But nearly a year after most of us came face-to-face with the first of these tools, a that few states are offering educators substantial guidance on how to best use AI, let alone fairly and with appropriate privacy protections.

As of mid-October, just two states, California and , offered official guidance to schools on using AI, according to the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University. 

CRPE said 11 more states are developing guidance, but that another 21 states don鈥檛 plan to give schools guidelines on AI 鈥渋n the foreseeable future.鈥�

Seventeen states didn鈥檛 respond to CRPE鈥檚 survey and haven鈥檛 made official guidance publicly available.

As more schools experiment with AI, good policies and advice 鈥� or a lack thereof 鈥� will 鈥渄rive the ways adults make decisions in school,鈥� said Bree Dusseault, CRPE鈥檚 managing director. That will ripple out, dictating whether these new tools will be used properly and equitably.

鈥淲e’re not seeing a lot of movement in states getting ahead of this,鈥� she said. 

The reality in schools is that AI is here. Edtech companies are pitching products and schools are buying them, even if state officials are still trying to figure it all out. 

鈥淚t doesn’t surprise me,鈥� said Satya Nitta, CEO of , a generative AI company developing voice-activated assistants for teachers. 鈥淣ormally the technology is well ahead of regulators and lawmakers. So they’re probably scrambling to figure out what their standard should be.鈥�

Nitta said a lot of educators and officials this week are likely looking 鈥渧ery carefully鈥� at Monday鈥檚 on AI 鈥渢o figure out what next steps are.鈥� 

The order requires, among other things, that AI developers share safety test results with the U.S. government and develop standards that ensure AI systems are 鈥渟afe, secure, and trustworthy.鈥� 

It follows five months after the U.S. Department of Education released a detailed, with recommendations on using AI in education.

Deferring to districts

The fact that 13 states are at least in the process of helping schools figure out AI is significant. Last summer, no states offered such help, CRPE found. Officials in New York, , Rhode Island and Wyoming said decisions about many issues related to AI, such as academic integrity and blocking websites or tools, are made on the local level.

Still, researchers said, it鈥檚 significant that the majority of states still don鈥檛 plan AI-specific strategies or guidance in the 2023-24 school year.

There are a few promising developments: North Carolina will soon require high school graduates to pass a computer science course. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin in September on AI careers. And Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in September to create a state governing board to guide use of generative AI, including developing training programs for state employees.

But educators need help understanding artificial intelligence, 鈥渨hile also trying to navigate its impact,鈥� said Tara Nattrass, managing director of innovation strategy at the International Society for Technology in Education. 鈥淪tates can ensure educators have accurate and relevant guidance related to the opportunities and risks of AI so that they are able to spend less time filtering information and more time focused on their primary mission: teaching and learning.鈥�

Beth Blumenstein, Oregon鈥檚 interim director of digital learning & well-rounded access, said AI is already being used in Oregon schools. And the state Department of Education has received requests from educators asking for support, guidance and professional development.

Generative AI is 鈥渁 powerful tool that can support education practices and provide services to students that can greatly benefit their learning,鈥� she said. 鈥淗owever, it is a highly complex tool that requires new learning, safety considerations, and human oversight.鈥�

Three big issues she hears about are cheating, plagiarism and data privacy, including how not to run afoul of Oregon鈥檚 Student Information Protection Act or the federal Children鈥檚 Online Privacy and Protection Act. 

鈥楴ow I have to do AI?鈥�

In August, CRPE conducted focus groups with 18 superintendents, principals and senior administrators in five states who said they were cautiously optimistic about AI鈥檚 potential, but many complained about navigating yet another new disruption.

鈥淲e just got through this COVID hybrid remote learning,鈥� one leader told researchers. 鈥淣ow I have to do AI?鈥�

Nitta, Merlyn Mind鈥檚 CEO, said that syncs with his experience.

鈥淏roadly, school districts are looking for some help, some guidance: 鈥楽hould we use ChatGPT? Should we not use it? Should we use AI? Is it private? Are they in violation of regulations?鈥� It’s a complex topic. It’s full of all kinds of mines and landmines.鈥� 

And the stakes are high, he said. No educator wants to appear in a newspaper story about her school using an AI chatbot that feeds inappropriate information to students. 

