To test the AI’s learning intensity, I visited classrooms

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In January, Marisa Shuman, a computer science teacher at the Young Women’s Leadership School in the Bronx, invited me to her classroom for a few days.

Her school is an all-girls public middle and high school that specializes in math, science, and technology. And she thought I might be interested in the lesson she had just prepared about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that can generate book reports and social studies essays.

As a reporter who has spent years documenting how tech companies and their tools are reshaping public schools, I jumped at the opportunity.

At the time, ChatGPT was starting to explode on schools and college campuses. Technology executives have begun promoting familiarity with AI tools as an important skill for students.

Meanwhile, New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest school system, recently blocked access to ChatGPT on school devices and networks over concerns of fraud and inaccuracy.

Ms. Shuman, however, sees it as a teachable moment.

She used ChatGPT at home to create lessons about fitness trackers and other wearable technology. She then tested the material with her 11th and 12th grade students.

She told her students that she didn’t care if they learned nothing about wearable technology. But she wanted them to test the accuracy and effectiveness of the lessons the chatbot created.

In other words, Ms. Shuman is using the AI ​​tool as an exercise for her students to practice critical thinking about technology.

And her students freely criticized. They discovered that the lessons created by the chatbot contained many errors, used advertising widgets, and asked overly simple questions.

“It reminds me of fourth grade,” one student said.

It was a reminder to me that there is no substitute for journalists visiting organizations to observe first-hand what is going on and interview participants in person. It was also the spark for a reporting project that would take me across the country: If we wanted to give readers a realistic look at the new AI education boom, I needed to visit more classrooms .

I’m already aware that some school districts are feeling pressure to quickly introduce generalized AI technologies – i.e. tools like ChatGPT, which are trained on databases of text or digital images giant, can produce text or images in seconds – for students to use.

That’s partly because a number of prominent tech companies, CEOs, and billionaires have hailed AI chatbots as education game-changers. They promise that these tools will definitely revolutionize and automatically personalize student learning.

There’s also widespread FOMO: Some tech leaders warn that students won’t be able to compete for jobs if they don’t know how to use AI

I set out to explore how these tools affect teaching and learning in schools — and whether classroom reality lives up to the edtech hype I mentioned before or not.

Over the years, Silicon Valley companies, billionaires and industry-funded nonprofits have promoted a range of technology products as revolutionary educational innovations. But so far, there isn’t much solid evidence that video-based tutorials or personalized learning apps have significantly improved student outcomes.

So I wonder: Will AI make a difference?

I’m fascinated by the promise of AI tutoring bots. So I started by spending a morning at Khan Lab School, a nonprofit private school in Palo Alto, California, where a sixth-grade math class was trying out a new AI tutor named Khanmigo.

There, teachers encouraged students to tinker with the bot, which was developed specifically for use in schools by Khan Academy, a related — but separately run — nonprofit educational organization.

Some students playfully asked Khanmigo to answer math questions in Gen Z slang or in the form of a rap song. A student discovered that Khanmigo made an addition error and quickly corrected the bot.

Across the country, I’ve noticed tutoring bot reviews are more mixed.

At First Avenue Elementary School in Newark, a third-grade teacher leading a class on fractions posted specific math questions on the whiteboard that she wanted her students to ask Khanmigo. The bot responds by giving the student step-by-step instructions to solve the problem.

School officials observing classrooms told me they found the AI ​​tool too useful. They said they wanted students to be able to think through the steps of problem solving on their own.

I’ve also seen a lot of enthusiasm and creative uses of AI in schools. During a recent visit to Walla Walla, Wash., about a four-hour drive from Seattle, I met teachers who were using ChatGPT to create imaginative literary games and storytelling exercises for their students. Surname.

But the lesson I learned when I visited the school this year wasn’t so much about technology skills.

From the Bronx to Walla Walla, school officials and teachers told me they feel it’s just as important for students to learn how to ask important questions about artificial intelligence as it is for them to learn how to use the technology. In fact, for some of them, it’s even more important.

I also learned that there are more stories to report, as many schools and teachers are just starting to discuss what they think AI education will look like.

So, I plan to visit more schools soon. If you are an educator who would like to host me at your school or share your experiences using AI tools, please fill out this form.