Thompson school board receives crash course on AI – Loveland Reporter-Herald
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The Thompson School District Board of Education learned about artificial intelligence technology firsthand during a study session Wednesday night at Ferguson High School.
Led by the district’s chief technology officer, Kelly Sain, the board learned about the novel technology by experimenting with ChatGPT, an open source chatbot that can give responses to users when presented with prompts.
Board members were given prompts to input, such as “write me a list of eight algebra questions for a third grade class,” and then instructed to alter the prompt, perhaps by adding “make the questions easier.”
The technology, Sain explained, could also be used by students to receive feedback on school papers by asking ChatGPT to review it and point out strengths or weaknesses, or by getting past writer’s block by giving a potential answer to a prompt.
The ChatGPT platform, a large language model that is trained on data to mimic human intelligence, could routinely produce practice problems, write curricula and even compose poems.
Board members indicated fascination and, occasionally, concern, about the new technology.
“When I had homework, and I had to do the research, and I had to write, I would, you know, stare at the blank screen, type, delete, type, delete, type, delete,” said board member Nancy Rumfelt. “But to me that’s part of it. Eventually your brain finally gets it.”
Stu Boyd, a board member and former English teacher at Berthoud Elementary School, said that he worried that student use of the technology could stifle creativity, if they were given a starting place to write an essay, or even an entire essay written for them.
“Does it promote creativity?” Boyd asked. “It sounds like ChatGPT is giving you what you need instead of asking you to create.”
Boyd said that he could see uses for the technology in subjects like science or math.
Other board members like Pam Howard compared the new technology to previous advancements like the advent of Google, something she said was opposed by many educators when it was introduced but is now used frequently by students both at home and in the classroom.
“Think of math,” Sain said. “People didn’t want students using calculators, because you’re never going to have a calculator in your pocket. Well now, not only do you have a calculator in your pocket, you have the internet.”
But Sain said that concerns surrounding AI were valid, and pointed to a number of potential pitfalls in her presentation.
One of which, because ChatGPT is open sourced or meaning accessible to the public, is that sensitive personal information about students has to stay out of any prompts. Instructors can’t ask ChatGPT to produce an individualized education plan, something often used in teaching students with special needs, because to do so would compromise their private information.
Plagiarism is also a worry, that students might sometimes ask a chatbot like ChatGPT to write their book report. Although teachers familiar with the style that AI writes with can often recognize it, and even those that can’t will typically find such essays of lesser quality and grade them accordingly, she said that there is no way to definitively determine whether a piece of writing was produced by a computer or a human being.
She said that concerns like those offered by Boyd and Rumfelt were valid as well, and have been under consideration since before Wednesday’s presentation.
Now that higher level officials have been briefed on AI technology in education, a working group of teachers will be formed to consider the new technology further and develop policies surrounding its use.
But Sain said that students are already familiarizing themselves with it, so the district should as well.
“I think it’s important to see something and practice with it, so you know the reality of it,” she said. “And then have conversations about the implications.”
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