SCORE report finds AI is having a growing influence in Tennessee classrooms
While schools and universities were initially reluctant to embrace artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT due to concerns about AI plagiarism and misleading information, often referred to as AI hallucinations, educators are now using AI to enhance instruction and familiarize students with emerging technologies.
According to a recent report from the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, AI tools have proven particularly useful for analyzing student learning and providing personalized feedback for tutoring. In addition, the report said, AI can support students in career exploration and help them develop critical thinking skills. In higher education, the report noted that AI has been used to train medical students at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, while Belmont University’s College of Education has used generative AI to provide instructors with feedback on lecture discourse and student engagement.
Lynne Parker, associate vice chancellor emerita at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said during a Monday webinar that “a lot of jobs are changing due to AI.” Noting that AI is anticipated to change 44 percent of core skills sought by employers in the next five years, she said it’s important to engage students about AI literacy in order to equip them with the tech skills needed in today’s job market.
“After ChatGPT was introduced, there was a 21-times increase in jobs that mentioned these kinds of tools,” she said. “There are brand new jobs that are being created by AI - things like prompt engineer, senior creative [analysts] and so forth.”
According to the SCORE report, AI tools can assist teachers in their lesson planning, increase access to materials that speak to student interests, and more effectively meet student needs and ability levels. The report said that AI can also reduce teacher tasks not related to teaching, such as scheduling, providing feedback, developing projects, and completing assessments, which have been shown to take up 50 percent of teachers’ time.
The report noted that AI pilot programs in Hamilton County and Sumner County schools are helping students advance in math and English language arts while aiding teachers with assessment development and monitoring student progress.
Sumner County Schools Director Scott Langford said during Monday’s webinar that his district is now making use of platforms like Coursemojo to supplement tutoring and provide students with more individualized feedback. He said tools such as these can also help maintain student engagement, particularly around middle school grade levels.
“With sixth graders, it's provided not just a tutor, but a teaching assistant each day in class,” he said. “It provides resources for a teacher to remove the workload on the teacher and help them turn around feedback almost instantly.”
However, in order to make the most out of AI tools in education, the SCORE report said it’s important to “keep students in the loop” and leverage AI to enhance teaching and learning rather than replacing human creativity and connection. It said schools should embrace today’s exploration stage with guidelines for how to leverage AI through prompt generation and exemplars.
Tennessee State Board of Education Executive Director Sara Morrison said that schools across the state should share tools that have been useful to them with one another, in addition to best practices, to get the full benefits of AI adoption in education.
“We need to think about at what point there are different ways we need to examine our student instructional standards or maybe a guide that goes along with them, but I think that's still something that we're thinking a lot about on the state level,” she said.
