Introduction
As I reflect on the role of AI in education today in the middle of planning for an upcoming fall training session, I realize that the topic of integrating AI into learning at various levels may already have been explored by others. At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder if there has been enough focus on how to scaffold and structure AI use at each educational stage. The K12 part of my brain has been pondering how AI might take shape as part of my thinking about how best to teach it at the higher education level. I think it could be helpful to think about each level and how it contributes to each ensuing level of learning so I can make informed decisions about integrating AI into instruction.
As AI continues to evolve and weave itself into many aspects of our daily lives, it becomes increasingly important for students to develop the critical skills necessary to navigate this new information ecosystem that AI presents to us. Before exploring existing benchmarks and frameworks, I’d like to share a rough outline for structuring AI use across different educational levels. This is a very basic brainstorm - a brain dump of initial thoughts for each level of education - so it lacks specifics and suggested strategies. I welcome your thoughts and insights to help further refine and expand these ideas.
🤗 PK-4: Instructor-led use
I think the best approach at this level is instructor-led AI use. In the best-case scenario, teachers would use AI to help them:
Develop engaging lessons and answer students' questions that are driven by curiosity. The goal: Use AI with students specifically to introduce concepts that they will explore further in human-generated content.
Focus: Using AI to support evidence-based practices while aligning use with cognitive stages of development and helping students develop a love of learning.
😊 Grades 4-6
The approach here: Instructor-led use. Yes, students in these grades are typically under 12, and the terms of use for many apps are over 12. But they will still use it on their own, right? It's important to introduce and model the info-lit process.
Begin to develop an awareness of the benefits and drawbacks of AI by teaching how it works and how machine-generated output compares with human-generated sources. Begin conversations around ethics and privacy related to AI as part of digital citizenship initiatives.
Focus: Teach students information literacy skills, how AI works, and issues with machine-generated output (potential inaccuracies, bias, lack of global perspectives, etc.). Use human- and AI-generated media to engage students in conversations. Differentiate AI output from search engine results listing human-generated content. Additionally, it would be helpful to teach students about privacy issues related to AI use. They should be aware that anything they share with AI tools, as with any app, can impact their privacy, so they shouldn’t share personal information online.
😜 Grades 7-9
While continuing to model strategic and ethical use, students over 12 can use tools like Perplexity.ai to practice using AI more independently with guidance to promote critical thinking and human discernment in the info lit process.
Students should produce media with and without AI to explore media literacy skills and critically evaluate media produced by humans and AI to assess benefits and drawbacks on the world around us (media construction of news, political ads, and other media impacted by AI).
Focus: Practice strategic and ethical use with guidance. Encourage students to think about when, why, and how they should use AI and its effects on their ability to think deeply and creatively. Use current events and authentic issues raised by student use of these tools to discuss impacts of AI use.
🤓 Grades 10-12
Continue modeling and practicing info-media literacy while focusing on strategic and ethical uses of AI in the process. Continue to help students find ways to use AI to speed up aspects of the info-lit process while maintaining their critical thinking and human discernment in the process so they share original ideas.
While refining skills for strategic and ethical uses, make sure to teach about the human and environmental impacts of AI use to help them avoid overuse, which can impact not only deep learning but can also impact broader human and environmental aspects of AI use.
Focus: If we prepare students for responsible AI use in both academic and authentic contexts, we can encourage them to make informed decisions about AI and its role in their thinking, writing, and learning processes. Exploring AI across disciplines is critical so students can investigate differences in applying AI literacy skills in different areas of study.
👩🏽🎓 Higher Education
Since these tools are so new and everyone is adapting their instructional practices to meet the needs of learners in the Age of AI, we need to provide instruction and guidance that encompasses all of the issues related to my K12 suggestions. Banning it will drive it underground. Encouraging transparent use with evidence to demonstrate how it was used offers us opportunities to guide its use and help students avoid over-reliance.
At the higher education level, students should continue to explore AI’s impacts on society and how we consume information. They can analyze implications of AI across disciplines and apply ethical considerations for using AI as they explore strategic uses of AI in academic, personal, and professional contexts.
Encourage students to push boundaries and share the creative ways they’re using AI to develop a workshop atmosphere as we continue to shift and redefine teaching and learning.
Focus: Develop advanced critical thinking and ethical reasoning skills in relation to AI use and emphasize the preparation students need to lead, work, and live in a world where AI will continue to affect us in many aspects of our lives. Ongoing conversations among instructors and students is an important way to help redefine teaching and learning to meet the moment.
Conclusion
Scaffolding AI use and helping students use it strategically and ethically will help students avoid missing opportunities to learn and prevent marginalizing their own voices in the process. Without transparency in the process, we miss out on opportunities to guide student use and empower them to learn deeply, enhance their writer’s voice, and prepare them to use these tools to support thinking and learning. This framework is a starting point to engage in more conversation about scaffolding AI use across levels of learning.
What do you think, educators and policymakers? How can we begin to refine these ideas and make them a more complete set of benchmarks for guiding the use of AI in Education?
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