CA Experts Explain Teaching Responsible Usage, Model Best Practices
Two Cheshire Academy faculty members provided their expertise for MIT Technology Review’s special newsletter on AI in education. The Education edition of “Making AI Work” provides practical guidance for working professionals about how generative AI is being deployed, including detailed commentary from Librarian and Technology Coordinator George Aiello and Miriam Przybyla-Baum, who teaches French and coordinates CA’s International Baccalaureate® program.
With a circulation of 193,000, MIT Technology Review is a world-renowned independent media company founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899.
In the edition, Aiello explains that the Academy doesn’t force instructors to use AI, but most have adapted it into their curriculum in meaningful ways over a variety of platforms. “The patchwork approach is partly because the school, on the advice of consultants, opted to train its staff on general techniques for how to use AI instead of prescribing certain tech,” according to the MIT article.
The approach allows teachers to incorporate AI in ways that apply to their subject areas. Przybyla-Baum told MIT Technology Review that she helps students reflect on how AI can and can’t teach language skills. In one assignment, her students allow a large language model to edit their homework and then assess which edits were helpful.
Another assignment has students anonymously grade each other and try to guess which parts of a classmate’s work were AI assisted.
CA strives to be at the forefront of AI advances that can harness productivity and improve education. The Academy has instituted a “traffic light policy” on AI usage, allowing faculty to code assignments as red light (no AI), yellow light (only use AI as indicated) or green light (use it openly). The school has also created a “Student AI Council,” in which students create media and lead discussions about healthy AI use.
