Mapping the emerging AI landscape and implications for K-12 students

Future focused research question

How can systems leaders, policymakers, and educators best prepare students and themselves for a fast-approaching future that incorporates AI into enhanced student learning opportunities, reprioritized teacher working conditions, and new workforce expectations?

Description

We propose to study the emerging set of concerns, opportunities, and practices related to AI and education, and their implications for high school students. We will conduct rapid response research and syntheses on the emerging state of AI usage and policies across US public schools. We will examine how teachers, especially those at the high school level, are deploying AI in innovative ways. We will assess how school districts are developing policies around AI usage. We will look at how AI can be used to achieve the goals we laid out in the first LFC (customizable, holistic, induced with youth voice, and relevant to career and community). And we will synthesize this and other knowledge for the LFC to discuss and grapple with.

Year 1 achievements:

• The New American High School LFC met four times in the first year to establish critical connections among ASU faculty interested in reimagining high school. This group brought together a range of ASU faculty and staff not only from MLFTC, but also from the School of Public Affairs, the University Design Institute, the Center on Science and the Imagination, Library Services, and ASU Enterprise Technology
• The April 4, 2023 Learning Futures podcast episode, “Designing the New American High School,” made the case for redesigning the American HS and included 3 leaders of innovative schools around the US
• The May 16, 2023 Learning Futures podcast episode shared the LFC’s implications/learnings and showcased several ASU faculty members who were key contributors to the LFC
• “Institutionalism, not policy, is the biggest barrier to reinventing high schools,” by Chelsea Waite (December 2022), published in the Fordham Institute Wonkathon
• Dr. Steven Weiner provided learning and implications of the work in ASU’s LearningPlanet Festival panel
• A catalog of what will be needed in the high schools of the future, organized by four key characteristics of the New American High School: 1) Customizable to student strengths and needs, 2) holistically supportive and trauma informed, 3) infused with youth voice and perspective, and 4) Place-based for a more permeable college, career, and community reality
• Identification of key policy conditions/enablers, the unique set of assets ASU brings to the goal of the new American high schools, and the barriers likely to impede progress. This included: 1) systems-thinking, 2) leadership development, and 3) transformational technologies

References

ChatGPT turns one today: Seven reasons why education leaders should step up on AI: Robin Lake and James Dunnigan reflect on a year of technological change and what educators should know about the newest ChatGPT developments

AI is already disrupting education, but only 13 states are offering guidance for schools: CRPE researchers find that just two states have offered informal guidance on AI to districts for the 2023-24 school year

‘Just Slow It All Down’: School Leaders Want Guidance on AI, New Research Finds: CRPE’s conversations with system and school leaders surfaces their interests and reservations around ethical and effective use of AI, and a request for more guidance

How Districts Are Responding to AI & What It Means for the New School Year; CRPE’s summer 2023 national scan of districts’ response to AI finds limited mention of AI and, among those who do weigh in, a wide range of responses

Shockwaves & Innovations: How Nations Worldwide Are Dealing with AI in Education: CRPE examines other governments’ responses to AI and lessons for U.S. leaders

Review Finds States Slow to Give Guidance on How Teachers, Schools Should Use AI: CRPE’s summer 2023 national scan of state departments of education finds that none are providing official guidance on AI

“This Changes Everything:AI Is About to Upend Teaching and Learning”:  CRPE Director Robin Lake argues that in a matter of weeks or months, artificial intelligence tools will be your kid’s tutor, your teacher’s assistant & your family’s homework helper

“Rethinking the Traditional High School-College-Career Continuum“: CRPE researchers argue that systemic change will be required to give students access to meaningful pathways to college preparation and career training.

“The Big Blur: An Argument for Erasing the Boundaries Between High School, College, and Careers —and Creating One New System That Works for Everyone“: JFF researchers make the case for an entirely new type of institution—neither high school nor college—designed specifically to better meet the needs of young people after 10th grade and help prepare them to succeed in the world of work.