AI is on the tips of nearly everyone’s lips. Edtech companies are hawking AI-infused products with reckless abandon, the United Nations is writing briefs on ethical AI use and teachers and students alike are using AI in and out of classrooms.
San Diego Unified is no exception. The fact that some teachers in the district are using AI to grade student work came as a surprise to even board members, who did not realize an AI product was buried in a contract they’d approved without discussion last year.
That realization has some San Diego Unified officials wanting to pump the brakes. Still, the floodgates have opened and are unlikely to close. District officials seem more interested in how to best integrate AI into classrooms than banning it altogether.
Even so, exactly what role AI is currently playing in the district’s classrooms and what role it will play in the future, seem to be open questions.
The Field of Play
Education officials countywide seem to be building the plane while flying it.
San Diego Unified doesn’t have a set policy on AI, but district spokesperson Maureen Magee said officials are working to change that.
Thus far, they’ve deferred to guidance issued by the state last year, but those guidelines aren’t binding like a district policy would be. Magee wrote in an email that the district’s Instructional and Integrated Technology Department is putting together a task force of school staff and community members to craft a policy. They expect a proposal to be submitted by early next year.
Magee also wrote that officials are collaborating with officials at the San Diego County Office of Education and San Diego State University.
That came as news to Stacy Brandt, a spokesperson for the San Diego County Office of Education.
“I haven’t heard anything about SDCOE’s involvement in any group like this,” Brandt wrote in an email.
Brandt wrote that district representatives participated in a county training earlier this year that provided districts resources for how to deal with AI.
Magee couldn’t estimate how often San Diego Unified teachers use AI, or even provide a definitive list of all the AI-powered programs they use.
“Due to the rapidly evolving nature of instructional technology and the widespread integration of AI features across many programs, it’s challenging to provide a comprehensive list of all AI products currently in use,” Magee wrote.
At least eight programs used by district employees or students are supported by AI. But Magee said these programs didn’t have AI features or had features that weren’t marketed as AI until the past year.
Even without an exhaustive list or a dedicated policy, teachers are using AI in surprising ways. Some use it to enhance lesson plans or offer starting points for student projects. Some simply incorporate lessons about the appropriate use of AI into their teaching. Others are getting more creative.
“AI is being used innovatively by educators as they incorporate classroom engagement tools into lessons, such as student-designed personalized storybooks with AI-generated images and historically accurate chatbots,” Magee wrote.
Some experts have panned the use of “historically accurate chatbots” because of their penchant for blatant inaccuracies. AI-generated images have also been controversial given the wholesale theft of art that underpins their models.
“As is the case with most emerging technology, there are ethical and practical considerations,” Magee wrote. “As the district collaborates with education partners to develop AI guidelines, we will explore how to best use what this technology has to offer, including grading programs.”
A View from the Classroom
Jennifer Roberts is an English teacher at Point Loma High who has embraced AI in her classroom. She even has a blog where she writes about its uses and helps guide teachers interested in bringing AI into the classroom.
Roberts uses the AI tool Writable to grade papers, something she said has simultaneously eased her heavy workload and allowed her to hand out more writing assignments. That extra practice, she said, has helped her students become better writers.
Roberts has also integrated lectures about AI into her syllabus and frequently uses tools like ChatGPT during class. She said it’s allowed her students to wrap their minds around how AI can be useful – and how it can fall short.
“When I use it in my classroom with my students in front of my students, it’s because I want them to understand the affordances and limitations of that tool,” Roberts said. “They need to see it fail, and they often see it fail.”
Roberts is an admitted AI optimist, but she said she is concerned about equity and access issues that could replicate society’s existing inequalities. But she’s not concerned that AI will lead to more cheating because she says students have always cheated. She also pointed to a study that showed levels of cheating have remained relatively static since ChatGPT came on the scene.
Ultimately, Roberts believes AI benefits students and teachers, and it’s not going away. She thinks we’re moving into a world where writing is “an AI-assisted task” so she might as well make sure her students know how to use it responsibly. She’s even crafted assignments that call for the use of AI and said it helped all her students, including English language learners and students with disabilities, perform better.
“My students are going to live in the future,” Roberts said. “And the future is going to be very dominated by AI-assisted everything. I don’t think we’re equipping students for that future if we ban it, block it prohibit it, never talk about it and tell them it doesn’t exist.”
A View from the Dais
San Diego Unified board member Richard Barrera has long been wary of tech companies that “claim they have the magical answer,” to improving education.
The rise of AI has produced a nearly endless supply of them – and they haven’t been shy about arguing that AI can transform classrooms. In Barrera’s view, tech companies aim to get customers using their products before they can evaluate the quandaries surrounding them.
“There’s always this push from tech that it’s inevitable, it’s the way of the future and we’re doing harm to our kids if we keep them away from the future,” Barrera said.
Barrera thinks the district needs to step back and reassess what role AI should play before jumping into new contracts. When the board approved a contract that ushered the AI tool Writable into classrooms, they didn’t have a policy for how to deal with AI.
Developing one should be their first step, he said.
Barrera harbors concerns about how a flood of AI programs could impact the teaching profession. One challenge he’s heard from teachers is that policing whether a student’s writing is actually an AI’s writing is a losing battle.
Still, he said, he’s not entirely opposed to AI in education, so long as it enables high-quality instruction rather than attempt to replace it.
Barrera said he’s heard thoughtful teachers argue that AI tools allow them to move beyond syntax and grammar worries and engage students in deeper conversations about writing. AI is to writing as a calculator is to mathematics, some teachers have told him: a tool that allows students to perform better.
Barrera thinks it’s a compelling argument but doesn’t seem particularly sold on it.
“I think the real question is, is the use of AI in writing dumbing things down to the point where students are becoming poorer writers and thinkers because they’re relying on a machine to do that for them? … Or is it something that’s assisting with the grinding grunt work of writing that allows you to get more depth?” Barrera said.
“My guess is these particular tools could go either way and probably do go either way.”
At least now there is some kind of intelligence in SDUSD