The questions surrounding AI are no longer focused on if you’re using it, but how. Poly Prep’s new “Stop, Slow, Go” model, introduced this past September, helps students and teachers adapt to AI in the classroom. Leaders, teachers, and students in Poly’s Middle School are increasingly working with AI and seeing benefits and challenges.
Head of Middle School, Dan Doughty, explains how AI fits into Poly’s educational setting and how students can either utilize or misuse the tool. The main struggle with AI in an educational setting is how to “use AI as a meaningful tool,” and for students to “not rely on it as a shortcut,” said Doughty. He believes that AI can be a helpful tool for students, to use as an “interactive thought partner, a conversation partner in another language, or a tool for giving feedback on presentations.” However, Doughty feels it is hard to navigate between using AI as a helping hand versus misusing it without actual learning involved.
As of now, the Middle School AI policy mirrors the Upper School’s and uses the “Stop, Slow, Go” model to help teachers indicate how students’ may use AI in their classroom. The “stop” level means that there is no AI use allowed to complete or aid in completion of the assignment, “slow” allows students to use AI but only to complete specific tasks that are approved by a faculty member, usually their teacher, and “go” allows students to use AI more extensively with the oversight of a faculty member. Both levels that allow AI point out that the student must cite their work with AI to be successfully following the AI policy.
Doughty has seen that there are less incidents with students misusing AI as a result of clarifying the AI policy, and moving “more of the writing work to in-class exercises.” However, Doughty still sees students using the tool “to create their document[s]” or to complete smaller scale assignments.
Building on the availability of AI in the classroom, AI usage is different for each teacher and class, as “each teacher sets the terms for acceptable use in their classes,” said Middle School Dean Amanda Rose. With the new AI policy, teachers can more easily set guidelines on the usage of AI through the three AI usage levels. When Rose gets reports that these guidelines have been broken, the student(s) “might need a reminder to follow the guidelines set by their teacher regarding AI. We then have follow-up conversations with the student and support them in re-doing the assignment.” Here Rose explains what happens when students misuse AI and that with this opportunity “they really do learn from it.” Rose has yet to be“involved in a situation in which further consequences have been necessary,” aside from not receiving credit on that assignment. Rose further explains how the Middle School does “not have the same Honor Council system as Upper Schoolers,” and if a follow up on the misuse is needed, they “work closely with the student, their family, and the teacher to develop a plan.” The policy overall helps students learn acceptable and non-acceptable use of AI and how AI can fit into their learning.
Sixth grade history teacher, Caesar Fabella, finds AI to be a helpful tool in his teaching and an aid to his classroom structure. Fabella states that he primarily uses tools like ChatGPT to build off of his own ideas and “generate more ideas,” to aid his teaching. While Fabella doesn’t permit usage of AI in his classroom, he believes that AI itself isn’t dangerous but it’s more the matter of “making wise decisions.”
In the Middle School, students tend to use “AI sometimes,” but more to “generate study guides or to practice for assessments,” said Seventh grader Dasha Standfield. Her use of AI is to help her in the process of learning rather than completion of work. Stanfield hasn’t seen her teachers directly using AI, but believes it could be a helpful tool in the classroom, as it also aids her preparation for her classes.
Doughty believes that the Middle School AI policy “will continue to evolve,” as we as school “have learned and gained more experience.”
