LENOX — How can schools prepare students for the impact of artificial intelligence? Lenox and Lee school districts have an answer, thanks to a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The schools are teaming up with MIT’s AI for Social Empowerment and Education, or RAISE, program and are taking part in its Day of AI initiative, which offers school districts a full year of no-cost guidance, support and resources to develop policies, said Lenox Schools Superintendent William Collins.
It aims to support schools by creating AI literacy programs for students, teachers, administrators and families, he said. For educators, training is offered on how to use AI and its tools to assist them in their work.
Lenox Schools Superintendent William Collins explains that the public school district is partnering with MIT on a program to support schools by creating AI literacy programs for students, teachers, administrators and families.
“We have partnered with Day of AI with professional development for us last spring,” said Lee Schools Superintendent Michael Richard, who’s also principal of Lee Elementary School. “I am committed to continue to evolve with AI and to learn more in order to strengthen our educators and our students in the responsible use of these technologies.”
The program also aims to ensure student safety through responsible and equitable AI policies in their schools, Collins said.
“We don’t want to say ‘never use AI or use AI for everything,’” he commented. “We want to find a happy medium,” such as AI assisting students who have drafted essays that may need polishing. “We still want to have critical thinking skills, we don’t want to hand everything over to AI.”
Collins learned about the program at an MIT conference where former state Commissioner of Education Jeffrey Riley — Day of AI co-founder and senior adviser of RAISE — was a speaker. Riley was keen on enlisting a few Massachusetts public schools for Day of AI.
Collins applied immediately, and Riley notified him within several days that Lenox had been accepted. Riley will attend the district’s annual convocation for its staff on Aug. 26, where he’ll learn more details about the program, aimed at “early adopters,” “nay-sayers” and “maybe sayers,” Collins pointed out.
Riley also will deliver the keynote address at the Lee Public Schools convocation on Aug. 21, Richard said.
The MIT program has 25 different district-level trainings in Massachusetts this year, including Lee and Lenox, the only two in Berkshire County, according to Dan Rea, head of business development and strategy at Day of AI.
“That equals training for 225 teachers in Berkshire County and 2,735 teachers statewide,” he said. “We hold regular virtual professional development trainings for teachers, and Massachusetts teachers regularly lead the way on the virtual side for us as well, so we’ve definitely trained additional teachers from Berkshire County outside of those district-level, in-person trainings.”
“We want to be conscientious about how we do this,” Collins emphasized. “We have a very traditional educational system that has served us well, we were just designated as the No. 1 district in the county [by the Niche rating website], so we don’t want to throw that out. At the same time, we don’t want to ignore this world the kids are going to inherit, whether to go to college, trade school, the military or the work force.”
Professional development days for Lenox Public Schools teachers this fall will include a dive into what Collins called his “AI Think Tank,” co-chaired by Brenda Kelley, the Morris Elementary School principal, who’s phasing in as district curriculum director, and Randy McLeod, director of technology.
To ensure that all students gain equal exposure to the technology, a level playing field is the goal of the public school district, Collins explained.
“I don’t exactly know what that may look like,” he acknowledged, “but what I do know is shame on me if I do nothing and shame on our school district if we don’t recognize that this is going to be a very powerful tool. It’s mind-boggling and we want to make sure that our kids are as well situated as any in the country.”
Early adopters can attend 15 weeks of one-hour, after-school “master class” sessions. Others will be given more basic training in the technology.
“Day of AI is going to help us build a framework for a set policy,” Collins predicted. He pointed out that ChatGPT will be able to help teachers develop lesson plans and create handout summaries.
But students would not be able to hand those in as their homework. “No, because it’s all about the learning,” said Collins. “It’s how we use this for learning.”
He also predicted that it’s the elementary school students who will benefit the most from a system with guardrails on how to be a thoughtful, wise consumer of AI tools.
“Ready or not, it’s coming,” Collins asserted when asked how school administrators have reacted to the Day of AI program. “Everyone agreed, we can’t do nothing. Here’s an opportunity to have MIT help us instead of fumbling through this by ourselves in the dark or contracting with a for-profit third party.
“I’m 60, four years to go on my contract, this isn’t going to be my generation’s thing,” he said. “But these kiddos, in the Morris school right now, it is going to be theirs. … The next four years, that’s what I get to influence.”
He hopes that when today’s youngest students graduate, they may credit the former school leaders with being forward-thinking, even if they didn’t grasp what AI could do.
Hard and fast policies should be avoided, Collins noted, because AI is changing so rapidly.
Instead, guidelines that can be modified more frequently are the way to go, he said.
As for the well-publicized pitfalls of AI, Collins asks, “Can you use this for evil? Yes, you can. But at the same time, would we not want all of the benefits? I see the glass as half-full.”
Day of AI at a glance …
• The MIT program works with school districts worldwide to create artificial intelligence literacy programs for students, teachers, administrators and families.
• It trains and educates teachers on how to use AI and AI-enabled tools to support their work and ensures student safety by developing responsible and equitable AI policies in their school.
• The partnership provides free lessons that cater to all levels and abilities K-12, including staff without technology backgrounds.
• Students engage in hands-on projects designing AI tools tied to climate, community or ethics, and tying in real-world issues, such as regional environmental challenges.
• There is a core focus on responsible AI: exploring bias, privacy, misinformation, deepfakes and the White House AI Bill of Rights developed in 2022, helping staff guide nuanced conversations. Curriculum aims to promote trust, critical thinking and evaluating source credibility, which is crucial for students in research and beyond.
• The partnership will link Lenox with a global network of 173 countries, offering cross-cultural exchanges and inspiration. Day of AI features student voices and projects, encouraging Lenox students to present and engage at local or online showcases.
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.