WEST JORDAN — When Graham Bunney first heard that the Jordan School District was planning to integrate generative artificial intelligence into K-12 classrooms, he didn’t want to use it.
“I was really nervous at first, but the digital coaching team encouraged me to experiment, try new things, and showed me what was possible with digital. It’s like the trigger that made me decide to take on the challenge.” Let’s take a look at how we can use it more to make preparation easier and give our students better results.” Valley High School said Bunny, an English teacher and digital technology coach.
Bunny is one of 2,350 teachers in the district who signed on to incorporate SchoolAI, a Lehi-based company, into their curriculum.
The platform offers a library of over 1,000 activities led by AI tutors, interactive games, simulations, health check-ins, and grade- and subject-specific activities. Teachers also benefit from a dashboard with real-time feedback and moderation that allows them to easily track student progress and create learning plans customized to the student’s current situation. Masu.
“It’s like a tutor for students and a teacher’s assistant for teachers,” said Jordan School District Superintendent Anthony Godfrey.
After a year of AI integration, the Jordan School District received the International Association for Educational Technology Award in June, which recognizes districts that demonstrate effectiveness and innovation through the use of technology.
The district joins New York City Public Schools and the Trinity Area School District in Washington, Pennsylvania, as the only school districts recognized as 2024 winners in the competition.
“This award recognizes that Jordan is one of the leaders in this field and that we are an agile school district that is open to trying new things and moving forward when the time comes to use these tools effectively. ,” said Jared Covili, the district’s administrator of digital teaching and learning.
While many school districts and even higher education institutions have banned artificial intelligence altogether, fearing it will lead to widespread fraud and become a nightmare for teachers and police, the Jordan School District is taking a different approach. I took it.
“We have a truly innovative superintendent and an educator who always likes to think outside the box and ask, ‘How do we move into the 21st century?'” said Darrell Robinson, vice president of the Jordan Board of Education. I was blessed with the committee,” he said. “We know that learning today is not the same as learning tomorrow. We want to be a district that can kind of change.”
The district was drawn to partnering with SchoolAI because of how the platform benefits both teachers and students.
SchoolAI can create assignments tailored to the needs of individual students. For example, if a student is having trouble with sentence continuation, SchoolAI can create a practice exercise to correct the sentence continuation, tailoring the lesson to the student’s reading level and personal interests. .
And even with the help of SchoolAI, teachers still have the final say on what their lessons and assessments look like.
“If you put great tools in the hands of teachers, they will become even better as teachers think and innovate ways to improve student learning,” Godfrey said.
Bany believes that teaching students how to lean into AI and utilize it as a tool rather than a shortcut is the most effective way to integrate technology into academic environments.
“Instead of having kids do[AI]secretly in the shadows, we can actually integrate AI into the classroom so kids can learn the boundaries with AI, how it can make their lives easier, and how it can make their lives easier. It helps you learn how you can kind of make up for it. It’s much better to create gaps where you need them,” Bunny said.
He also added that he is not worried about AI taking away educators’ jobs.
“AI won’t take away teachers’ jobs, but teachers using AI will take their jobs,” he said.
