just completely utilizing AI to turn in homework. We grounded it in 鈥榳e want a human in the middle.鈥欌��
For more of the conversation about how school policy can keep pace with AI, watch the video above.
