Is Intelligence Artificial or Human?
by Gary Kaplan
Frank Foster was a math teacher. A veteran math teacher. Closing in on 30 years, he was counting the class periods until retirement. The last thing he needed was a new instructional fad.
We were demonstrating our JFYNet computer-based math instruction at his high school. The students, 9th and 10th graders, were arrayed in front of their boxy beige monitors working on math problems in the server-based software of the day. The teachers stood behind them watching.
Frank’s face was a study in disdain. He had learned his math on a slide rule. He considered calculators a form of cheating. The best thing he could say about computers was that he wouldn’t have to put up with them very long. He watched the screen in front of him with sharp-eyed skepticism. At the keyboard was one of his students. As the young man stabbed at the keys, Frank winced repeatedly but restrained himself from intervening. This was just a demo. It didn’t matter if the answers were wrong.
I was standing opposite him. I didn’t know his history or his relationship with the student. But I could guess his age, and his face broadcast his attitude. It was clear that his vote on adopting JFYNet Academic Support was already determined.
When the demonstration ended, he motioned me into the hall. I was expecting a polite but definitive rejection. Instead, he said, “I died and went to heaven.”
That young man, he explained, was one of his most frustrating students. He was a good kid, tried hard, but just couldn’t get it. He could barely multiply two digits. Forget about equations. But somehow that software had gotten him solving not only simple equations but even multi-step equations. And it had held his attention. The young man had learned more in half an hour than Frank had been able to teach him in a semester. He hated to admit it, but the program worked.
That vignette dates from 2003. Frank’s change of attitude forecast the broad acceptance of what we now call online instruction. New schools are built with wall to wall wi-fi. Computers are more common than pencils.
We’re now in the early stages of the next big wave of innovation: the AI wave. The computer tsunami of the last three decades put in place the infrastructure needed for widespread adoption of AI. There are now educational applications from Microsoft, Khanmigo, Magic School and a dozen other companies. Google offers more than 30 AI tools. It’s hard to believe that Chat GPT is not even three years old.
The mushrooming proliferation of AI tools presents an opportunity and a dilemma for schools. AI is different from previous technologies. It offers dramatic benefits; but it presents unexpected dangers. Some of its quirks are well known: hallucinations, deep fakes, inappropriate language. Others pop up as usage spreads. In the education market, accuracy and confidentiality are foremost. No AI product can totally guarantee either. Even its creators do not really know how it works. It sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. And yet its potential benefits are so extensive that there seem to be no administrative or instructional functions AI cannot perform or at least support. And it is being adopted at a rate that would have astonished Frank Foster.
JFY developed our first AI tools two years ago in response to requests from teachers. They were designed to streamline time-consuming tasks that teachers had to perform as components of basic required grade-level instruction. The principle of using AI to respond to actual teacher needs continues to guide our work. Schools still face the challenges of overall student performance on grade level standards, and achievement gaps between student subgroups.
As DESE frames it:
AI holds the potential to advance educational equity—or to amplify existing disparities… Students across the Commonwealth face real disparities in access to high-speed internet, up-to-date devices, and inclusive learning environments…These divides—of access, use, and design—…remain central to any effort to ensure AI supports all learners, not just some. District leaders have the opportunity to center inclusion… and use AI as a tool for educational opportunity (Massachusetts Guidance for Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education).
Reducing disparities has always been JFY’s mission. We will continue to provide our long-established online academic support using the software our partners have become reliant on, supplemented by AI wherever possible.
We presented our AI tools and our training plans at the MAVA conference June 25-26 and at the Mass CUE AI Palooza August 6. We will be presenting again at the fall Mass CUE conference October 15-16. We have seen the interest increase on the part of teachers and administrators in the year since the last MassCUE conference. We have seen the spread of usage among teachers. But we have also noted the lack of formal policies and coordinated plans. Some districts have policies, many don’t. Teachers use AI tools on their own initiative, for the most part without training or guidance. While we admire those efforts, we see the need for consistency in policy and in training.
To address that need we have developed three Training Institutes that we will offer this fall.
For teachers, coaches and instructional leaders, focusing on practical, hands-on strategies to integrate AI tools ethically and effectively through lesson design, content creation, assessment and differentiation.
For educators and leaders in technical and digital media fields. This session explores innovative learning models through hands-on experience with emerging AI tools, prototyping new instructional strategies and culminating in practical deliverables such as instructional unit plans and portfolios of AI creative tool projects.
For vocational and technical educators to integrate AI into their disciplines. Hands-on strategies for applying AI tools across various industries, developing curriculum that prepares students for a future workforce in which AI competency will be a basic requirement. Practical applications for enhancing instruction, addressing ethical considerations, and exploring industry-specific AI uses to align curricula with evolving standards. Educators will create AI-enhanced curriculum modules and build a portfolio of AI tool usage.
More information about these Institutes and our AI tools can be found on our website www.JFYNet.org.
DESE has recently released two important documents: Massachusetts Guidance for Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education, and AI Literacy for Educators. The first is a high-level survey of policy and implementation concerns. Its ten sections cover definitions of AI types, principles for ethical use, frameworks for implementation, academic integrity and other cardinal issues. The second is an online workbook designed to “[help] educators build AI literacy through practical support, real-world examples, and guided reflection… the focus is on developing your own understanding.”
Both documents stress the need to prioritize human oversight. The Guidance cautions that “AI is NOT: • A replacement for educators or human relationships. • A perfect or self-correcting system. • Able to understand context, nuance, or ethics like a human. • Automatically neutral or fair.” The educators’ workbook states a clear guiding principle: Let human insight and agency steer every engagement with AI.
Artificial intelligence is a human creation. Like many previous creations, it poses problems to its creator. This is nothing new. The struggle of creator and creation is as old as the Garden of Eden. The very term “artificial intelligence” contains a possible category fallacy: does this tool of data regurgitation and manipulation actually perform the same process as human intelligence? Does AI think? What would Descartes say?
As DESE is advising, we should maintain watchful vigilance and control over our rambunctious creation. The AI wave is crashing. We need to be lifeguards on education’s battered shore.
Gary Kaplan is the executive director of JFYNetWorks.
Other posts authored by Gary can be found here.
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