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Students and AI

Generative AI Guidelines

STUDENTS and AI:

How to Teach, Model, and Use AI in Elementary Classrooms

Students Using AI

Students (including students under 13 years old) CAN use the following AI tools. Teachers/Staff are required to obtain permission from parents/caregivers (here is a sample letter you can copy/edit).

   

Level 3: Creative Integration
 

Level 2: Applied Learning

Level 1: Foundational Understanding

1

Foundational Understanding

Focus: Introducing AI and its basic functions, including exposure to capabilities and limitations. 

Description: This stage is about building an initial understanding of what AI is and what it is not, emphasizing that AI is a tool rather than a sentient being. It covers the essential concepts that AI operates through machine learning, using data to perform tasks, and recognizing its limitations and capabilities.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand that AI is not a person, and doesn’t have thoughts and emotions like we do. Talk about AI as a machine, using words like “it” instead of “he, she, or they.”
  • Understand that AI is a machine that uses information from the internet to solve problems, give ideas, and even help us with creative projects.
  • Understand that AI isn’t perfect and can make mistakes.
  • Understand that we should never share important information (like last names, addresses, and phone numbers) with AI machines.

Implementation Ideas

Talk About AI
  • Ask students to draw or describe AI. Notice if they add details that highlight technology aspects, or more human characteristics like faces and feelings. Do they associate any positive/negative emotions with AI?

Make Connections

  • Discuss predictive text and spell check
  • Ask students if they’ve used a smart speaker, like an Echo (Alexa) or Siri
  • Make connections to adaptive assessments

Play with AI

Use AI for Lesson Planning & Design

There are many, many more AI tools, but this list is a great place to start. 
 

Model AI

  • Show problem-solving strategies, using questions from curriculum resources or even from real-life scenarios that are important to students.
  • Teach students that this method does not allow us to ask any question and get the right answer immediately.
  • Teach about trying and failing, prompting and re-prompting, and the need to rely on critical thinking skills to analyze responses. 

Use AI Together (Teacher-Led)

Design games with SchoolAI or MagicSchool

2

Applied Learning

Focus: Introducing AI and its basic functions, including exposure to capabilities and limitations. 

Description: This stage is about building an initial understanding of what AI is and what it is not, emphasizing that AI is a tool rather than a sentient being. It covers the essential concepts that AI operates through machine learning, using data to perform tasks, and recognizing its limitations and capabilities.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand that AI is not a person, and doesn’t have thoughts and emotions like we do. Talk about AI as a machine, using words like “it” instead of “he, she, or they.”
  • Understand that AI is a machine that uses information from the internet to solve problems, give ideas, and even help us with creative projects.
  • Understand that AI isn’t perfect and can make mistakes.
  • Understand that we should never share important information (like last names, addresses, and phone numbers) with AI machines.

3

Creative Integration 

Focus: Utilizing AI for creative and critical applications and giving students opportunities to use AI to deepen learning. 

Description: This stage involves deeper engagement with AI tools, encouraging students to use AI creatively to generate new content and solve complex problems. It promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills, focusing on how AI can be a partner in learning rather than a solution provider. Students explore advanced uses of AI, including generating texts, images, and other media, while understanding the importance of human oversight and critical analysis.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand everything listed for Foundational Understanding (Level 1) and Applied Learning (Level 2), plus: 
  • Understand that Generative AI is like a creative robot - it can make brand-new content in the form of text, images, videos, and audio, and that it is not a research or quick-search tool.
  • Understand that the more information that is put into AI tools, the better it can analyze data and get better at creating new content.
  • Understand that classroom AI chatbots are designed to deepen learning, ask meaningful questions, and give thoughtful responses. These chatbots will not simply provide answers so that students don’t have to build and rely on critical thinking skills!