鈥淚 wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s a deer-caught-in-headlights moment here,鈥� Nitta said, 鈥渂ut there’s certainly a lot of concern. And I do believe it’s the responsibility of authorities, of responsible regulators, to step in and say, 鈥楬ere’s how to use AI safely and appropriately.鈥� 鈥澛�

The entry point is likely to be the college essay, a task many young people find immobilizing. Anyone who works in college admissions must familiarize themselves with ChatGPT and begin to grapple with how the tool might enter into student work in the very near future.

If you haven鈥檛 given ChatGPT a try, you should. When asked to write a 500-word essay suitable for college admission, the computer produced a piece in seconds about a student鈥檚 interest in science and technology, work on the high school robotics team and desire to be part of a college community. It was a decent response to a basic prompt.

A more complex prompt left no question about the program鈥檚 strength: 鈥淲rite a 500-word college admission essay that tells a dramatic story of a high schooler overcoming something significant in their life. Include references to places in their hometown of Philadelphia and a quote from a famous Philly artist.鈥� The response was well-rounded and intriguing. It described the student coming out from behind an older brother’s shadow through community service using a quote from Will Smith and talked about learning and growing. Any counselor would have believed this was a well-written, human-authored essay.

This nuance is unprecedented, and already, . However, the use of this technology is unavoidable. ChatGPT is on a path to shake up college admissions, and whether schools like it or not, students, admissions professionals and high school counselors must prepare. 

While the college application is full of basic demographic and academic questions, the essay is one of the few areas where students are expected to express aspects of themself they feel are important and let their voices be heard. The stress of conveying the right set of values, or telling a good story, or sharing something deep and heartfelt in 650 words can be paralyzing. Students can spend months on just this one task. 

ChatGPT can help. The program can write an outline to remove writer鈥檚 block and offer suggestions for building on students鈥� existing work. Used responsibly, it functions as a powerful writing companion.

But plagiarism is a serious risk, and educators must send a loud and clear message that it is wrong. ChatGPT adds a new variable to the equation because stealing from a computer may seem less harmful than stealing from a human. However, the program is built using input from countless writing samples from real humans. Passing off the work of ChatGPT as one鈥檚 own is plagiarism, plain and simple. This is where the conversation among students, teachers, counselors and parents needs to start.

High school educators should engage students in discussions about the ethics of using artificial intelligence and what constitutes plagiarism. AI has implications in a wide variety of subject areas, so counselors could partner with teachers to discuss its potential use in careers students may pursue. Counselors should also reiterate the importance of students telling their own, original story in their essay and should introduce ChatGPT to students’ family members so they can discuss it at home as well.

Admission offices that rely on the essay might expand their use of interviews, video submissions and/or writing samples that show a student鈥檚 response to teacher feedback. While these practices are time-intensive for application readers who are already stretched thin, they get to the heart of who a student is. At the same time, each college鈥檚 website should mention ChatGPT with a blurb from the admissions team about how they believe it should be used. 

None of these are perfect solutions. But banning ChatGPT or trying to avoid the topic by downplaying AI鈥檚 impact will not change the reality of the new college admissions or technology landscape. High school and college stakeholders must work together to build on existing admissions practices and address the inevitability of ChatGPT directly. 

This is an opportunity for college admissions stakeholders to collectively brainstorm novel approaches to this novel issue.

O.K., you鈥檝e probably figured out by now that ChatGPT wrote that self-congratulatory opening. But it raises a question: If AI can produce a journalistic lede on command, what mischief could it unleash in high school English?

Actually, the chatbot, by the San Francisco-based R&D company Open AI, is not intended to make high school English teachers obsolete. Instead, it is designed to assist teachers in their work and help them to provide better instruction and support to their students.

O.K., ChatGPT wrote most of that too. But you see the problem here, right?

English teachers, whose job is to get young students to read and think deeply and write clearly, are this winter coming up against a formidable, free-to-use foe that can do it all: With just a short prompt, it , , , song lyrics, short stories, , , even outlines and analyses of other writings. 

One user asked it to explaining that 鈥淪anta isn鈥檛 real and we make up stories out of love.鈥� In five trim paragraphs, it broke the bad news from Santa himself and told the boy, 鈥淚 want you to know that the love and care that your parents have for you is real. They have created special memories and traditions for you out of love and a desire to make your childhood special.鈥�

One TikToker noted recently that users can upload a podcast, lecture, or YouTube video transcript and ask ChatGPT to take complete notes.

