Recently, DCPS gave students access to a select list of Artificial Intelligence (AI) resources while upholding a policy banning all other AI resources in student work. However, Jackson-Reed students continue to use outside AI tools despite the ban.
The nine AI resources that DCPS announced to students via Canvas are Reading Coach, Speaker Coach, Search Coach, Math Solver, Immersive Reader, AdobeFirefly, Canva Magic Studio, and Turnitin Draft Coach. The tools are unblocked on DCPS computers and available to all students for free.
Reading Coach, Speaker Coach, Search Coach, Draft Coach, and Immersive Reader are all part of Office 365, which students can access through Clever. Reading Coach creates stories using AI in various languages at varying difficulty levels and provides passages for students to read aloud. It then grades the student’s speech and provides feedback, allowing students to learn new languages and practice pronunciation. Speaker Coach gives data and recommendations on speech patterns, including pace, filler words, and tone using Teams and Powerpoint . Search Coach helps to guide students through selecting reliable sources. Turnitin Draft Coach checks citations, grammar, and originality in Word. Immersive Reader has the ability to translate texts; change fonts and spacing; and, highlight to make reading easier. It can also read passages aloud.
Other approved tools focus on graphics and math. AdobeFirefly generates images based on texts students provide, but it often has errors and can only create generic objects. Canva Magic Studio is generative AI that creates pictures in different forms based on prompts. Math Solver solves math problems and explains each step of the solution.
DCPS maintains that the prescribed tools should be used “by students and staff as a supplement, not as a substitute” for doing work. However, most JR students are unaware of these tools with junior Emmanuel Abera stating he “had no idea there were any AI tools that DCPS lets students use.”
DCPS policy states that “students are prohibited from submitting AI-generated work as their original work or using AI to answer test, exam, or other assignment questions.” Consequences for proscribed AI use can vary from “providing an opportunity to re-submit the work, to grade reduction,” depending on the severity. Despite this policy, many students still turn to prohibited forms of AI to do schoolwork.
Freshman Anne Trieu uses “AI to help [her] better understand [her] assignments because [she] often does not understand concept explanations from teachers, so AI takes the problem [she] gives them and thoroughly explains it.” This form of AI assistance is commonly used by students outside of school. An anonymous sophomore said she “uses AI on [her] home computer to give [her] ideas, outlines.” An anonymous junior added that he “gives AI work prompts and then paraphrases the answer it gives before running it through AI detectors so [he] doesn’t get caught.”
However, not all students turn to AI to help them. Junior Paulina Afonsky believes that AI is untrustworthy because “people are trusting it with their secrets and life and befriending it, and [she feels] like it’s going to make people dumber.”
JR teachers also believe students rely too heavily on AI and find it detrimental to students’ learning. AP Psychology and chemistry teacher Sonya Gelfand believes that “AI takes away from the work students need to do to come up with original ideas and makes their threshold for doing the work much lower.” English teacher Caroline Szakats agrees, saying, “We want to be able to teach students how to think critically, but the use of AI completely circumvents students utilizing and practicing that skill.” However, Szakats acknowledged that AI “is not going away, and will probably change the world as we know it sooner than we think.” She also recognizes that the DCPS AI policy “hinges on the ability of teachers to be able to prove that AI was used on an assignment,” but that “students have become better at using AI so as not to be detected.”
Going forward, it is unclear if DCPS approved AI tools will expand, as new AI tools become available and more integrated into society. •
