I teach 5th and 6th grade Math and Science in an elementary school. My teaching partner and I have two classes one class with 22 6th graders and the other class with 23 students, 13 5th graders and 10 6th graders. My partner teaches both classes ELA and Social Studies while I see both classes every day for Math and Science. Students also get Music/Band, Art, Library, and PE (twice a week) and four days a week they get morning recess, lunch recess, and afternoon recess (Wednesdays the day ends for kids one hour early so that teachers can get PLC time and PD time). In my Math and Science classes, more STEM actually, we practice coding with Minecraft to prep students for our robotics unit with the Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots. In the fall students set and retrieve fish traps to collect data on the fish going through our creek and then in the spring students collect water quality data at our creek as well as plant trees along riparian zones. Students also participate in our amazing garden program every Monday. Our Math and STEM classes balance the use of modern technology with hands-on activities and outdoor education. When students use technology it’s to innovate and to use tools they will be most likely using when they are done with their school education. My students are not on screens all the time and we do not use tech for tech’s sake.
I start with that disclaimer because as a strong advocate of guiding students through the use of technology in their education I often get treated as if I don’t know that students need a balance of tech and non-tech tools and techniques. I advocate for the use of technology because in my experience there isn’t enough use of technology in classrooms even though the world is highly technological. If it’s what kids will need to know to get the jobs they want, then it’s up to schools to provide students the guidance and education to prepare them.
That’s why when I first heard about ChatGPT and the way AI has advanced and is changing our world, I knew I had to get in front of it and make sure my students knew what they are in store for and prepare them for it. I spent a good portion of last summer learning as much as I could, reading books and taking courses on AI in education. I got a great idea from Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook for getting my students involved in setting up a policy for AI use in education and specifically in my class.
I knew that Google Bard was out of the question as it’s set up for 18 years and older only. Even ChatGPT is open only to kids ages 13 to 18 with parent permission. Teaching 5th and 6th grade all my students are under 13 years of age. I shared in a previous post a mention on Bing Chat that kids under 13 could use it with parent permission so I started this school year securing parent permission to allow my students to use Bing Chat as needed in class. Here is a document I drafted with the help of ChatGPT:
Note as of December 28, 2023: since the writing of this post I have found tools besides Bing Chat that we can use with kids under 13 years of age. I wrote about them here, here, here, and here.
Once we got off to a great start, I shared the following AI in the Classroom Pear Deck slideshow to my students (I used Pear Deck because it turns slideshows interactive engaging students in their own learning):
When we got to the slide with Matt Miller’s AI cheating spectrum students moved a star icon to the level on the graphic they thought would be acceptable for use in a classroom where the purpose was to learn.
When the results came in we discussed the implications of each different level including the question, “how much is too much for the AI to create?” Here’s what both classes came up with:
I summarized what both classes came up with and agreed to:
Summary of Class AI Policy Agreement
We the students of the 2023-2024 6B and 6G classes hereby agree to the following when using AI for school and classroom work, projects, or activities whether in class or at home for class:
- Students will write the first draft so they are creating the content and not the AI.
- If students get stuck they can use Bing Chat to ask the AI questions to help them get unstuck. Students can use the AI ideas to continue writing their draft themselves.
- When conducting research to find facts and learn new concepts students will use Google to search and NOT AI since AI can be biased and can hallucinate.
- When reading websites found by Google for research students will write facts and notes, either in words or drawings (sketchnotes) on paper so they do NOT just copy and paste what is on the websites.
- Students will then use their notes and sketchnotes to write their first draft – this can be done on a Google Doc that will be shared with their teachers.
- Once students have written their first draft they can copy and paste the entire draft into Bing Chat and ask Bing Chat if it can check their spelling and grammar and if their writing makes sense.
- Use the ideas from Bing Chat to make your first draft more polished, ready for publishing. (Keep a copy of your original first draft and paste the draft that Bing Chat helped with so that you can always prove that you were the original creator/author. Besides, we might want to share the ways Bing Chat helps us!)
- Another way to use Bing Chat safely is if you don’t understand something in Science. You can ask Bing Chat to explain it to you in a way that you will understand!
- If you need Math help you can ask questions on Wolfram Alpha since ChatGPT is not very good at Math.
Note: #2 in our class policy came from one of my students advocating for himself! One of my students that I had last year in 5th grade and had an IEP blossomed and stepped out of his shell in 6th grade. When the class chose how AI can be used in Al’s Science & Math class, the majority agreed that students should completely write the first draft and then and only then should they ask the AI for help by pasting their original work to get feedback. The student who blossomed in 6th grade advocated for himself by asking, “what if we need ideas? Can we ask the AI for ideas?” I posed that question to the class and they agreed that asking the AI for ideas was also an acceptable and responsible use of AI!
I then put together a Google Form for students to digitally sign and accept our classroom AI policy.
The policy has been in place for quite a while now and frankly students have not needed to use Bing Chat or Adobe Firefly for anything that we’ve done so far in Math and Science. I am teaching a writing class on Mondays and Fridays and in that class, we have made use of AI! More on that on my next blog post.