ChatGPT Taking Notes From YouTube

Many educators are alarmed. One high school computer science teacher last week, 鈥淚 am having an existential crisis.鈥� Many of those who have played with the tool over the past few weeks fear it could tempt millions of students to outsource their assignments and basically give up on learning to listen, think, read, or write.

Others, however, see potential in the new tool. Upon ChatGPT鈥檚 release, 社区黑料 queried high school teachers and other educators, as well as thinkers in the tech and AI fields, to help us make sense of this development.

Here are seven ideas, only one of which was written by ChatGPT itself:

1. By its own admission, it messes up.

When we asked ChatGPT, 鈥淲hat’s the most important thing teachers need to know about you?鈥� it offered that it鈥檚 鈥渘ot a tool for teaching or providing educational content, and should not be used as a substitute for a teacher or educational resource.鈥� It also admitted that it鈥檚 鈥渘ot perfect and may generate responses that are inappropriate or incorrect. It is important to use ChatGPT with caution and to always fact-check any information it provides.鈥�

2. It鈥檚 going to force teachers to rethink their practice 鈥� whether they like it or not. 

Josh Thompson, a former Virginia high school English teacher working on these issues for the National Council of Teachers of English, said it鈥檚 na茂ve to think that students won鈥檛 find ChatGPT very, very soon, and start using it for assignments. 鈥淪tudents have probably already seen that it’s out there,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o we kind of have to just think, 鈥極.K., well, how is this going to affect us?鈥欌��

In a word, Thompson said, it鈥檚 going to upend conventional wisdom about what鈥檚 important in the classroom, putting more emphasis on the writing process than the product. Teachers will need to refocus, perhaps even using ChatGPT to help students draft and revise. Students 鈥渕ight turn in this robotic draft, and then we have a conference about it and we talk,鈥� he said.

The tool will force a painful conversation, Thompson and others said, about the utility of teaching the standard five-paragraph essay, which he joked 鈥渟hould be thrown out the window anyway.鈥� While it鈥檚 a good template for developing ideas, it鈥檚 really just a starting point. Even now, Thompson tells students to think of each of the paragraphs not as complete writing, but as the starting point for sections of a larger essay that only they can write.

3. It鈥檚 going to refocus teachers on helping students find their authentic voice.

In that sense, said Sawsan Jaber, a longtime English teacher at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park, Ill., this may be a positive development. 鈥淚 really think that a key to education in general is we’re missing authenticity.鈥�

Technology like ChatGPT may force teachers to focus less on standard forms and more on student voice and identity. It may also force students to think more deeply about the audience for their writing, which an AI likely will never be able to do effectively.

鈥淚 think education in general just needs a facelift,鈥� she said, one that helps teachers focus more closely on students鈥� needs. Actually, Jaber said, the benefits of a free tool like ChatGPT might most readily benefit students like hers from low-income households in areas like Franklin Park, near Chicago鈥檚 O鈥橦are Airport. 鈥淭he world is changing, and instead of fighting it, we have to ask ourselves: 鈥楢re the skills that we’ve historically taught kids the skills that they still need in order to be successful in the current context? And I’m not sure that they are.鈥�

Jaber noted that universities are asking students to do more project-based and 鈥渦nconventional鈥� work that requires imagination. 鈥淪o why are we so stuck on getting kids to write the five-paragraph essay and worrying if they’re using an AI generator or something else to really come up with it?鈥�

4. It could upend more than just classroom practice, calling into question everything from Advanced Placement assignments to college essays.

Shelley Rodrigo, senior director of the Writing Program at the University of Arizona, said the need for writing instruction won鈥檛 go away. But what may soon disappear is the 鈥渟implistic display of knowledge鈥� schools have valued for decades.

鈥淚f it’s, ‘Compare and contrast these two novels,’ O.K., that’s a really generic assignment that AI can pull stuff from the Internet really easily,鈥� she said. But if an assignment asks students to bring their life experience to the discussion of a novel, students can鈥檛 rely on AI for help.

鈥淚f you don’t want generic answers,鈥� she said, 鈥渄on’t ask generic questions.鈥�

In looking at coverage of the kinds of writing uploaded from ChatGPT, Rodrigo, also present-elect of NCTE, said it’s easy to see a pattern that others have commented on: Most of it looks like something that would score well on an AP exam. 鈥淧art of me is like, 鈥極.K., so that potentially is a sign that that system is broken.鈥欌��

5. Students: Your teachers may already be able to spot AI-assisted writing.

While one of the advantages of relying on ChatGPT may be that it鈥檚 not technically plagiarism or even the product of an essay mill, that doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 100% foolproof.

