David Bern leaned over his classroom computer and started tapping away at the keyboard.
The veteran math teacher at Pepin Academy charter school in East Tampa was preparing for his next class period, and wanted an extra lesson.
He turned to artificial intelligence for the assist. He typed in the course he was teaching, geometry, along with the grade level and the standards he wanted covered.
“Please make student instructions for this activity,” he wrote.
Within 5 seconds, his AI assistant suggested a six-step set of instructions for a quiz on area and perimeter calculations that did everything from reminding students to show their work to suggesting ways to manage time well.
“You have 20 minutes to complete the quiz,” the assistant wrote, “so keep an eye on the clock.”
Before long, teens had the information on their classroom laptops.
“When it comes to the thing of being creative, it’s been a weakness for me,” Bern said. The AI “will go in and find these things for me in seconds. … It leaves me time to really spend time on student-by-student cases.”
It’s not ChatGPT or another open-access AI system that Bern is using to boost his classes. He’s participating in Tampa-based Scholar Education’s state pilot at two Tampa Bay charter schools — Pepin Academies and Dayspring Academy — that targets Florida classroom education.
This isn’t the first time schools have dabbled in AI. But this project, underwritten with $1.1 million from the state, marks an effort to establish a “one-stop” model for schools, rather than have teachers and students rely on internet AI tools.
Risks and rewards
AI in schools has generated buzz in the past year. Questions have swirled over students using it to cheat and chatbots producing unreliable information.
“There are real risks,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, such as deepfakes, plagiarism and student data security. “But I also see a lot of opportunity.”
Lake, who writes frequently about technology in schools, said AI could help teachers target lessons to students’ abilities and interests. It can make the “chore aspect” of teachers’ work easier, she said, and assist children who struggle with language and other facets of learning.
Its success depends on the guardrails and policies schools and developers put in place.
“You can’t ignore it,” Lake said. “So why not harness its potential?”
Scholar Education co-founder Marlee Strawn said that’s her goal.
The system incorporates Florida’s academic standards, course work and individual student data to assist teachers and personalize learning. It uses information on the internet but is not accessible to the public.
Strawn, formerly principal of Dr. Kiran Patel High School in Temple Terrace, said she and her partners aim to create a safe AI model that teachers, students and families find beneficial.
“The reality is, we’ve been talking about personalized learning for the last 10 years. The technology just wasn’t there,” she said. “We’re really at the very beginning of the possibilities for AI in the classroom.”
Starting small
The pilot started small, Strawn said, to allow methodical development based on student and teacher feedback on how to best integrate the system into viable academic use. It focused on two very different schools.
Pepin specializes in students with extra learning needs, most of whom have individualized education plans. Dayspring is a pre-collegiate school where students are expected to graduate with an associate’s degree along with their diploma.
More teachers at both schools already have asked to join. And teachers don’t volunteer for much extra work these days, Pepin executive director Jeff Skowronek noted.
“Teachers have so many requirements,” said Karla Marone, principal of Dayspring’s Early College campus. “If they have a tool that helps them accomplish more, then I’m all for it.”
Early participants cited their ability to quickly process some of the more routine aspects of their work, freeing them to focus on teaching.
Dayspring business teacher Jamie Hickey said the system’s teacher bot makes her feel as if she has a personal assistant who can prepare emails, track calendars and research classroom activities and assignments for her.
“It’s definitely not doing my job,” Hickey said. “It is supporting my job.”
At first leery of AI, Sarah Davies, an intensive reading teacher at Pepin, said it’s helped her plan lessons in half the time. Sometimes it offers resources or ideas she had not considered.
And her students like the ability to work on their own after she models the lessons.
“It helps them and guides them to be more independent in their classwork, but it doesn’t take away the teaching,” Davies said.
Teachers noted the system allows teachers to monitor what their students are doing in it. That lets them see if students are cheating, looking at inappropriate materials or veering off their lessons.
It also helps them direct lessons, based on student questions and assignment responses. For students still learning English, it translates into dozens of languages.
‘It helps guide my work’
Students had mainly positive things to say about the student AI assistant, dubbed BaxterBot.
“I still have to put in the work, but it helps guide my work,” said Dayspring ninth grader Mya Rogers, who added she had not used AI before. “It helps me get my work done faster.”
For an assignment on creating a business, ninth grader Charlotte Smith said she and her partners in Hickey’s class came up with making beaded bracelets.
“I put in my original thoughts, and Baxter made it sound more mature so we can use it for a business,” she said. “Baxter suggested putting a coating over them to make them weatherproof. … That made it sound more professional.”
Pepin 10th grader Marvin Baity said he always tries to do his work without relying on AI. But he liked that when he does turn to the bot, it offers suggestions and asks questions to boost his understanding rather than spewing out answers.
For a class debate on competitive video gaming, or esports, he used the bot to find arguments on the pro side.
“I asked for ideas of what’s positive about esports,” he said, as he considered the responses, which included promoting teamwork, encouraging strategic thinking and supporting quick decision making — some of which he added to the plan he submitted.
“It’s like backup,” Marvin said. “We’ve got to be fair to the teachers. We can’t kick them out. We still need teachers.”
Classmate Jaden Duckworth was less hesitant to use it.
“It’s my new best friend. I use it every day,” he said, as he typed in questions to support his debate assignment.
His teacher, Samantha Jones, said she appreciated that the system can be used to personalize the way it addresses each student at their level, such as reading material aloud or phrasing responses in certain ways.
Tailored instruction like this has long been a goal of Florida educators, said Pepin chief operating officer Monika Perez. And what better place to test it than in a special education-centered school, she added.
“Our population and our school are so unique,” Perez said. “Our type of students, you’re not thinking of when you develop these types of programs. We want to be part of the design on the front end.”
Strawn said she is hopeful the pilot will show other schools the possibilities, and they will join. It also has applications for home school families, she said.
Bern, the Pepin math teacher, said with the proper mindset, schools can properly use AI without fearing the worst.
“We tell kids, using your resources is not cheating. It is being resourceful,” he said. “It’s our job to teach kids how to be resourceful the right way.”
