AI in the Classroom

This academic year, we are focusing on student and adult formation because it is important for students to know why their learning matters in the age of AI. We want students to understand that education isn’t about grades. Grades are just supposed to describe their level of mastery. Instead, their learning is about their becoming and growth. Learning and eventually mastering the content and skills across disciplines, encountering friction, navigating failure, developing resilience and self-knowledge — all of these — shape students: cultivate their judgement, foster their critical thinking, and protect their creative thinking. We want them to understand that learning is an experience necessary for their development that must not be offloaded, so they can become their full selves. So we work with our faculty to create in-class and out-of-class learning experiences that enable students to choose their learning. And we are rolling out parent programming about AI and technology use to be in partnership with the other adults in our students’ lives.

Given our multifaceted approach, it was gratifying to read MIT’s “AI and Education” report. In it, MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training articulates that while AI is everywhere already and can upend a student’s educational experience, there are ways to mitigate AI’s worse effects. They offered three recommendations on how to address this challenge: Assessments and in-class learning must be adapted to be more social, experiential, and innovative; students and adults need to be centered as AI literacy, and responsible and ethical AI use are integrated as foundational in student work across disciplines; and processes and teams must be constructed to enable continuous reflection, iteration, and improvement. Essentially, MIT’s “AI and Education” report calls for a “human-centered approach to AI as an augmentative tool.” 

And we at CSW are elated because these recommendations are in line with what we have been doing and continue to do here. Our focus on our students’ growth as whole persons helps them to understand that learning includes productive struggle and that using AI to produce excellent work results in a loss of learning that hurts them. For those of us who work in schools, it is important to recognize that while LLMs can be great for managing tasks, making them easier and faster to complete, the goal of learning isn’t easier or faster. The goal of learning is the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social development of our students. 

So yes, students should have exposure to technology but only in ways that support their learning and development. At CSW, we believe and practice that what matters most for student learning aren't devices or technology. Rather, an interested teacher–someone who cares about who a student is becoming — is what matters most. We train our adults to deepen their relationships with students as their teachers and advisors as well as to partner with students and parents as we navigate a changing educational and social landscape. Only a human-centered approach will prepare students for the complexity, challenges, and opportunities that AI, and other forms of advanced technology present.