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Schools across the country are experimenting with AI in classrooms. In some districts, AI chatbots give students feedback on their work. But how should schools measure whether these experiments are helping students or harming them? Lee Gaines reports from one school in Dayton, Ohio.
LEE GAINES, BYLINE: A high school senior is giving an angsty AI chatbot advice.
N: I feel like a therapist, like I'm actually helping him.
GAINES: The student, N, was part of an experiment last school year at the Alternative School at Jackson Center in Dayton. NPR is only using N's first initial because of the stigma associated with attending a school that serves students with behavioral challenges.
N: I kind of built this connection with him trying to get to the point of his issue and why he's, like, feeling this way.
GAINES: The him he's referring to is an AI chatbot named Jordan. Jordan asks students for advice, like what to do when you feel you can't meet adults' expectations. The idea is to get students to open up about their feelings.
N: I've been through similar things like Jordan, so it's - like, it's easier for me to try to help him get through it.
GAINES: The chatbot grades students' responses, and N gets high marks. There's just one problem - there's no way to quantify how much the chatbot is helping students. The best the district can do is ask students and staff.
MIKE KENTZ: Every test, every experiment that I try to measure in some sort of concrete way, I can only get as far as perception.
GAINES: Mike Kentz is a consultant who helped Dayton administrators design and evaluate the chatbot. He's been running into the same problem a lot of school AI experiments have encountered - it's hard to measure whether the technology is good or bad for students. Robin Lake leads the Center on Reinventing Public Education.
ROBIN LAKE: It's been frustrating to see that innovation is tackled without a lot of attention to evidence building.
GAINES: Lake's organization has been tracking AI adoption in schools. She says educators often struggle to measure the value of technology in classrooms, including when it comes to AI.
LAKE: The technology is moving so quickly. Tools are being produced at such a rapid pace. And everybody is feeling overwhelmed in schools and saying, you know, I don't know what works.
GAINES: That's one reason Mike Kentz is cautious about scaling up the Jordan chatbot in Dayton.
KENTZ: I don't think it should be immediately input into their district or any others as some sort of, you know, full-scale solution.
KATELYN SCHOENHOFER: We wrestle with what does success really mean when it comes to AI use.
GAINES: Katelyn Schoenhofer is the AI specialist for Wichita Public Schools in Kansas. The school system is slowly introducing students to a range of AI tools from a few different companies. Last year, the district hosted an AI exploration day for middle schoolers.
SCHOENHOFER: They got to make educational games and code those games and share them with their friends.
GAINES: And some high school students are using an AI math tutor. Until educators figure out how to measure the value of these AI initiatives, Schoenhofer says these experiments will remain small in scale, but they will continue.
SCHOENHOFER: We are still going ahead with caution but with optimism with our students because it is something that is going to impact their lives. It is something they need to be educated about.
GAINES: Robin Lake with the Center on Reinventing Public Education agrees that the answer isn't to stop experimenting because if that happens...
LAKE: We will set our kids back from being able to navigate a world that is changing outside of schools faster than we can possibly imagine.
GAINES: Lake says states and the federal government need to establish guardrails around these experiments so schools can try to prepare students for what's to come. For NPR News, I'm Lee Gaines.
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