District 742 Talks A.I. in the Classroom

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) - Should artificial intelligence be allowed in a modern classroom? That’s the question behind a presentation at Wednesday’s school board meeting.

Ryan Cox, Director of Innovation and Instructional Technology, and Tech High School senior Jack Oker demonstrated the power of the artificial intelligence products available today.

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Cox says the goal is to use technology in the daily administrative tasks, so teachers can spend more time interacting with students.

So let's take a look at a breakdown by the US Department of Education of an average teacher week. What they're acknowledging is that 49% of the time that teachers spend working is actually spent in direct interaction with students. Our goal with AI is how can we take those administrative pieces off - those noninstructional pieces - how can we decrease that, so we can increase the time that teachers are directly working with our kids?

Oker says, much like pocket calculators and social media, technology is only new if you haven’t grown up around it.

I am a senior, so 18 years old. I have never lived without Facebook or YouTube. Something that may appear somewhat recent is my normal, I never lived without it. It's always been a constant. I truly believe that kindergarteners who are five years old, they're going to feel the same way about AI.

The school board watched a live demonstration on how using current A.I. technology can make teachers more efficient with their time, and students can get the tutoring necessary when they struggle with subject material.

In less than a minute, Chat GPT was able to design a lesson plan for a 10th-grade history class on World War II, design test questions for the material, and then change both to a 3rd-grade class.

Then, artificial intelligence was used to help a student understand stoichiometry for a high-school chemistry class. Using a normal spoken tone, the program was able to define stoichiometry and then coach a student through a practice program in balancing the weights of reactants in a chemical reaction.

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