Virginia’s Louisa County school district is on the leading edge of providing educators with professional development on artificial intelligence.
Recently, the district has shifted its PD approach, from helping teachers use AI to draft lesson plans or parent emails to supporting teachers in integrating the technology directly into instruction and student learning.
Some of Louisa’s teachers, though, have run into AI resistance from a surprising group: their own students.
The reaction from students has been “overwhelmingly negative,” said Marcia Flores, a career and technical education teacher at Louisa County High School.
“They say, ‘Isn’t that cheating?’” Flores said on Nov. 13 during a virtual panel at an Education Week K-12 Essentials Forum. In response, she tells them, “I want you to use this to make your [work] better. It can help you with ideas.”
Even so, “trying to get them on board has been harder than I thought it would be, honestly,” Flores said.
Her observation is particularly surprising, given that more than two-thirds of teens—69%—use AI tools regularly to find information, according to a report released last month by the College Board, a nonprofit organization.
Students are still wrapping their heads around the contrast between using the technology for school versus, as one panelist put it, “at home alone in their rooms where no one can see them,” said Kenneth Bouwens, the district’s Career and Technical Education and Innovation director and its AI lead, who also spoke on the virtual panel.
“When they’re in the classroom, and it’s like, ‘here’s AI, use it,’ they’re like, ‘I’m not supposed to,’” Bouwens said.
Part of the district’s focus this year will be explaining to students the difference between using AI as a helpful tool (for instance, to revise an email) as opposed to using it unethically.
Students should grasp that they can’t “turn in a 10-page paper that was written by AI and say [they] did it,” Bouwens said. “Just trying to get them to understand that [distinction] is what we’re working toward this year.” The districts’ teachers have brainstormed ways to reinforce this, possibly including creating a ‘traffic light’ graphic showing when and to what degree it is appropriate to use AI on an assignment.
For more of the conversation, check out this video of the K-12 Essentials Forum.