Administrative Procedures

Administrative Procedure 252

Responsible AI Use In Schools

Background

LPSD is committed to leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance educational experiences for our students and reduce the administrative workload for our staff. This document outlines our expectations for the responsible, ethical, and effective use of AI tools in LPSD. These guidelines are designed to thoughtfully manage the risks and benefits of AI use in our schools.

Procedures: 

1. We use AI to help all of our students achieve Excellence for Every Learner.
   1. The use of AI is appropriate to help all students achieve excellence; including improving student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school operations. We are committed to evaluating AI tools for biases and ethical concerns.
2. We adhere to existing policies and regulations.
   1. AI is one of many technologies used in our schools, and its use will align with existing regulations to protect information privacy, ensure accessibility to those with disabilities, and protect against harmful content. 
3. We build an understanding of AI for staff and students.
   1. Promoting AI literacy among students and staff is central to addressing the risks of AI use and teaches critical skills for students’ futures. We will support teachers in adapting instruction in a context where some or all students have access to generative AI tools.
4. We use AI to advance academic integrity.
   1. Honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility continue to be expectations for both students and teachers. Students are expected to be truthful in giving credit to sources and tools and honest in presenting work that is genuinely their own for evaluation and feedback. (How to talk to a student about suspected academic misconduct)
5. We ensure that both students and teachers retain their autonomy when using AI tools.
   1. While AI can offer recommendations and enhance decision-making, it is essential that staff and students act as "critical consumers" of AI.  Humans must be behind the final thought guiding any organizational and academic decisions and changes. Teachers are responsible for clearly outlining how generative AI tools should be used in their classrooms, emphasizing the ethical and responsible use of these technologies. (AI Assessment Scale: Sample Language for Creating Expectations)
6. Expected Use of AI Tools
   1. Our school division recognizes that responsible uses of AI will vary depending on the context, such as a classroom activity or assignment. Appropriate AI use should be aligned with the LPSD AI Guidelines, and it is accepted that our staff use AI to some extent to enhance educational experiences for our students and reduce administrative workload.  Examples of what this may look like are below:
      1. Student Learning
         1. Collaboration: Generative AI tools can partner with students in group projects by contributing concepts, and supplying research support.
         2. Communication: AI can offer students real-time translation, and personalized language exercises.
         3. Content Creation and Enhancement: AI can help generate personalized study materials, summaries, quizzes, and visual aids, help students organize thoughts and content, and help review content.
         4. Tutoring: AI technologies may be used to provide enrichment or the opportunity to reteach subject matter material.
      2. Teacher Support
         1. Assessment Design and Analysis: AI is a powerful tool in enhancing assessment design. Teachers will ultimately be responsible for evaluation, feedback, and grading, including determining and assessing the usefulness of AI in supporting their grading work. AI will not be solely responsible for grading.
         2. Content Development and Enhancement for Differentiation: AI can assist educators by differentiating curricula, suggesting lesson plans, and creating visual learning aids.
         3. Continuous Professional Development: AI can guide educators by recommending teaching and learning strategies based on student needs, personalizing professional development to teachers’ needs and interests, suggesting collaborative projects between subjects or teachers, and offering simulation-based training scenarios such as teaching a lesson or managing a parent/teacher conference.
         4. Research and Resource Compilation: AI can help educators by recommending books or articles relevant to a lesson and updating teachers on teaching techniques, research, and methods.
      3. School Management and Operations
         1. Communications: AI tools can help draft and refine communications within the school community, deploy chatbots for routine inquiries, and provide instant language translation.
         2. Operational Efficiency: Staff can use AI tools to support school operations and streamline administrative processes, including scheduling courses, automating inventory management, increasing energy savings, and generating performance reports.
         3. Learning Management Systems (LMS): AI can analyze anonymous student performance data to provide insights to educators, helping them tailor instruction or interventions.
7. Important Reminder: Protecting Student Data
   1. Do not upload personal student data: Staff and students must not input any personal or sensitive information about students into AI tools. This includes names, identification numbers, grades, health information, and any data that could identify individual students. Upholding the confidentiality and security of student information is paramount to our ethical standards.
8. Detection Tools
   1. LPSD does not support the use of generative AI detection tools. These tools have been proven to be unreliable. False positives can lead to false accusations and false negatives can lead to missed cases. There are several sources on the internet that are easily accessible to “break” a detection tool by bypassing it or tricking it.  

Resources: 
Saskatchewan Rivers School Division
US National Science Foundation: “AI Education and AI in Education”
A.J. Juliani: “Five “A.I. In Schools” Scenarios We Need To Discuss”
World Economic Forum: “How We Can Prepare for the Future with Foundational Policy Ideas for AI in Education”
ChatGPT