The rise of Artificial Intelligence has raised numerous questions about how education will look in the future. The Pascack Valley Regional School District, just like many other districts, has had to devote time to figuring out AI’s place in their schools.
“We do…leave it up to the teachers to [decide] how they want [to use AI] in their classrooms,” Dr. Barry Bachenheimer, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment for the Pascack Valley Regional School District, said. It “..ranges from no AI at all, to in the middle where it can be used in certain situations with teacher guidance, to you can use wherever it’s appropriate. So, it’s really up to the teacher to decide.”
Pascack Valley English Teacher Diana Galka does not let students use AI to create assignments or pieces of writing unless she explicitly states that they can or unless they use AI as a class.
“So it’s not a blanket [AI is] never going to be used in this class, it’s not a blanket we’ll always use it in this class,” Galka said. “We’re kind of figuring this out as we go along, so for now it’s unless I explicitly state it, it shouldn’t be used.”
The school district used one of its Professional Learning Communities (groups that meet for professional development on days when students come in late) to talk about AI in the classroom.
“I was on one [PLC] specifically about AI in the classroom,” Galka said. “So, we heard from Social Studies teachers and English teachers on the ways that they were using [AI] with their students and as an educator.”
Bachenheimer credits Joseph Orlak, Supervisor of Social Studies, Business, Internships, & Professional Studies for the Pascack Valley Regional School District, with jumpstarting AI discussions and usage in the district via the Social Studies Department.
“[Orlak] really started his teachers using it,” Bachenheimer said.” Then, we as a district, started adding to that. We’ve done Lunch n’ Learns where teachers come and have their lunch and we teach neat ways to do prompting or use [AI] applications…We’ve sent people out to workshops.”
Bachenhimer said that the district also sent some staff members to an AI conference at Northern Valley. In addition, the district has many staff members, including Bachenheimer, in the League of Innovative Schools, which is doing work with AI.
“And then this year…every single staff member in the district did a rotation through some AI training that was led by our media specialists Ms. Leacock and Mrs. Pettigano,” Bachenheimer said.
Gemini, Google’s AI, has become the official AI of the school district.
“So right now when we took a look at all the different AIs that are out there, there’s ChatGPT, there’s the former Bard, which is now Gemini; there’s a whole bunch of different ones,” Bachenheimer said. “We were looking at all of them really in-depth over the summer, and Google Gemini—right now—has the best data security.”
Within the classroom, Galka finds AI to be useful at certain times when the class uses it all together.
“[My students] used Canva to create AI-generated images based on an important moment in their summer reading book,” Galka said. “I thought the assignment was effective because they had to…decide on the moment, describe the moment into AI, and then revise and edit that. Then they had discussions about the images, which were lively…[and] effective discussions about their summer reading.”
She has also used AI in her film class to discuss cliché movie scenes by having AI write a mini screenplay for a movie scene where a coach gives a motivational speech to his players in a locker room.
Bachenheimer believes that AI can have positive uses in the classroom.
“I know so far English people mostly used it for help [with] writing, and Social Studies has used it for some simulation, like talking to historical figures,” Bachenheimer said.
Bachenheimer believes that AI can not only be useful for the humanities; it can have a place in the world of math and science.
“Math I think it’s got some great potential use for…making problems more difficult or less difficult…I think Science [is] the same thing. I’ve heard of a lot of students [use AI for help], especially when it comes to, say. challenging chemistry…[or] physics problems. If they don’t have the ability at that moment to go see their teacher for help [they can use AI]…It’s not as [good as] their teacher, but it’s a pretty decent back-up.”
Despite AI’s benefits, it can still be used as a way for students to cheat and avoid doing their work.
“There are some people who don’t embrace learning as a good activity, and they look for ways to get around it,” Bachenheimer said. “Whether it’s using Photommath to do math homework, whether it’s going online to find the answers to something they should be reading themselves, whether it’s using SparkNotes or a Wikipedia article to get a summary on something they should be reading. If someone doesn’t want to do the learning, they’ll find a way to do the work-around…So, I think AI is the same way.”
Galka says that she can easily spot when a student uses AI to write portions of their essays, which she doesn’t allow.
“Despite doing pre-writing in class and brainstorming…we’re still seeing [students use AI to write essays],” Galka said. “I can’t say I’ve seen an entire essay generated by AI, but I’ve definitely been able to notice portions of essays written by AI… It’s so obvious to me. I’m like [an] AI detector, and I think a lot of English teachers are too. The voice and the syntax is just so generic and not that of, say, a 15-year-old [or] 16-year-old student. It is very easily detectable by me.”
Rather than switch back to paper and pen essays to avoid the use of AI, Galka uses LockDown Browser in Canvas for her essays, which she recognizes is imperfect. The district treats AI-written essays the same as any other form of plagiarism/cheating.
Bachenheimer believes that the district is taking a level approach to AI.
“…As a school district, we’re taking a really balanced approach to the way we look at [AI],” Bachenheimer said. “I don’t think [AI is] the answer to everything. I think it’s got some value, and there are a lot of times we shouldn’t be touching it all…I don’t know what that looks like 18 months from now; I know what it looks like now. That’s why we’re trying to do a lot of training, to sort of work with our teachers and help our students understand.”
