What’s so good about AI?
Leading schools are discovering how to bring out the best that artificial intelligence has to offer.
The brave new world of artificial intelligence is emerging and Haileybury Pangea is a leader in discussions about AI and its potential impacts on the world of education.
From ChatGPT and using AI to generate practice exam questions, Haileybury Pangea students are discovering how AI technology can be used to explore subjects more deeply and to expand digital skills.
English teachers are improving literacy skills by using AI to generate images and supporting materials to illustrate words that are often misunderstood or confused, such as ‘weather’ and ‘whether’, and ‘compliment’ and ‘complement’.
“If they can’t find a suitable image online, teachers can create their own image using Adobe Firefly to illustrate exactly what they want to communicate,” explains Geoff Orton, Digital Learning Leader at Haileybury Pangea.
Physical Education teachers at Haileybury Pangea are using AI technology called Curipod to help with lesson planning and to add interactive elements into PowerPoint slides, such as creating quizzes, animation, lesson hooks and discussion points that increase student understanding.
“In Humanities, Year 8 teachers can use AI generated text and students then critique that text for any misinformation. A few students in Year 11 have also formed a ‘tech crew’ and they have developed units that Haileybury Pangea students can work through with their tutor to examine deep fakes and image manipulation,” says Geoff.
“AI tools also create potential for students to receive faster feedback on their learning. I can see AI providing feedback on quizzes and perhaps also providing feedback on grammar and spelling for smaller pieces of work. The teacher would remain the source of truth, but AI could help bridge the feedback gap between lessons, so students know they are on the right path.”
Michelle Dennis, Head of Digital at Haileybury believes that, with the right guidance, AI can broaden learning, encourage creativity and critical thinking, and make better use of teaching and study times.
To underpin how AI is used across Haileybury’s classrooms, the school has developed five guiding principles: academic integrity, critical thinking and ethics, privacy and security, creative uses, and key skills.
Academic integrity encourages students to acknowledge the use of ChatGPT and other AI platforms for assignments, and teachers are also using products with AI detectors to support academic integrity.
“Critical thinking is focused on students being able to pull apart AI and think about concepts, results and potential biases”Michelle Dennis, Head of Digital
To ensure privacy and security, students are reminded not to submit personal information when using AI platforms and only approved platforms can be used within school.
“From a creativity perspective, we are training students to find ways to use AI to help them learn better and to add value to their learning. Finally, we don’t want AI to take over the development of foundational skills, such as mathematical and writing skills. So, while embracing AI, we want students to have opportunities to develop key skills for success later on,” says Michelle.
“AI is undoubtedly changing jobs now and into the future and the way to protect students in that dramatically shifting world is to make sure they know how to use AI. As educators, we can give students digital citizenship as well as an ability to talk about the consequences of AI and how society can put guardrails around it. We’re just at the beginning of seeing what can be done with AI in schools.”
