Listen to article 4 minutes This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any feedback.
Diving overview:
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology released long-awaited guidance Thursday to help K-12 leaders incorporate artificial intelligence into their school districts. The development of the AI toolkit was spurred by President Joe Biden’s October 2023 executive order. This executive order asked the administration to create resources to help teachers implement this technology. This new federal AI resource comes as more school districts look to use the technology in their classrooms and operations. While nearly half of states have released their own K-12 AI guidance, education industry leaders continue to emphasize the need for more uniform advice from the federal government.
Dive Insight:
The 74-page toolkit will help K-12 leaders “make important decisions about integrating AI applications into the core of student learning and instruction,” the Department of Education said in a resource document. He said it was designed to.
The Department for Education has divided its guidance into three sections:
Reduce risk while protecting student privacy, security, and civil rights. Build a strategy to integrate the use of AI tools to best meet student needs. Guide the effective use of AI to enhance teaching and learning.
Sara Kurk, vice president of education and children’s policy at the Software and Information Industry Association, said in a statement Thursday that the agency’s recommendations on managing AI risks will require further insight from the education community. More input is needed, for example, through impact assessments and the use of AI testing, she said.
Overall, Crook said the toolkit provides “practical guidance” that schools, districts and states can customize for their own uses.
This toolkit is designed to help education leaders, both new and experienced, use AI in their school districts. Regardless of your experience level, our department is focused on keeping safety, ethics, and fairness in mind.
The ministry developed the guidance after holding public hearing sessions with 90 educators between December 2023 and March 2024. In addition, 12 roundtable discussions with education leaders were held during the same period.
According to the survey, school districts are still working on developing their own formal AI usage policies.
An analysis released this week by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research and policy group, found that among a select group of 40 school systems that were early adopters of AI, about one-third of the schools that were the first to adopt AI 1 is said to be unable to utilize public AI guidance. Analytical organization.
A separate April report from the RAND Corporation and CRPE, based on a fall 2023 survey of 231 school districts, found that only 5% had specific use policies for students regarding generative AI. .
Researchers and district leaders say schools are hesitant to implement this year’s guidance for several reasons, including the struggle to balance AI with other district challenges and concerns about rushing the AI implementation process. It is suggested that
In fact, only a minority of superintendents considered AI a “very urgent” need this year, according to a February survey by education consulting firm EAB. The same report found that other issues such as staffing, chronic absenteeism and student discipline were higher priorities for superintendents.
However, one Iowa school district told K-12 Dive in August that its approach to considering the use of AI for students and staff will ensure that the district is applying the technology in a safe and responsible manner. He explained that this is a “go slow then go fast” strategy. and an ethical method.
