School board discusses AI's place in Wilson County Schools
May 4—Wilson County Schools Instructional Technology Supervisor Jamie Hubbell began researching artificial intelligence in January 2023.
"We've been diving in deep," Hubbell said. "We've collaborated with experts at other districts. We've collaborated with universities. We've also collaborated with different vendors and experts in AI so that we can learn more."
The purpose of the instructional technology department's research was to find out where AI can fit into education to benefit students and teachers. Tennessee House Bill 1630 would require school districts to adopt a policy regarding the use of AI by teachers, students and staff by July 1.
"There are many AI companies out there that are addressing this education thing," Director of schools Jeff Luttrell said. "There's two that we want to look at, but before we can look at them, we have to enter into an agreement of how we're going to use that."
The team found that AI can help remove some barriers for students in the classroom, and that AI has begun to affect most professions.
"For us, it's important that we don't create a digital divide," Hubbell said. "By not training our students on what AI is, we would be creating a big gap between students who already dive in and learn about AI on their own and students who don't know what it is or how to use it correctly, ethically or use it responsibly."
According to Hubbell, AI is already being integrated into programs often used by teachers, such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and Canva.
It could also assist teachers in administrative tasks, developing rubrics, lesson planning and providing timely feedback.
"Most of those tasks are completed outside that interaction between (teachers and) students, outside of the class time," Hubbell said. "Class time is important to be focused on teacher and student interaction, face-to-face interaction."
Zone 7 School Board Member Jamie Farough liked the idea of AI increasing the amount of time teachers would be able to spend with students.
"Maybe this will free up more of the teacher's time for face-to-face discussions, the fact that they aren't writing so many handwritten notes of feedback and we'll see increased face-to-face time with the teacher, which is always the goal as well," Farough said.
Alongside academic integrity, a focus when it comes to AI in Wilson County Schools would be guard rails.
"Any program or vendor we look at, we're looking at what guard rails they have in place," Hubbell said. "How are they protecting our teachers? How are they protecting our students? How are they protecting our data?"