Eric Wang, a statistician and vice president of AI at Turnitin.com, the plagiarism-detection firm, noted that engineers there can already detect writing created by large-language 鈥渇ill-in-the-next-word鈥� processes, which is what most AI models use.

How? It tends to follow predictable patterns. For one thing, it uses fewer sophisticated words than humans do: 鈥淲ords that are less frequent, maybe a little more esoteric 鈥� like the word ‘esoteric,’鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur use of rare words is more common.鈥�

AI applications tend to use more high-probability words in expected places and 鈥渇avor those more probable words,鈥� Wang said. 鈥淪o we can detect it.鈥�

Kids: Your untraceable essay may in fact be untraceable 鈥� but it鈥檚 not undetectable. 

6. Like most technological breakthroughs, ChatGPT should be understood, not limited or banned 鈥� but that takes commitment.

L.M. Sacasas, a writer who publishes, a newsletter on technology and culture, likened the response to ChatGPT to the early days of Wikipedia: While many teachers saw that research tool as radioactive, a few tried to help students understand 鈥渨hat it did well, what its limitations were, what might be some good ways of using Wikipedia in their research.鈥�

In 2022, most educators 鈥� as well as most students 鈥� now see that Wikipedia has its place. A well-constructed page not only helps orient a reader; it鈥檚 also 鈥渒ind of a launching pad to other sources,鈥� Sacasas said. 鈥淪o you know both what it can do for you and what it can’t. And you treat it accordingly.鈥� 

Sacasas hopes teachers use the same logic with ChatGPT.

More broadly, he said, teachers must do a better job helping students see how what they鈥檙e learning has value. So far, 鈥淚 think we haven’t done a very good job of that, so that it’s easier for students to just take the shortcut鈥� and ask software to fill in rather meaningless blanks.

If even competent students are simply going through the motions, he said, 鈥渢hat will encourage students to make the worst use of these tools. And so the real project for us, I’m convinced, is just to instill a sense of the value of learning, the value of engaging texts deeply, the value of aesthetic pleasure that cannot be instrumentalized. That’s very hard work.鈥�

7. Underestimate it at your peril.

Open AI鈥檚 Sam Altman earlier this month tried to lower expectations, that the tool 鈥渋s incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness.鈥�

Ask ChatGPT to write a , for example, and 鈥� well, it鈥檚 not very good or very Dylanesque at the moment. The chorus:

Baltimore, Baltimore

My home away from home

The people are friendly

And the crab cakes are to die for.

Altman added, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now.鈥� 

The tool鈥檚 capabilities in many ways may not be very sophisticated now, said , an English teacher in northern California. 鈥淏ut we’re fooling ourselves if we think something like ChatGPT isn’t only going to get better.鈥�

Carr asked the tool to write a short story about 鈥渒ids who ride flying narwhals鈥� and got a rudimentary 鈥淕olden Books鈥� sort of tale. But then he got an idea: Could it produce an outline of such a story using Joseph Campbell鈥檚 鈥溾�� template?

It could and it did, producing 鈥渁 pretty darn good outline鈥� that used all of the storytelling elements typically present in popular fiction and screenplays.

He also cut-and-pasted several of his students鈥� essay drafts into the tool and asked it to grade each one based on a rubric he provided.

Revolutionizing the English classroom with AI鈥攈ow can we use technology to enhance student learning and engagement?

鈥淚 tell you what: It’s not bad,鈥� he said. The tool even isolated each essay鈥檚 thesis statement.

Carr, who frequently posts TikToks about tech, admitted that ChatGPT is scary for many teachers, but that they should play with it and consider how it forces them to think more deeply about their work. 鈥淚f we don’t talk about it, if we don’t begin the conversation, it’s going to happen anyways and we just won’t get to be part of the conversation,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e just have to be forward thinking and not fear change.鈥�

But perhaps we shouldn’t be too sanguine. Asked to write a haiku about is own potential for mayhem, ChatGPT didn’t mince words:

Artificial intelligence

Powerful and dangerous

Beware, for I am here