Takeaways
- Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are being rapidly adopted by educators to streamline tasks such as lesson planning, content creation, and communication, with 51% of K-12 teachers reporting use of ChatGPT as of a 2022 survey. (Maita et al., 2024)
- School leaders are using AI to improve efficiency in administrative tasks like reviewing student assignments, grading, and providing feedback by automating these processes. AI also helps personalize learning plans based on student data analytics. (Chen et al., 2020)
- AI introduces risks around student privacy from data collection, perpetuating societal biases through biased training data, and lack of transparency in how some AI models operate, leading to difficulties understanding and addressing errors. (Bentley et al., 2023; Chinta et al., 2024; Denny et al., 2024)
- Best practices for responsible AI use include developing ethical guidelines, ensuring data privacy through robust security protocols, promoting AI literacy among staff and students, and maintaining human oversight rather than full automation. (Bukar et al., 2024; Wu et al., 2024)
- AI tools show potential for analyzing student performance data to identify learning gaps, predict dropout risk, and enable data-driven interventions, but research on efficacy when utilized by school leaders is limited. (Martin et al., 2024; Zeide, 2019)
- Despite the growing use of AI in education, there is a gap in specialized guidelines and policies governing AI use by K-12 leaders, with high schools showing even less inclination than higher ed to develop such policies as of early 2023. (Ghimire & Edwards, 2024)
- Implementing AI should involve a collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach, including engaging various departments, educators, students, and the community to address potential challenges transparently and align AI use with pedagogy and ethics. (Chukwuere, 2024; Zeide, 2019)
- AI models trained on limited datasets may fail to represent diverse populations, leading to biased outputs that could unfairly impact certain student groups if used for assessments or predictions without caution. Human oversight is crucial. (Pham et al., 2024; Chen et al., 2020)
- Emerging best practices include using AI for personalized learning experiences, facilitating student collaboration and critical thinking through AI-supported activities, and ensuring AI complements rather than replaces human instruction. (Laak & Aru, 2024; Abill et al., 2024)
- School leaders are adopting AI tools for marketing, enrollment management, early warning systems to identify struggling students, and allocating resources like financial aid -- but quality data, unbiased algorithms, and human interpretation are key for efficacy. (Zeide, 2019)
